Grell’s answer to “I have long thought of this book as one of my favorites, but noticed some heavy racist and misogyni…” > Likes and Comments
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That is an interesting point of view, but your tone is awfully dogmatic. You should work on that, especially among people you don't know well.
Just a guess — "his tone" may seem "awfully dogmatic" (it doesn't to me, btw) because it's really disheartening to see people ask questions like this one. This frame of thought leads to bowdlerisation, and it's path nobody should take.
Interesting you should bring that up because the film left out the sex assault that was in the book. This is why I ask the question really. Perhaps as a youngster I put my antihero on a bit of a pedestal? I definitely built up an impression of Jack Nicholson's version of RP McMurphy from the film. A sort of lovable rascal fighting a system against all odds. Then at the end he attacks and chokes Nurse Ratched. For me, it felt like a just comeuppance however misguided you might consider it. However in the book, he rips open her shirt in this assault and from what I recall it was no accident. So instead of mere violence the attack becomes a sex assault, which is not something I can condone even in my antiheroes. So that specific incident is really what I am trying to reconcile. Clearly there is a difference between the film and book there. Perhaps there are more? I would agree that we cannot expect to see our modern sensibilities in an Oregon lumberjack of that time and place, and the casual racism/sexism was likely the reality Ken Kesey witnessed, but the sex assault put the story into a new light for me.
if you think race and sex based discrimination is a modern invention to silence your precious little white pride you are trippppppinnnnn my guy
That's like saying cancer didn't exist before it was named. Ridiculous. Funny you chose to frame the past as enlightened. At the time the novel was written Jim Crowe laws were in full effect. Homosexuality was a criminal offense and shock treatment was a valid form of therapy. Enlightened indeed. Perhaps instead of being offended by perceived offense, question why it is you feel so compelled to be offended by observations in the first place.
What a sad observation. The world hasn’t “suddenly become PC,” you just live in a world now where you have to actually hear from people who have always been harmed by racism and sexism. Here’s an idea: instead of getting your own feelings hurt when someone asks critical questions about media, especially classics, you can stop being so PC and think, “Hmm, maybe this is an opportunity for critical thinking about the tropes and cultural contexts in this work of art. Does this part work? Does this part look dated? What does it say about the time in which it was written? What can we take from it now? What do the problems teach us about how we live now?” That way, you may actually have a point of reference beyond 1984 to draw from.
And yes, when I say that your reaction is PC, I mean just that: you’ve just demonstrated a kind of orthodoxy of thought common on the right that compels people to throw a fit about how “You can’t say anything anymore” whenever critical thinking about race and gender and sexuality rears its head into the cultural conversation.
This comment is ridiculous. It isn’t just McMurphy that is racist it’s is Chief Bromden our not entirely reliable narrator too. Also it was written in 1961 which was almost the height of the civil rights era. So the topic of racism was definitely contemporary. There is that scene (spoiler) where aide Williams mocks McMurphy for calling him a c**n and a n****r but if Kesey was on the right side of this then I wish he developed the theme more. He has redheaded Irish McMurphy who is a drunk and quick to anger, a giant stubborn but subservient Indian, and then scar black men who are portrayed as a group prone to sexual assault with weird racial observations on their skin and nostrils. If Kesey was just trying say something about people conforming to the box the Combine puts them in, I wish he developed it more.
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Adam
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Apr 03, 2015 08:37AM
That is an interesting point of view, but your tone is awfully dogmatic. You should work on that, especially among people you don't know well.
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Just a guess — "his tone" may seem "awfully dogmatic" (it doesn't to me, btw) because it's really disheartening to see people ask questions like this one. This frame of thought leads to bowdlerisation, and it's path nobody should take.
Interesting you should bring that up because the film left out the sex assault that was in the book. This is why I ask the question really. Perhaps as a youngster I put my antihero on a bit of a pedestal? I definitely built up an impression of Jack Nicholson's version of RP McMurphy from the film. A sort of lovable rascal fighting a system against all odds. Then at the end he attacks and chokes Nurse Ratched. For me, it felt like a just comeuppance however misguided you might consider it. However in the book, he rips open her shirt in this assault and from what I recall it was no accident. So instead of mere violence the attack becomes a sex assault, which is not something I can condone even in my antiheroes. So that specific incident is really what I am trying to reconcile. Clearly there is a difference between the film and book there. Perhaps there are more? I would agree that we cannot expect to see our modern sensibilities in an Oregon lumberjack of that time and place, and the casual racism/sexism was likely the reality Ken Kesey witnessed, but the sex assault put the story into a new light for me.
if you think race and sex based discrimination is a modern invention to silence your precious little white pride you are trippppppinnnnn my guy
That's like saying cancer didn't exist before it was named. Ridiculous. Funny you chose to frame the past as enlightened. At the time the novel was written Jim Crowe laws were in full effect. Homosexuality was a criminal offense and shock treatment was a valid form of therapy. Enlightened indeed. Perhaps instead of being offended by perceived offense, question why it is you feel so compelled to be offended by observations in the first place.
What a sad observation. The world hasn’t “suddenly become PC,” you just live in a world now where you have to actually hear from people who have always been harmed by racism and sexism. Here’s an idea: instead of getting your own feelings hurt when someone asks critical questions about media, especially classics, you can stop being so PC and think, “Hmm, maybe this is an opportunity for critical thinking about the tropes and cultural contexts in this work of art. Does this part work? Does this part look dated? What does it say about the time in which it was written? What can we take from it now? What do the problems teach us about how we live now?” That way, you may actually have a point of reference beyond 1984 to draw from.
And yes, when I say that your reaction is PC, I mean just that: you’ve just demonstrated a kind of orthodoxy of thought common on the right that compels people to throw a fit about how “You can’t say anything anymore” whenever critical thinking about race and gender and sexuality rears its head into the cultural conversation.
This comment is ridiculous. It isn’t just McMurphy that is racist it’s is Chief Bromden our not entirely reliable narrator too. Also it was written in 1961 which was almost the height of the civil rights era. So the topic of racism was definitely contemporary. There is that scene (spoiler) where aide Williams mocks McMurphy for calling him a c**n and a n****r but if Kesey was on the right side of this then I wish he developed the theme more. He has redheaded Irish McMurphy who is a drunk and quick to anger, a giant stubborn but subservient Indian, and then scar black men who are portrayed as a group prone to sexual assault with weird racial observations on their skin and nostrils. If Kesey was just trying say something about people conforming to the box the Combine puts them in, I wish he developed it more.
