Li: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito, Will Sampson, Brad Dourif, William Redfiel, Peter Brocco, Josip Elic, Delos V. Smith Jr., Sydney Lassick, Scatman Crothers, and Christopher Lloyd

Randall P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson): What do you think you are, for Chrissake, crazy or somethin’? Well you’re not! You’re not! You’re no crazier than the average asshole out walkin’ around on the streets, and that’s it.

Nurse Ratched is a cunt. What else can you say? How can you sugar coat it? She’s a bad person? That hardly scratches the surface. It’s funny. I see the actress Louise Fletcher and it is tunnel vision for me. She’s Nurse Fucking Ratched. That’s how good her performance was and how real her character is. The things that this monster does to Randall P. McMurphy and the inmates in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest make my skin crawl.

We’ve all been there, cornered by overzealous authority figures who cream themselves over petty power trips. They are our own Nurse Ratcheds. If you have not experienced the anguish, count your blessings but beware. They’re definitely out there, lurking, ready to pounce, ready to make sure you know that you are lower on the totem pole. They will never be extinct because their existence is protected by the machine. Accordingly, chances are you will run into one sooner or later.

These sad nothings of the world actually think they are really something. They live to micromanage, manipulate, control, and ultimately squash. More often than not, it’s the result of an utter lack of control over their own pathetic lives that lures them to the dark side. It makes them feel better about themselves to be able to show demonstrate authority somewhere in their pathetic existence. It validates them.

Thankfully, there is a silver lining. Whether or not you let Ratched expose your weakness is entirely up to you. Of course it’s not an easy game to play let alone win. We all have our buttons. The best you can do is to recognize what your own weaknesses are so that you can guard them before they are exposed and used against you. From there, the fun begins. When Ratched finally realizes that no matter what she does, she can no longer touch you, it is then that you’ll taste the spoils of victory at last. You break free, throwing a porcelain sink through a window and you watch it crash through the bars that had kept you locked inside for far too long. Nothing before or after will ever be as magnificent as your first breath of freedom.

-G