In One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) directed by Milos Forman, McMurphy, a man sentenced to a short prison term decides to get admitted to a mental institution instead, hoping to serve his term avoiding prison work and living easier. However, he finds that a nurse with total control is in charge, forcing the patients into obedience. McMurphy decides to rebel and try to change things in the hospital.
The mental hospital in the movie is a strong example of a total institution, defined as an institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life. The patients have no connection with the world outside of the hospital, and all aspects of their lives are controlled and monitored by the nurse, the authority figure, who forces the patient’s obedience through methods of social control such as overmedicating them, threatening them with punishments, and demeaning and belittling them. This is an example of hegemony, where the dominant group, the nurse, uses their power to elicit the consent of the patients. …show more content…
Through functionalist ideals, society sees mental institutions as a type of necessity, serving an important function that keeps society running, which allows mental hospitals to avoid fear of people paying much attention to how they choose to run. In a video watched earlier in class about The Stanford Prison Experiment, we saw that when put into a certain status, even if that status does not truly apply to you, it is easy to feel like you have the power, or lack thereof, that that status brings. When put in a position of power, many will not hesitate to use it, sometimes even taking it too far. Similar to The Stanford Prison Experiment, those in the movie who held a lot of power used it to force conformity through physical punishments as well as belittling those with statuses below them, without fear of anyone stopping
The mental hospital in the movie is a strong example of a total institution, defined as an institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life. The patients have no connection with the world outside of the hospital, and all aspects of their lives are controlled and monitored by the nurse, the authority figure, who forces the patient’s obedience through methods of social control such as overmedicating them, threatening them with punishments, and demeaning and belittling them. This is an example of hegemony, where the dominant group, the nurse, uses their power to elicit the consent of the patients. …show more content…
Through functionalist ideals, society sees mental institutions as a type of necessity, serving an important function that keeps society running, which allows mental hospitals to avoid fear of people paying much attention to how they choose to run. In a video watched earlier in class about The Stanford Prison Experiment, we saw that when put into a certain status, even if that status does not truly apply to you, it is easy to feel like you have the power, or lack thereof, that that status brings. When put in a position of power, many will not hesitate to use it, sometimes even taking it too far. Similar to The Stanford Prison Experiment, those in the movie who held a lot of power used it to force conformity through physical punishments as well as belittling those with statuses below them, without fear of anyone stopping