My kid was kidnapped, so I ... drugged my wife?
That storyline might sort of work for a certain recent science fiction miniseries, but a drama?
I've seen a number of films from the 50s and earlier, but this one shocked me for its almost self-parodying sexism.
The same thing happens in Hitchcock's 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. The doctor played by Jimmy Stewart drugs his wife Doris Day prior to telling her that their son has been kidnapped. It was common practice even into the 70s for doctors to prescribe anti-depressants for "women's problems". Sad, maddening, but true. An accurate portrayal of the attitude of the era.
"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency."
This is actually quite era correct; sedating women was a big part of dealing with trauma... we delicate little flowers couldn't deal with things like the death of our children or husbands, or kidnapping of our children. It was quite common to prescribe a sedative to hospitalized man after his death because the MD would inform the wife, then sedate her.... but it would show up in the man's chart (for billing purposes).
And this my friends, probably helped to bring Valium into the 60s and 70s as Mother's Little Helper....
*sigh* Yeah, pretty much... women aren't strong enough to hold up under stress, blah blah fiftiescakes.
You've got me?! Who's got you?!
"She's just closed the library!"
After that, a little Seconal, more or less, for Donna Reed, seems pretty tame.
Ah, that's true. I did think Donna was excellent in the scenes where she's supposed to have lost her mind. In another context it would have been brilliant. I wished they'd have played it with her staying very very very calm and have subtle actions portraying that she was really desperate. It's not unrealistic for mothers in real kidnapping cases to do this. Of course, that can get a mom in trouble, too, like that "dingoes took my baby" thing and it turned out they really did. The mom in that case was "too calm and rational." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/16/opinion/shes-innocent-were-guilty.ht ml?_r=0
You've got me?! Who's got you?!
What got me about the way the wife was portrayed is that she of course completely falls apart and becomes bedridden and irrational when her son is kidnapped. Now, sure, some people would react this way, but here it just makes her character annoying, weak and dependent. But that's how she was written. Under the circumstances, giving her a sedative might not have been uncalled for -- she was hysterical.
My issue is in making the wife so helpless in the first place that she dissolves in a puddle of tears and crashes completely. Having her show some inner strength would have been better, and eliminated the need for any pharmaceutical intervention...which was all-too-readily prescribed back then. But it's the script, or rather the societal attitudes it represents, that's most at fault here, both to her character and the reliance on drugs to help her cope.
*sigh* yeah, unfortunately. Brilliant acting if it were in another context, but ... everything you said.
You've got me?! Who's got you?!
I'd like to think that I'd keep my head and be able to help calmly get my child back (would LOVE to be Liam in Taken, but that's a pipe dream) - but I can't say for sure that I wouldn't react as Donna Reed's character did. Just like, I'd like to think that if I was a teacher in a school that was attacked, I would calmly be able to protect my students as I can in lockdown drills (as a sub, I somehow was always there for the annual lockdown drill), that I would think to put the littlest ones in file drawers or cabinets - but I might just be as afraid as they would be....hope to never find out.
shareShe's not really supposed to have "lost her mind." In 1950s terminology, they'd probably call it a "nervous breakdown." Psychiatry doesn't use that term anymore, just because more specific things are preferred, but grief over a sudden and unexpected event is considered a kind of trauma, and any traumatic reaction that can result from rape, or being in a house fire, can come from grief trauma, such as PTSD. There's also something called "grief psychosis," where someone without a previously diagnosed psychotic disorder (like schizophrenia) can have a break from reality in reaction to grief. It's rare, but it happens. The movie implies it's a typical maternal reaction, which it isn't, but it is one of many possible reactions, albeit an unlikely one.
shareYeah, sorry, I was speaking colloquially. I meant more like grief psychosis, it looked like she was headed that way. Your description is more clinically accurate. I've read several books on trauma/abuse and recovery.
You've got me?! Who's got you?!
And don't forget the etymology of the word 'hysteria'. It was once thought to be a female 'thing' - likely what Reed was portraying here. As I type this though, Ford is talking to the kidnapper(s) for the first time and hes doing a fairly good job of coming apart at the seems himself. Men were thought to be strong, practical, analytical and 'understood the ways of the world' - woman not so much.
But keep in mind, a lot of these late 40s/early 50s movies came on the heels of WWII. Just about every man of age and some younger, enlisted in the service after Pearl - the average Joe had seen more loss of life, carnage and 'mans inhumanity to man' than the average Jane so this wasn't too far off the mark for the men/women of the 'Greatest Generation'.
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I guess what I've learned here is you're no longer allowed to give sedatives to women just for the heck of it.
sharethat seemed to be a pattern
share