CRAZY LADY: Abuses... Dramatized in FRANCES

CRAZY LADY:
Abuses of Women in Mental Institutions as
Dramatized in Frances

(Lit 383: Psychology Of Women Through Literature And Film)

The movie Frances opens in 1931, with a 16-year-old Frances Farmer reading aloud her essay, entitled God Dies. First, she is reading it to her mother, who beams proudly at Frances’ precociousness and independence. She is clearly young Frances’ biggest fan.

Frances’ essay wins first prize in a regional scholastic competition, and when she reads it aloud for her community, and it is not well received. Immediately, we see that Frances is a woman who thrives on nonconformity. Lillian Farmer has fostered a quality of independence in her daughter, rare for the era, and rarer still for Seattle, Washington, which is still a small, provincial town in 1930’s America. However, as Frances matures and begins to chafe under her mother’s controlling influence, Lillian begins to feel alienated from her daughter.

This is the beginning of betrayal in this story. As Frances begins to move out into a larger world, away from the little pond where she was such a big fish, she begins to experience one disappointment after another. The world, which had once been so promising for a bright, provocative 16-year-old girl writing an essay on her loss of faith in God, is now pressuring her to conform to a world she does not understand and in which she has no interest. Her stage career in New York flounders, forcing her to move to Los Angeles and become a contract player at Paramount Pictures during the heyday of a studio system which controlled every aspect of a young actor’s life – what they wore, what they ate, what they read and, above all, how they behaved when in the public eye.

Frances not only dislikes this system, she has no resources with which to cope with it. The more she feels pressured, the stronger her response. When she is pushed, she pushes back – a classic case of an irresistible force colliding with an immovable object. This, coupled with her propensity for excessive alcohol consumption, leads Frances into direct confrontation, initially with the studio, and eventually the law. Her fall downhill begins to pick up speed and momentum, until she finds herself in a courtroom, listening as her mother begs the judge to consider sentencing Frances to time in a private sanitarium, rather than to jail. The judge agrees, and Frances finds herself at the start of what Phyllis Chesler refers to as a “psychiatric career.”

In retrospect, it might have been better for Frances had she simply gone to jail for a few months. Her interactions with institutionalized mental healthcare doom her from the start. The open-ended patriarchal structure of the sanitarium, coupled with what is for Frances an intolerable hypocrisy that they are doing it for her "own good," leaves her with no choice but to try to assert herself in any way she can. Frances refuses to “play the game,” even though by not doing so she prolongs her incarceration. She continually confronts her psychiatrist, Dr. Leonard, calling him on his hypocrisy, and taking pleasure in intimidating him by seeming unpredictable and out of control. At one point, she notes that he is afraid of her because, she tells him, “I’m not doing what’s expected of me.” She makes a conscious choice not to be the meek, subordinate female, docile and subservient to her male caretakers. She chooses instead to continue to be unflappably, relentlessly Frances, without apology, knowing that doing so puts her in danger.

Chesler indicates that for any woman who attempted to hang on to and assert her own personality and individuality in the institutional system, the repercussion for her was frequently punitive. In the sanitarium, Frances' expressions of anger are treated initially with insulin shock therapy which nearly kill her, and then by heavy doses of barbiturates to control her. This was a very common practice in institutions where women were punished for expressing ambivalence about accepting the traditional female role of passivity and obedience. Women in a psychiatric career in the early part of the twentieth century were expected to adapt to a parent-child relationship with their therapists and caretakers. Many did this all too easily, because it was a condition that many women found comfortable and familiar. For those unable or unwilling to adapt, however, punitive therapeutic “treatments” were likely to be administered (Chesler, pg. 76).

Frances’ relationship with her mother, Lillian, fuels her continuing difficulties. When Frances refuses to return to the Hollywood system she hates, her mother calls her “crazy” and Frances realizes that her mother will bludgeon her with the threat of recommitment whenever Frances refuses to obey her. In a sense, Lillian has actually set Frances up for her fall, by initially encouraging her as a young girl to wave off the traditionally feminine traits of being the “good” girl, and then by trying to force her to be subservient to Lillian’s will as an adult. With one hand, Lillian offers Frances the opportunity to define herself on her own terms, without having to bow to the conventions set for women by society – what Jean Baker Miller calls “personal creativity.” (pg. 25) With the other hand, Lillian pulls it away when Frances’ personal creativity becomes inconvenient for her.

Frances’ interactions with the men around her – studio heads, directors, and her psychiatrists – are straightforward and assertive. She does not back down from direct conflict or confrontation, she refuses to defer, speaks openly and forthrightly, and refuses to accept anyone else’s restrictions of her behavior. Rather than use her beauty and her femininity in subterfuge or manipulation, as Baker Miller suggests is common for women in conflict situations, she simply confronts the men in her life in open-ended conflict (Baker Miller, pg 16). The result is that she is continually punished for it. Frances is a perfect example of the consequences that a woman could face, particularly in the early part of the 20th century, if she overtly challenges the men around her. (Baker Miller, pgs. 18 – 19) This is the threat that all women endure, but particularly those women who are institutionalized.

Chesler speculates that the reason that more women than men gravitate to psychiatric institutionalization is that the condition more closely replicates their experience in the world and in the family than it does for men. Chesler quotes Erving Goffman, who documented patriarchal structures in mental health facilities in his book, Asylum, as saying that the average man would be better off being in prison than in a mental institution because of the potentially debilitating effect for a man of being treated “like a woman” (i.e., as helpless, sexless, dependent and unreasonable – all traits ascribed to the traditional female role) (Chesler, pgs. 74 – 75). I suspect that this is the reason that Frances does not adapt well to her surroundings in the private sanitarium. Lillian has raised Frances outside of the customary feminine role of the era. As the essay scene implies, she is proud that Frances has eschewed the traditional expectation of womanhood as docile and faithful and obedient (until it inhibits Lillian in her attempts to control Frances, that is). Frances approaches her life much as a man would. When offered opportunities to travel or to advancing her career, she does not think twice about any negative impact these things might have on her image. She does not apply different standards to herself than she does to the men around her, and when the people in power over her force them upon her, she openly resists them.

In a very real way, Frances thinks, speaks and behaves in accordance with the male role, as it is defined in Western culture. She puts the primary emphasis of her life on meeting her own needs, sating her own wants and rising to her own ambition, with little or no thought of how this might inconvenience others or fail to meet their needs. Frances puts her own needs first. The traditional expectation for women is that they meet the needs and expectations of others – parents, husbands, children – rather than concentrating on their own needs. Their own needs are, in fact, largely dismissed as being unimportant and insignificant (Baker Miller, pg. 18). Frances not only refuses to do this, but the idea of doing it does not seem to occur to her.

In addition, Frances has absolutely no editorial faculty in the things she says and does. If she feels it or thinks it, she says it, without regard for any possible repercussions. This is a demonstration of what Baker Miller terms “authenticity.” She believes whole-heartedly in her right of self-determination, without apology. This sets her apart from most women, who are conditioned from earliest childhood to be afraid of their potential for power and self-determination (Baker Miller, pgs. 116 – 118).

Frances is also set apart from other women because she has absolutely no fear of angering the men around her. The example that she's had modeled for her -- the marriage of her parents, the strong, vocal Lillian and the passive, malleable Ernest -- must certainly have helped fortify her view of strong women voicing strong opinions, without contradiction by men. Frances meets these men head on and refuses to back down. She takes for her equality with them for granted, and behaves accordingly. This is shown in the scene when she is arrested at the Knickerbocker Hotel for an outstanding traffic warrant, and upon being questioned by the desk sergeant about her name, she replies with an obscenity, much as a man might. It is not done with any kind of coyness or naughtiness. She spits it back at him the way he comes at her – head on, with no hesitation. Even when she should be afraid of angering those around her, she simply does not sense that danger (much to her detriment, as it turns out). This is where Frances differs from the average woman who has been steeped in the psychology of covert conflict and subliminal resistance (Baker Miller, pg. 122, 123).

Frances’ response to her condition as a mental patient is defiance. She manages in spite of years of institutionalization to resist becoming indoctrinated with the idea of her own insanity. Some of this may be denial, especially where it concerns any possibility of alcoholism. Still, years later, when she appears on an episode of This is Your Life, when host Ralph Edwards asks about this time in her life, she maintains that she was never mentally ill, but “when one is treated like a patient, one is apt to behave like one.” (Interestingly, this is one of the only quotes, besides her high school essay, that we can directly attribute to the real Frances Farmer, rather than just as well-crafted movie dialogue.)

One of the most harrowing scenes in the film is the depiction of Dr. Walter Freeman’s trans-orbital lobotomy. Regardless of whether this procedure was actually performed on Farmer in reality (and this is by no means certain), the procedure itself is graphically portrayed in detail. Freeman (as portrayed in the film) treats his patients as if they were something less than human. His claim during his lecture that the insertion of an ice pick through the bone of the occipital lobe and into the frontal lobe of the brain without the benefit of anesthetic is “completely painless, I assure you,” is preposterous, even to the nonprofessional. However, his treatment of women as animals is not out of character for the mental health community of that time. Both male and female clinicians have been defining traditional womanhood and the nature of the female in the narrowest, condescending of ways (Chesler, pg. 110, 111).

The irony of a movie made in the 80's (not a high-point in the women's rights movement) about a movie star from the 30's who seems to embody the most modern ideal of sexual equality -- that a woman can be just as abrasive, stubborn, outspoken, opinionated and irritating as a man, if she'll only give herself permission -- should not be lost here. It is clear, at least in relation to the film, that much of Frances' behavior (alcoholic binges, violent outbursts) cause her many problems. However, it is also clear that had Frances been born a man, her outspokenness, her passion, even her alcoholism would have been much better tolerated and overlooked by the Hollywood community. The roguish behavior, sexual promiscuity and alcoholic binges of actors like Clarke Gable, Robert Mitchum and William Holden were not only tolerated, but also facilitated, and then covered up by the studios.

The message of Frances is one that applies not only to studios, but also to the world at large. It applied in the thirties, and to a certain extent, it applies today. Boys will be boys -- but let a girl try to be a boy, and she becomes not only dangerous, but downright certifiable. Chesler notes that, though the vast majority of psychotherapeutic clinicians have been male, the vast majority of published literature on madness and mental illness focuses on women. Is this because women are actually more inclined to mental illness than men, or is that men have broader latitude in what constitutes "acceptable" behavior? Is it because women seek psychotherapy more frequently, and cooperate in studies more readily? Or is it, as Chesler points out, something a little darker and more universal?

"I think something deeper has tempted and excited male psychiatrists for the
last century to write about the Eternal Feminine gone 'mad.' I think it is both
safe and 'therapeutic' for them to do this. In women, they could study madness
without dread. They would not be turned to stone or pigs -- Valerie Solanas is
no Medusa; Zelda Fitzgerald is no Circe; mad women have no power." (Chesler, pg.
110)

For Frances, who generated so much fear and confusion in the men around her, declaring her crazy was the only way to render her "toothless." In an institutional environment, Frances might be unpredictable, but she could be controlled and observed. Because she refused to do "what is expected of me," as she puts it, she needed to be neutralized in the most effective way possible -- to dismiss her as merely "crazy." The label of "crazy lady" strips her of her power.

It should be noted that the film, Frances¸ is entirely based on two books -- Shadowlands by William Arnold, and Farmer's ghosted "autobiography," Will There Really Be a Morning. The former is the book that first postulated the Frances Farmer/lobotomy story, and it provides no independent corroboration that such a procedure was ever performed on Farmer. The latter, ghost written by Farmer's close friend, Jean Ratcliff (who was also the principal heir to Farmer's estate), was written almost entirely after Farmer's death in 1970, of esophageal cancer. After certain outrageous inaccuracies in Will There Really Be A Morning were brought to light, Ratcliff admitted that she had exaggerated details of Frances' commitment in Western State Hospital (such as the gang rapes, for example) in order to make the book more "saleable." Arnold's book is full of errors and contradictions, including the details of Farmer's life after she was discharged from care and had relocated to Indianapolis. In spite of the fact that Frances Farmer denied for years that she had had a lobotomy, these statements were merely dismissed, both by Arnold and by Ratcliff in their efforts to tell what was supposed to be her story (Kauffman).

The irony is that the real Frances Farmer, who contrary to Mr. Arnold's account, remained fairly outspoken and irrepressible in Indianapolis after her psychiatric career had ended, was still the target of people who wanted to exploit and control her, even posthumously. The film, Frances, is inarguably compelling and a fine depiction of what life might have been like for an outspoken, strong-willed woman committed for speaking her mind. However, it is also a further exploitation of Farmer, because it is based on two sources that have been proven not only inaccurate (see Kauffman), but also make claims that Farmer herself denied. This is what both Chesler and Baker Miller identify as the main problem when a woman is treated in a patriarchal psychiatric environment. She is subject not only to the stripping of her power, but also to the complete denial of her spoken needs, her expectations and even her own history. Merely by being a female, a woman -- any woman -- becomes subject to having her story co-opted and rewritten, in total contradiction to her express wishes, by people who "know better" than she about her needs, wants and past experiences.

In the end, this betrayal is at the heart of the story of Frances Farmer, both as a film character, and as a living, breathing woman.


Works Cited

Film:

Frances. Dir. Graeme Clifford. Perf. Jessica Lange, Kim Stanley, Sam Shepard, Bart Burns, Jonathan Banks, Jeffrey De Munn. EMI Films (Independent), 1982.

Books:

Baker Miller, Jean. Toward A New Psychology of Women. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986.
Chesler, Phyllis. Women and Madness. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1989.

Internet:

Farmer, Frances. God Dies. 1931.
Kauffman, Jeffrey. Shedding Light on Shadowland: The Truth About Frances Farmer. 1999.