One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: The Mandela/Ratched effect?

 

As with many things in this project, I'm coming in well aware of how popular or revered something is but not necessarily knowing much about the movie, show, album, or book itself.

All I knew about One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was that Nurse Ratched was so bad she made the top ten list of AFI's top 50 villains. Worse than the Xenomorph. Worse than the Terminator. Worse than Amon Goeth!

With that in mind, I couldn't help but finish this movie with a resounding "Huh?" to that ranking. 

In what world is Ratched even a villain, never mind a worse-than-a-real-life-Nazi-villain?

Here come some minor spoilers for a 50-year-old movie, by the way.

If you want to label the system that created the institute and techniques featured in the movie as the villain ... that would make sense. If you want to turn the movie on its head and label the convicted rapist, being tested for whether he is actually insane or just trying to game the system, the villain ... that's understandable.

Ratched, though, is trying her best within the system to provide help through structure. She's the only voice that speaks up to keep working with McMurphy, because she doesn't want to pass the buck like her superiors suggest, and she believes that she can really help him. 

She's got her hang-ups, but she's no villain.

Shoot, even Autobot Jazz himself, Scatman Crothers, proves to be way more of a problem than Ratched by helping McMurphy sneak two women into the institute on the promise of sex. I don't suppose I'd call that villainous either, but it means that Ratched isn't even on my radar as a problem.

Crothers, by the way, was my second biggest pleasant surprise to see in this notable cast. The guy I was happiest to see wasn't Dourif, Lloyd, Schiavelli, or DeVito - who I didn't even recognize for the half of the movie...

I was happiest to see Johnny from Police Squad!

I liked the movie, and though it smells a little bit like the kind of story and performances that the Oscars have always loved to love, I can nonetheless see why it rose to the top as Best Picture.