Duke U boycott and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest": love it or hate it?

[Syzygy321]

or both?

LBN: Some Duke U students are boycotting a reading assignment because the subject matter offends them. That took me straight back to 11th grade English, and OFOTCN.

Great book. Really, in some ways I love it. One free-spirited man struggling against a soul-crushing system and leading a revolt, or trying to. Who couldn't love that?

Revolting book. Misogyny from cover to cover, with every single female depicted in paranoid-male fashion.

Nurse Ratchet, the ultimate castrating bitch; remember her?

(Where was the psychiatrist all book long? Why did Kesey want a woman in the role of Men's Oppresser?)

Billy's mom, the emasculating mother. Billy was the stammering, little-boy-like mental patient, and it's made clear that his overweening mother is the cause of all his problems - because she squelched his manhood. Blah blah blah.

The hooker: Yeah, when a buncha guys wanna cut loose, you just know they're gonna bond over a hooker or at a strip
club. The hooker doesn't say a word, doesnt have a personality, but that's the point I guess. Sex with a bought, unresisting woman is all it takes to restore Billy's manhood - and once he realizes that Mommy can no longer dominate him -because he's got a penis, by God! - his sanity is instantly restored.

Remember what happens next? The castrating-bitch nurse shows up and catches the men with the hooker. She singles out Billy. "I'm going to have to tell your poor mother about this; she'll be so disappointed in you...". Billy begs and pleads. Them he kills himself. The men recognize Ratchet as the source of all evil. Because, yknow: women. Women with power. Big problem for men.

IIRC, that's when our valiant hero attacks Ratchet. Not punching her out, but going straight for sexual humiliation: ntearing open her shirt so her big boobs fall out and she's suddenly crying and powerless. That's how men put an uppity female in her place, ya know. Rawr!

What sucked in 11th grade is that the whole class cheered the men and hated Ratchet, and the teacher had a man-crush on the main character. The misogyny wasn't discussed. And even at sixteen it kinda scared me to look around at the boys and realize they thought this was a fine depiction of men and women. And then go home and aee my father shouting at my mother or putting his hands on her. (He didn't like uppity women either.)

I never spoke up with my views. I didn't dare. I would have been mocked until the end of time.

But I'm glad we read it, because it showed me something sad but true and important about my culture.

Banning books, boycotting books, trigger warnings everywhere ... I'm against all that. If the Duke U students didn't want to read anything that offended them, they shoulda thought of that before they went to college.

[yardwork]

1. This is an excellent OP.

[ladjf]

2. Fabulous study of human nature and psychology. nt

[pipoman]

3. Don't remember much about the movie, loved Delos V Smith and now love his legacy...

[leveymg]

4. One of the best book adaptions of the New Hollywood era. Best Nicholson role.

If someone want to ban it because they think it casts women in a negative light, their loss. So does half of adult literature going back to Greek tragedy and comedy. Men are characterized as flawed characters in about 75% of all books. Some people should simply stick to the adolescent books section.

[deutsey]

5. What you do here (offer a good critique of the book)

is what the Duke students should do: Read the work and critique it (and not by just throwing a bunch of Bible verses at why they don't like it).

As you say: they're college students, after all. That's supposed to be part of the deal.

When I was in college, I did a project researching conservatism since the 1970s and read a lot of New Right source materials. It made my blood boil sometimes reading that tripe, but I came out of the experience with a much better understanding of what the Right is really all about (from their own mouths) and why I disagree with them, which was reflected in my research paper.

[Syzygy321]

8. Agree totally.

It's ridiculous to criticize - or support - a movement or ideology you barely understand.

I bet the Duke students claim that reading the book violates their faith.

But I bet what they are *really* afraid of is that the book (it's the memoir of a gay woman, I think) will make them question their faith, and question the absolutes they've been taught about sin, etc.

That's my experience with fundamentalists: it's like deep down they know their beliefs won't survive thoughtful scrutiny, so they go to great lengths to avoid any scrutinizing - and to keep their children, subjects, and religious followers from being exposed to other views.

[PufPuf23]

6. I like this post.

Race and gender relations are far from perfect.

Some of us are exploiters of status quo inequality and some are not and even the best of heart operate in a gray area that humbles in hindsight.

At best art can be a safe zone to examine culture and mores.

I too love One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (and will put it on my queue to re-read).

In 1970 I was at a boarding school in the San Francisco area and we had recently gone on a high school field trip to see OFOTCN as a play after reading the novel in our English class.

The first theatrical showing of OFOTCN was at a small theatre in San Francisco -- The Little Fox -- and five years before the movie.

http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/One-Flew-Back-And-Forth-Over-Cuckoo-s-Nest-3024297.php

"Sankowich, 53, has had that feeling since the beginning of rehearsals for "Cuckoo," which opens September 27. And for good reason: He has directed 8 1/2 productions of the play before this time. (The half was in Baltimore when he was called in to rescue a troubled production.) The first time Sankowich did "Cuckoo" was in 1970 in San Francisco. It ran for five years at the now-defunct Little Fox Theatre."

My parents came for a weekend visit and I purchased tickets. My parents were rural and old fashioned and had lived all their lives in the most rural part of Humboldt county. We had never attended a play or music or art exhibit or the like as a family; the most cultural family event was a movie and that was rare. Telephone service was first available to our home in 1970 and there still is not cell service. My Dad was an 8th grade graduate and political conservative so this was an edgy event for us and a coming out of sorts for me with my parents.

Kesey was a product of his time and place and did he ever expand horizons. Kesey's other early novel Sometimes a Great Notion was made into the best movie about logging ever made (and is also a good novel). The art is also not that politically correct but a product (and now remembrance) of the time and place.

Thank you Syzygy321.

[Syzygy321]

44. Thanks for sharing your story.

"At best art can be a safe zone for examining cultures and mores.". So true.

I don't have to like the book, to love the picture of you taking your visiting folks out to the theater that weekend in 1970.

[Bluenorthwest]

7. Very forward thinking 11th grade. Clearly you were in the US. Your other OP said you lived in

a 'traditional' country with extended families and 'escaped' that but this OP has you reading this book in the US as a kid. So if you moved here, your parents brought you here.
Cuckoo's Nest is about mental patients, their behavior is not supposed to be commendable the book is about the institutional systems that create the patients and make monsters out of the staff, jailers out of nurses and so forth.
Had you actually read the book, you would recall that it is narrated by Chief Bromden, who calls the system 'The Combine'. None of the characters are seen as having actual self determination, they are damned off like the Chief's beloved Colombia River has been. His point of view is the book's point of view.

The book as published in 1962, it is therefore set in the 1950's. At that time, such institutions were in fact abusive and did in fact punish sexuality and serve to repress many people who were not in fact mentally ill.
This system did in fact institutionalize gay people for being gay, gave them electric shocks and other tortures. Dale Harding, a character in this book, represents one such patient.

[Syzygy321]

12. No - I am American-born and raised. I said I

Last edited Tue Aug 25, 2015, 10:52 AM - Edit history (1)

lived in a traditional *community* (Muslim) for many years and loved it/hated it/ was abused in it before getting free. And that I see both good and bad in it, which seems to cause outrage from both the pro-Islam set and the anti-sexism set, of which I am a charter member.

You may be confusing me with the photographer I mentioned: American who lives in Yemen.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. The photographer Alex Potter visits Yemen, she has in fact returned to the US.

So maybe that is what confused us both. Also, not such a traditional community if they sent a daughter to a school where in 11th grade books are read with such themes.

Aside from that, what are your thoughts about the Chief, the 'Combine' and the theme in the book of systemic abuse of various populations, Native Americans such as the Chief, men and women whose sexuality does not conform to the morays of the times, the African Americans on staff in the hospital, Ratched herself who as a woman in the 1950's had few employment options and who had to follow orders herself at all times, the doctor who assists her is a drug addict, again he has no option but to serve the system. The Chief calls her 'Big Nurse'. Like 'Big Business' or 'Big Oil'. She's a device of institution.
The only people who are not serving the system in the book are people who are being abused or discarded by that system, the patients and the prostitutes. They are the best people in the book, the only decent people trying to live life as life is lived, not life as the Combine demands.

[Syzygy321]

21. Hmm. I read it in HS, went back to it in my mid 20's

so what you mention isn't something that has stuck with me. I saw it as a general "regular people crushed by a straight-jacketing authority that punished them for being loud or different" sort of thing. Which is the half I loved.

"Not such a traditional community...":

??

If you are looking for reasons to argue with me about my own life, I'm puzzled by that and not gonna participate. You already tried an odd "gotcha!" thing when you mistook "traditional community" for "different country". You are jumping to more wrong conclusions here, but I won't engage. I posted about a book.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. The religiously traditional communities I have known did not have 11th grade kids reading Kesey.

And that other OP, I'm pointing out to you that you presented Potter as having become a Yemeni when she now lives in the US. The point of that OP was that she had chosen to live there so the fact that she has not is very pertinent. I'm sorry if facts are inconvenient to your narrative.

I'd like to point out that you never discussed any of the points about the book I did raise. Which you could have done at any point. They were good points. The themes of the book and the Chief's speeches about The Combine are extremely applicable to current events and political discussions that are all over DU and which actually apply to the traditional communities you speak of very well, there is a system, it functions, it has great costs to some but also sustains many and it continues without the actual choice of the individuals who become cogs in this machine or combine which harvests and separates and discards that which it can not use while constantly moving forward and consuming more and more.
Or, it's very sexist because there is a mean woman in it. You pick one and run with it.

[Syzygy321]

36. I heard an NPR report while driving to Cinci.

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My impression from the report was that she had moved there, lived there, and had stayed on to take photos despite the war. i also noticed that her Arabic accent during the interview - pronouncing names of towns and friends - was damn slick - sounded like she'd been there for years. I posted her praise of the yemeni people's family-oriented lives and their warmth.

That you are crying foul because I misunderstood a detail of an NPR report is more oddness.

As for you continuing with the "religiously traditional people I have known..." Yes. You said that on your last post. Please keep saying it.

You're now 0 for four in a game you invented that I am not even playing.

Why are you doing this? Did I run over your cat in a past life?

[Syzygy321]

16. Your comment about "forward-thinking" reminds me

of how I became a raging teen feminist: It was due to a book I found in my school library in 8th grade.*

Post-college I had my best adventures due to a book I had found in the public libe the spring before 9th grade. It became the guiding light of my teen years.**

Later I got married because of another book.***

See? Books change lives. People should read 'em.

*"Girls are Equal Too"
**"The Art and Adventure of Traveling Cheaply"
*** "Les Miserables"

[Bluenorthwest]

18. Yeah, well it's rude of you to suggest that I am arguing against the reading of books.

I'm arguing against simplistic readings of literature which impose prejudices and/or modern thought forms onto a piece which is not of the present at all.
What I am talking about is, in my opinion, sort of important to the current events we are discussing. The book is about institutional systems of discrimination and control. The entire staff on the ward is comprised of persons oppressed by society to the point where they must take part in the system to survive, Big Nurse is a woman in the 50's. She's doing as she is told and has no choice. The doctor on ward is a drug addict, in place because he too can be controlled. The support staff is all black, it is the 50's. Each of them as individuals would make different choices but none of them have any individual choice, they are the Combine. We become the system that oppresses us, and that is how you wind up with institutional bigotries and systems that roll on doing evil even as the people who comprise those systems want to do good. This book is about all of those privilege, status and systemic issues which are currently being addressed by many activists and writers coming from various minority communities.....

[Syzygy321]

20. What!! No - my comment was not directed at you;

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it was a general statement of my beliefs.

"Books: people should read 'em.". Of course you are not against reading - I assume the best of you since I don't even know you. (I wish you operated under the same rule, but this makes 3 straight times in this thread that you've seemed eager to twist my words - ok, whatev!) The Duke U people are the ones under discussion.

No rudeness intended.

This discussion-board thing is fraught with hidden pitfalls and misunderstandings. TBH it's exhausting: like navigating a glacier full of crevasses.

I invite you to consider your record of three straight posts that either wrongly hinted I am a liar or wrongly accused me of being intentionally rude. Adults can disagree about a book without flinging false accusations, I hope - and when they do find they've wrongly accused/suspected someone, they generally back down and apologize instead of going for broke.

[BlueJazz]

9. If I give a reading assignment and the subject matter offends them the student does not have to..

...read it. They also don't have to get anything but an F.
There ARE people who act like those in the book. Grow up.

[reformist2]

13. Students should be free to opt out without retribution.

[Syzygy321]

14. Can you see any downsides to that policy -

- to the student's mental development;
to the classroom discussion (that is, other students who would be robbed of hearing the opt-outer's POV);
and to the teacher and edministrators?

[BlueJazz]

15. They would get an F. The same as if I were a science teacher and assigned a book about a ...

...subject that a religious person didn't "Like" Tough.

[cwydro]

10. I loved that book and the movie.

I'm a female and never thought about it as a misogynistic book.

There are plenty of rotten male characters in many, many books.

Pat Conroy's books come to mind.

[Syzygy321]

23. The only one of his that I know is the one

with the football coach and his suicidal sister. And, oddly, it struck me as a feminist book -

- in that the male and female characters were all flawed, and the bad stuff people did was recognized in-novel as bad stuff (that is, readers weren't expected to cheer for the woman-hating bits), and the main Bad Woman - coach's mom - was a human mix of good and bad rather than a stereotype. And it was mostly about family relationships, and a man's love for his wife and brother and sister.

I may have book and movie confused though.

[cwydro]

24. Yes, he usually treats his female characters well.

But he doesn't portray the men so well.

The Great Santini was about an abusive father. And there's some other nasty males in that book.

The Lords of Discipline - another great read with a bunch of hateful male characters. He doesn't pull any punches with the men.

That's what I meant really, is that there are lots of books with nasty male characters, so I never thought twice about Nurse Rachet, et. al. in the Cuckoo's Nest. There are horrid folks of both sexes in all books.

[Syzygy321]

26. Yes - agreed - but that's not what bothers me.

I have no prob reading about nasty characters. Even fairy tales have villains, otherwise, yawnn!

It's different when a certain race/class/gender is stereotyped in a one-note way, and when readers are expected to cheer/sympathize with ugly stuff.

Nothing wrong with having a Nurse Ratchet run the asylum and be nasty and hard-ass.

Nothing wrong, even, with having a main character be a woman-hater or sexist. As long as that's acknowledged in-novel as a flaw and not celebrated.

Lots of novels are sexist just because of the times they were written in. I mean, I LOVELOVELOVE Les Miserables, but talk about female stereotypes!!! Every time i reread it I grit my teeth over the icky characterization of females (and point this out to my kid who is also reading it), and I feel slightly annoyed by the author - and then get on with loving the book.

OFOTCN just pushed all my buttons, repeatedly.

[cwydro]

30. I understand what you're saying.

I've got lots of books I love where I just have to blow right by that crap.

Hell, I love HEMINGWAY for crying out loud.

Sigh. I hate that I do.

But, I do.

[Syzygy321]

31. Haha, I haven't read him in forever,

And now you've made me miss ole Papa!

[cwydro]

32. I know, right?

And I lived in Key West for years.

I loved his books much more when I was younger, and I've not read him in forever either.

The worst thing in Key West is the Hemingway Days in July. All these overweight, hairy, middle aged guys come into town wearing TURTLE NECK SWEATERS IN KEY WEST IN JULY! Omg. I stayed away from the bars during those days lol.

Why couldn't they have a festival of the YOUNG Hemingway?

[Syzygy321]

33. I think my fave is still "old man and the sea". Yours?

[Syzygy321]

41. Thanks for the tip.

The hot summer when I was twenty, I
went everywhere with a thousand-page pretty new bio of him under my arm. It had cost me more money than i'd ever spent on any book before. Friends laughed at me; but God, I loved that book. Damn - how could I have lost track of it?

I found "Cuckoo" to be skin-crawlingly misogynist.

I liked "Old Man and the Sea".

[DetlefK]

11. "Children of Dune" or "Mankind really should be superstitious simpletons"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Dune

Now, Frank Herbert was a fan of the arabic culture, but this book goes way beyond his love for a simpler lifestyle.




Via some esoteric process Leto Atreides II becomes a super-being, survives a deadly plot and installs himself as the new ruler of the empire of mankind. (It was either him or his sister anyways.) And he has vision for the future of mankind.

What will this future be?

First, Leto Atreides II sabotages the spice-farming, quenching supplies and destroying interstellar trade. He wants to destroy the civilization of the interconnected planets and force those planets whose economies have relied on each other for millennia to get by on their own.

Second, why does he want to destroy civilization? Because this comfortable life has made mankind lying and scheming. Instead of elaborate, boring, pointless discussions about esoterics and philosophy, people put their trust in technology and go about their comfortable lifes. Unlike the Fremen, who kill people over the water-content of their body... wait. The Fremen kill people, but that's not as bad as lying, because they are honest about it?

Third, how will he achieve that? By enlisting the jihadi armies of the Fremen and the private army of House Corrino and killing everybody who gets in his way.

Fourth, what's his long-term goal? He wants mankind to become a spiritual, primitive, barbaric, superstitious species. (Yes, he actually wants mankind to become superstitious believers.) It will be pure, without the double-crossing and lying that come from living in a world of civilization, comfort, medicine and technology. Oh, and he will rule as a God-Emperor over these people he is intentionally holding stupid and unknowing.

Fifth, when does the plan end? Leto Atreides II will rule for 5000 years as a God-Emperor over a human species of simpletons. Then he will step down and the superstitious barbarians who have lived under the rule of a merciless, immortal God-Emperor for 5000 years will be ready to forge a new future for mankind. Well, they won't. The successors of the Atreides breeding-program, who form the bureaucrat-and-ruler caste of Leto's empire, will.






My jaw dropped when I had to read this. Throughout the whole book there were hints how Leto has seen the future and how he has a big plan how to save mankind...
And at the end of the book the author celebrated this "glorious" idea of his protagonist to destroy civilization with bloodshed, to destroy knowledge with bloodshed, to destroy opponents with bloodshed, to install a regime that puts superstitions, esoterics and religious fanaticism over reason and progress, and to rule over all of mankind by installing a tyrannic dynasty and an eugenic breeding-program.

To repeat: The guy who becomes immortal Hitler is the hero of the novel!!!!!!!!

[Kurska]

47. I'm not sure if you read the fourth book, but that isn't the golden path

Essentially, in the fourth book he does the whole golden path thing. The whole point is to reduce spice production so that people will become will become less dependent on it. After he basically destroys spice production space travel becomes difficult, but that forces humanity to spread and diversify, leading to many different ways of doing things and ensuring no one threat would wipe out humanity. It is heavily implied that this is what would have happened if they hadn't done so.

Yeah he was a tyrant, but he isn't portrayed as an all around good guy either. Many people end up remembering him as a monster and butcher. He also ends up getting assassinated.

Long after his death spice production comes back and humanity is better off for it. Yet a lot of people still died in the following chaos so his actions aren't presented as entirely righteous.

Yeah it was a confusing at times and I didn't agree with how the author presented some things, but it is at least an interesting mix of ideas. More than can be said for a lot of fiction.

[R. P. McMurphy]

19. I chose my screen name because I identify . . .

with several of McMurphy's characteristics. He's in his situation because of his own poor choices, he won't stop saying what he believes even though he knows he'll pay for his outspokenness, he tries to get others to respect and believe in themselves. Most important to me, he doesn't give up hope. The scene in the water therapy room where he attempts to pick the marble fountain up and send it crashing through the window always inspired me. Even though he failed he reminds the others "at least I tried." You cannot succeed unless you try.

I'd never given much thought to the misogynistic aspects of the book. You are absolutely correct; they are there. I doubt that Ken Kesey thought much about it when he wrote the novel. Maybe the females were cheap caricatures used to drive the story line. Maybe they were based on real women he knew (maybe even ones from the hospital he worked at that inspired the story). Maybe he just had a misogynistic streak. It was a very common trait of men of that time (and probably still is today).

Nevertheless, your points are valid. If I ever re-read the book your insight will certainly inform my understanding of these characters (although I'll keep in mind that women can be flawed, hurtful beings as well). What I'll probably take away, though, is that McMurphy helped them to remember that they are able to change and there may be something better out there if they have the courage to go look for it.

[Syzygy321]

22. Thanks Mr. Mcmurphy!

It's so nice to be listened to with consideration.

And you are right about all that's great about the character and what he stands for.

Never stop trying.

[alarimer]

25. Something I didn't know: this was a summer reading list and not required for a class

In which case, I say they can read it or not, their choice.

I do think it's silly beyond belief that you would refuse to read something because it "violates your religious beliefs." In which case, I guess you'd never read anything other than the bible.

What they really objected to was the subject matter of "Fun Home." She speaks frankly about her experiences growing up "different" and having a challenging family, to say the least. Why is the existence of gay people such a threat to someone's religion? I guess it would mean acknowledging that they are real and human and not deserving of hate. THAT is what these students are afraid of.

College is supposed to be about growth, about new experiences. Education has always challenged the received wisdom of religion. I believe there is evidence that the more educated a person is, the less religious they are. I also predict that a number of these students who objected will, by the end of their tenure at Duke, be far less religious than they are now. Maybe (shocking!) even atheist.

And yes, literature is often challenging in its subject matter. Think of Lolita or Huckleberry Finn. A better teacher would have brought up the points you made here to your class and you would have discussed them. Certainly in a college course they would have.

[HassleCat]

27. Many students fail to understand college

They think college is like high school, where the students read a book, and are expected to write essays explaining why it's a great book, how the author is clever and witty, the ways in which "reading this book changed my life" and so on. In college, reading an offensive book is no different that studying Hitler in a history class. If the author presents misogyny as heroic, the students can praise or condemn that, as long as they support their arguments. I'm afraid we're allowing our colleges and universities to become places where everybody gets an "A" for agreeing with everybody else.

[Syzygy321]

28. Yep

[fadedrose]

29. Saw the movie, didn't read the book

but I remember its insanity fairly well, and Nurse Ratchett has stuck in my mind and every once in a while I meet her. But not very often, thank goodness.

I thought it was an excellent movie as far as the actors were concerned. Spot on. This was so long ago that misogyny wasn't a hot topic then and I didn't know how common it was, but not so blatantly obvious as it was in the movie. Gees, none of us women think we're as bad as the author made us out to be.

Older and wiser, I see we live with misogyny all the time in subtler forms, except if a guy is a pro sports player who has no bounds and sees Ratchett in every woman who needs to be punished to escape any imagined control over him.

Thanks for reminding me of the cuckoos nest that hospital was.

[Syzygy321]

37. Tried that. He said, "I wrote a book?"

[Archae]

38. Kesey was a stoned asshole, the book sucked, and the movie sucked.

I know, rather blunt.

But the movie was so damn depressing.

I saw an interview once with Kesey, he was proud of having written "Cuckoo" while stoned on acid half the time, and he had no idea what he was talking about regarding mental illness.

[prayin4rain]

45. I'm not impressed with any story that casts

the rapist of an adolescent as the hero.
I've realized since I've been posting on this board how big of a deal child molestation and rape are to me and how not a big deal it is to other people. It's weird. I always just assumed most people thought it was as serious of an issue as I do. An astounding number of children are victims, it upsets me when it's treated like it is not a big deal.

(Not saying that the OP is implying that it's no big deal, for the record. More of a general observation that the OP made me think of)

[struggle4progress]

46. I loved that book when I read it decades ago in high school!

But your comments are wonderful! Thank you!