One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, one of the most thought-provoking films in America, the Oscar best picture, is successful for its ideology. It also hints the social reality in America, with the prosperity of the industrial cultures, human’s thoughts are becoming alienation. And the way to judge who is the reasonable is ridiculous. Simply speaking, the “reasonable “majority representing the absolutism traps the bondage of the “irrational” minority.
The first bondage is to isolate them, not only from people, but also from the society. The loud music handicaps the patient’s communication, not permitting thinking independently and freely. When Macmurphy asked the Ratched to slow down the music, for they cannot hear each other. But she rejected. What’s more, they are not allowed to enter any the staff’s workplace, which passes the idea that they are different people or even they are insane people. In addition, the hospital is a symbol of boundary, and over the barbed wire fence is the normal society but doesn't belongs to them. The reason why the fence is the barbed wire is that the patients are deliberately showed to the outside world’s people of a totally abnormal world, filling with the lunatic, or called monsters or the evils. That is also used to warn people to follow the mainstream ideology of the majority, and everything beyond that is irrational thoughts.
The second is to control their body through the rigid disciplines. In the hospital, they must obey all the rules unconditionally, such as drinking unknown medicine on time, listening the boring music all the time, going to bed on time, and having no right to request their own favorite things. Certainly,there is no exception for everyone. Their body is not free. Once Macmurphy and Chief violated these regularities, a severe punishment came to them. The medicinal staff symbolizing the absolute authority and absolutism, simply a cold machine, hypocritically claims he is the angel to help his patients, but actually he has abandoned them in the beginning. That means in the world controlled by the majority, only he is the light of ration. Further more, he has the privilege to order the insane, disrespect their thoughts, and even repress them, for they are the minority. For example, the minority supporting watching television had to be subordinate to the majority who is against it or gives up voting a ball. Seemingly, the authority gives their prisoners the freedom to make their decision according to their willingness. However he will do his honest best to smooth his path to achieve his purpose once there is any difference between the two parties.
Finally, that making the patients imprisons their own thought is the authority’s destination. As Macmurphy knew it’s his friends’ will that to enter this hospital and they could get out here but they had never left there once, he absolutely did not understand them, why they did not have any encourage going outside world. Obviously, the answer is regularity, which means that they are used to following the leader’s rules on them. They have been subjected to accept the label of the insane and moral judgment given by the majority, given that under the absolute power, any kinds of confrontation is relatively negligible and insignificant. The chief culprits of Billy’s death consist in the moral judgment and repression from the outside society. Specifically, he is afraid of disappointing his mother or being the wrong or the shameful in the outside society. In the depth of their thoughts, they consider they are unworthy acquiring freedom, not only on body but also on mind. Gradually, their independent mind is eroded by such mainstream ideology and is totally controlled by it in the end.
From the 1960s, with the end of World War II, American has collected enough money and the American dream is coming true gradually. At the same time, some heretical minds beyond the mainstream ideology are appearing, such as civil rights movement, women’s liberation movement, anti-Vietnam movement and so on. But such ideologies in contemporary America were not accepted by most people, like the psycho’s minds would not be respected, and the authority only to represse them atrociously. Hopefully, at the end of the film, Chief succeeded in escaping the hospital, which implies these ideologies will get rid of the compulsive constraint eventually.
