synthesize information from no less than eight and no more than sixteen sources of information to support your critique and interpretation of a film. At least four of them should come from scholarly, peer-reviewed articles or books. (The assigned section in your Keywords for Disability Studies can count as one of the scholarly resources. Additional material can come from the course contents, so long as you know the attribution.) Your final draft should be approximately eight pages long, not counting the title page at the beginning and/or the bibliography at the end.
Film: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a powerful film adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel. Directed by Miloš Forman, it was released in 1975. The story revolves around Randle Patrick McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson), a rebellious and charismatic criminal and Korean War veteran who fakes insanity to avoid prison labor. He ends up in a mental institution, where he clashes with the oppressive Nurse Ratched (played by Louise Fletcher). McMurphy rallies the other patients, leading to a battle between freedom and conformity. McMurphy’s antics of escaping, stealing a bus and a boat, inviting women into the institution for liquor and sex, and antagonizing the head nurse eventually leads to the consequences of Billy committing suicide, and McMurphy himself becoming insane following intense electrotherapy as punishment for his actions. Ultimately, his closest friend in the institution, Chief, kills McMurphy after realizing he is no longer a functioning person to put him out of his misery.
Resources for this essay to be taken from Archives | Disability Studies Quarterly (dsq-sds.org)
One source already annotated as such:
John Derby (2016) Virtual realities: The use of violent video games in U.S. military recruitment and treatment of mental disability caused by war. The University of Kansas
In this analysis, Derby critically examines the various roles of violent video games within the U.S. military. These technologies serve a variety of purposes ranging from the recruitment of young gamers to virtual training combat scenarios for soldiers and clinical treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder because of military service. The word “ableism” plays a key role to accurately and concisely define the overall feeling towards disabled military members from other military members.
Derby’s critical analysis of the U.S. Military’s use of violent video games sheds light on the underlying ableism against people, veterans, and active-duty service members who are facing the challenge of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) within military culture. The article does well to highlight the stigma regarding disabilities amongst veterans and military members and point out the contradictory use of violent video games to recruit impressionable people into situations that ultimately causePTSD, perpetuating the cycle of trauma. The article itself reminds me of my time in the service and brings to question my own feelings and thoughts of suicidal ideation, disability, and PTSD.
This article is crucial to the analysis for the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest due to its insight regarding the internal perception of disability amongst military members and the U.S. Military as an institution. It is critical to understand the ableism afforded to disabled U.S. Military members, and how they themselves often refuse help due to it. In the context of the film, it gives insight specifically into McMurphy’s (Korean War veteran) attitude toward his fellow inpatients (also veterans).
