The Snake Pit= a sexist film about women

um......ok.

Pointing out sexism in movies is one of my favorite pastimes. I just don't see it in this movie. It's not like they diagnosed her with Female Hysteria. Now, the movie, One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest, was definitely sexist, though it had a crazy man.

I'm reminded of the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Spellbound, that had male patient with a female doctor. Of course, they ended up becoming romantic.

My favorite movie about a crazy person has to be A Beautiful Mind.

To bludgeon the matter, that's like saying I've read a lot of books about the Middle Ages and people were so, like, you know... mediæval.

Did you even watch the dance/song scene where they let the "crazy men" join the "crazy women" for a dance? It was an equal gender opportunity asylum.

The story just happened to be about a 'crazy' woman because it was based on a book written by a woman about her experiences in an asylum.

As for the husband... I didn't know insanity was contagious, even, like, from a war. Not everbody gets PTSD, or PMS either.

Other than that, re: the original post... it's like... "don't feed the troll". (google it)

Be nice if posters had more period recognition, life experience, etc, rather than feelings... but hey, not to censor.... cause I think it was sexist how all those nurses were women. Well, at least how ridiculously domineering and mentally challenged they were ... "don't walk on the rug", etc. If you wanted to drive someone nuts...

I guess you're right... it is contagious.

There have been several articles written about the feminist take on this movie that agree with you. (not the book so much.) I read the book first and there did seem to be a lot of incidents where she was treated like "Oh you think you're better than the rest of us" because she had a profession.

I honestly did not get "all better = June Cleaver" out of the book, or the film when I finally did see it. I thought they made it pretty clear that she had serious issues about her father and that her husband, by behaving something like him, was reminding her and stirring things up. This could happen to anyone.

Let's just say that God doesn't believe in me.

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The only way the film could really be described as sexist is in its somewhat blaming her mother for her problems. Like the whole maybe your mother did not bring food to you fast enough when you were a hungry infant or she didn't show you enough love. But that is more a product of psychology at the time rather than out and out sexism. Only a few decades ago, it was thought that schizophrenia was caused by the mother's treatment of the child, same with autism. So it is a little weird seeing Dr. Kik comment on things like her mother causing her to have weird daddy issues. But there is still no denying that this movie was pretty revolutionary at the time and is certainly not sexist towards career women like a movie such as Woman of the Year which punishes the main character for being a career woman.

'If this film wanted to be accurate it would show the man insane, the post-war veteran having some issues.' Why is he perfectly fine and only the wife is crazy?
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There are films with the man insane(post-war and otherwise).Is that sexist,or is The Snake Pit sexist by default?

To the militants everything is sexiest.