Netflix’s Ratched offers an origin story on the iconic villain from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but to do so, the character was given a complete makeover. Let’s break down every way Nurse Ratched was changed for Ryan Murphy’s show.
Ratched shows the beginning of Nurse Ratched’s (Sarah Paulson) career as a psychiatric nurse. In the Netflix series, she arrives at a Northern California psychiatric hospital in the late 1940s. She cons the director of the hospital into giving her a job, and quickly works her way up the ranks of the hospital. The show simultaneously dives into both her hospital’s unsettling experiments on the human mind and her life outside of the hospital. Future seasons of Ratched will likely delve deeper into what eventually makes her the menacing figure of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Nurse Ratched is one of the most iconic villains in literary and cinematic history, but Paulson’s interpretation of the character barely resembles what’s familiar to audiences. The character in the movie adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is a mystery. The lack of backstory or emotion informs her cruel nature. The version of Nurse Ratched depicted in the Netflix series has a family, vulnerabilities, and desires. Yet, it’s the rich character development that makes Paulson’s Nurse Ratched the weaker of the two versions of the character. While it’s obvious that Ratched is meant to further explore her character’s development, the series changes a lot about Nurse Ratched, and it’s not all for the better.
The Origin of Nurse Ratched
The character of Nurse Ratched first appeared in Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel of the same name, which served as the inspiration for the movie and the Netflix series. The author based the iconic nurse on a real one he came across during his time working the night shift as an orderly in a psychiatric facility in Oregon. The book lays down her cruel origins, but Kesey eventually admitted that he exaggerated the nurse’s traits to create such a menacing character.
Kesey’s depiction of Nurse Ratched was considered to be misogynistic, and his treatment of women in the book overall was heavily criticized. As Newsweek reported, that reputation is part of the reason Murphy was inspired to create the show. Paulson easily fell in line with Murphy’s passion for giving the character a do-over. She believed Nurse Ratched did the best she could in an environment dominated by men. As Newsweek shared, Paulson felt that Nurse Ratched would never have made it in the hospital if she showed any vulnerability. So with Ratched, Paulson and Murphy were able to show the softer side of Nurse Ratched, which they believe was suppressed in the original movie. Simply put, she was cold because she had to be in order to survive, but so little was known about the character – arguably one of the most interesting in Cuckoo’s Nest – that her story seemed ripe for expansion and explanation.
The Differences Between Ratched & One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Murphy’s and Paulson’s shared understandings of what makes Nurse Ratched a complex character is what makes her so different in the new series. For starters, she’s given a name in the hit Netflix show — Mildred. Nurse Ratched is never referred to by a first name in the book. In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jack Nicholson’s character, Randle McMurphy, refers to her as Mildred, but says he made up the name. The simple act of giving her a first name was a vital step in humanizing her character for the Netflix horror series.
The villainous nurse’s demeanor was softened up a bit for Ratched. Comparing Ratched to Cuckoo’s Nest, the character is cold and unfeeling in the latter; she doesn’t seem to care at all about her patients. In fact, she seems to take pleasure in causing her patients discomfort. Cuckoo‘s Nest is a story focused on the patients in the institution, so she was painted as the villain of the story. But Ratched is Mildred’s story. So for that reason, a different side of her is exposed. She is still cold, but she cares for her patients — even if her methods sometimes seem to be unorthodox. At the time of Ratched season 1, the system hasn’t caused Mildred to become jaded yet. Because of this, she’s able to find connections with other people around her.
However, there is one major thing that keeps Mildred so shut off for the majority of the show — her sexuality. Ratched reveals Mildred to be a lesbian. As homosexuality was cruelly deemed a mental illness at the time, it was something that Mildred struggled greatly with. Ratched season 1 ends with Mildred happily in a relationship with Cynthia Nixon’s Gwendolyn. The Cuckoo’s Nest version of Nurse Ratched does not give any sort of insight into her sexuality, but seeing as Nurse Ratched is not in any relationship in Cuckoo’s Nest as far as the audience knows, it can be assumed that Mildred’s relationship with Gwendolyn ends on a bad or tragic note. That, coupled with society’s cruel treatment of LGTBQ people, could be one of the catalysts for Mildred becoming the cruel Nurse Ratched of Cuckoo’s Nest.
Ratched adds another element to Mildred’s personal life by giving her a family. Convicted mass murderer Edmund Tolleson is initially presented as the antagonist of the show, but he’s eventually revealed to be Mildred’s foster brother. Once again, the Nurse Ratched of Cuckoo’s Nest isn’t shown to have any family, but the way Ratched season 1 ends alludes to Mildred being on the way to becoming a woman without family. Edmund and Mildred are locked in a dangerous battle by the season’s ending, but the pair had a close bond since they were children — this bond will likely be tested and severed in due time.
Losing Edmund, at least in some capacity, has already been shown to have an impact on her. However, if Mildred loses both Edmund and Gwendolyn, she’d never be able to recover. Especially if Edmund were to kill Gwendolyn. Without a doubt, these events would cause her to transform into the Nurse Ratched of Cuckoo’s Nest.
Nurse Ratched Is Scarier In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
There are pros and cons to each interpretation of Nurse Ratched. Paulson’s character is a complicated woman brought to life by a theatrical performance. It’s not often that audiences get to see a softer side of an iconic villain; when the approach is executed well, it can bring about a second life for a well-loved character. This was done famously with the hit Broadway musical, Wicked. That said, exposing the vulnerabilities of Nurse Ratched takes away the fear associated with her character, who was able to immediately set an audience on edge. There’s something frightening about a villain with no motivation. With an antagonist like that, the audience doesn’t know what their next move will be at any given moment, and that makes the viewing experience all the more thrilling.
Ratched is clearly making strides to get Mildred to that point. Ratched season 2 won’t connect to Cuckoo’s Nest, but that’s not to say it couldn’t happen further down the line. Should Murphy find a way to eventually merge the two characters, changing Nurse Ratched’s origin story for Ratched could eventually pay off.
