This was the saddest scene to me, when the orderlies were pimping out the female mental patients to the soldiers during the war. What a nightmare to be raped every night by countless men. The only time I ever cried while reading a book was when I read the Frances biography. If she wasn't really crazy when she went in the hospital, she had to be crazy by the time she got out. So tragic. Her mother was a monster to keep her a prisoner there.
shareWas the rape stuff covered in the biography? I found the scene in the film to be horrifying, of course, but it also strained credibility. If this were really a regular occurence, then sooner or later someone's going to get pregnant, and then the sh!t would really hit the fan. I.e., it'd be hard to keep this kind of thing under wraps for very long.
I realize there are some really sick people out there, but the idea of raping a mental patient is so repulsive, I can't imagine there would be a very large "market" for such a "service".
The biography, "Dreamland," was fiction. The author made a lot of crap up, apparently the rape scenes, and definitely the lobotomy. There's zero evidence that Farmer had a lobotomy.
For more info, including where the author sues the movie's producers and admits he fictionalized the story (!), try this link: http://jeffreykauffman.net/francesfarmer/sheddinglight.html
There's also a fairly good description on the sensationalized fiction of "Dreamland" on wikipedia under Frances Farmer and "Frances" (movie) (which I never recommend, but rarely, they get it right.)
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http://jeffreykauffman.net/francesfarmer/sheddinglight.html
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"Blood of Thrones" - proceeds to Action Cancer:
http://www.orb-store.com/blood.htm
Those scenes ruined the film for being just plain ridiculous and false. Western State Hospital, which is in the town I was raised in, was portrayed inaccurately in this film and the book was fictional.
shareI just knew I was gonna come on this board and this would be the topic at the the top of the threads. Why? Because I agree- it totally didn't "jive" well with the rest of the movie at all, and it was such a short, isolated scene, and never talked about after by Frances, or by anyone else in the movie... No wonder even Wikipedia has rendered it as pure fiction!
shareNo they haven't rendered it as pure fiction, they do state it is "under dispute" though. So really, we are still none the wiser.
shareThe "rapes" were pure fiction and all of the orderlies were female in real life!
No they haven't rendered it as pure fiction, they do state it is "under dispute" though. So really, we are still none the wiser.
You have to remember that the liberals in lala land have had a hard on for trashing mental hospitals going back to One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. They love to make up these sensational horror stories about mental health hospitals. The sad thing is many homeless people today on the streets would be in a mental hospital being well cared for if the liberals hadn't managed to get so many closed down and then raised the hurdle so high on getting anyone committed to one of the ones that are still around.
shareI am not responding to any claims about the movie's validity, but instead to the claims of the unbelievability of patients being raped. In earlier days of the 20th century, people in institutions were routinely stripped of their human rights and, though hard to imagine, used by workers of the institutions for myriad inhumane reasons. The cruel treatment to which patients were subjected became the subject of exposes during the 50s, 60s, and 70s which opened the lid on such institutions (these include those centers for "Imbeciles" as well as those for "Lunatics"). To learn more about this horrid, unbelievable, but unfortunately true, history of US institutional care, just google Pennhurst Project, Willowbrook State School, forced sterilization/eugenics, and WWII conscientious objectors expose mental wards. These exposes finally led to deinstitutionalization for individuals and increased attention to human rights.
shareMental patients were treated terribly prior to deinstitutionalization. Even when doctors were actually trying to help them, their "treatments" were horrific. It's devastating to read about.
"I don't want to make money. I just want to be wonderful."
Where is the proof of any mass scale maltreatment of mental patients in the latter 20th century or the 21'st century... The bulk of proven atrocities were committed hundreds of years ago.
share... And what do we have now? Legitimately crazy people running amok in our society! Not surprisingly, BIG PHARMA is largely responsible for this -- they began their campaign during the Eisenhower administration -- NOT increased concern about the human rights of the patients! We as a society would have been MUCH better off if the corruption and misuse/abuse in and of these facilities had been CLEANED UP instead of just releasing mental patients en masse. But hey, can't get in the way of big pharma profits, now can we?!
shareI am REALLY glad you said something back in the day about this (I'm aware that this is an old comment but I was thinking about this movie recently) because I get so sick of people on these boards running around saying that rape doesn't happen in Mental Asylums. Just because Frances Farmer wasn't raped (or rather, we don't have PROOF or her word that she wasn't, but we'll never really know) doesn't mean women weren't raped in asylums, especially back then. There's a person in this message board who also loves to show up and plug his website who's slightly guilty about spreading this misinformation as well. I've confronted him and he rambles on about his family working in a hospital, while dismissing anyone else's experience. Stick to your day job, dude.
shareI don't find that scene unbelievable, and in the "autobiography" Will There Really Be a Morning?, Farmer (and/or her collaborator) write about stuff happening to the patients that's IMO even worse than that.
However, it's kind of clear not everything in either the autobiography or Shadowland actually happened...or at least, didn't happen to Farmer.
I'm sure Western State Hospital, the Farmers, and Hollywood would like everyone to think that they didn't all miserably fail this poor, brave woman. Frances said she was sexually assaulted. Maybe the movie sensationalized it a bit, maybe not. We'll never know for sure, but she went through hell either way. I'm sure there's some truth to it. I wouldn't dismiss these claims completely just because some special interest groups want to squash the story.
shareI don't know if such things really happened at the institution Frances Farmer was in. But I'm pretty sure there would be a market for this kind of "mental prostitution". Similar thing is portrayed in Kill Bill.
share