I’ve just finished watching the classic Jimmy Stewart movie, Harvey. As I watched the movie, I fell in love with Dowd–Elwood P.!–and Harvey, and found everyone else in the film more or less disgusting. My enjoyment of the movie, though, was mixed with a sort of confusion and horror at the callous, cruel, inhuman treatment Dowd received. People–at least fashionable people, such as those at his sister’s part–were terrified of him. The assistant at the sanitarium seemed to think that the only way to deal with him was with fists or a sap, and clearly didn’t see any of the other patients as human in any real way.
What’s worse, no one seemed to think there was anything wrong with it. Even Veta, after experiencing first hand what the sanitarium had to offer, had no qualms about trying to put her brother there. Nor did the movie exactly seem to be making a point about this; so far as I could tell, the audience was expected to see this as normal or funny.
Was that how it was, then? I know people are hardly kind today, and I have been guilty myself of being a bit wary or uncomfortable around the visibly mentally ill. But I try to treat everyone with respect and dignity. Was it that much worse back then?
I cannot give an authoritative answer, but the play was first performed in 1944.
I am reasonably sure that it did reflect the treatment of the mentally ill in many, if not most institutes. I believe it also reflected the majority view by common Americans, but keep in mind that Veta was rather high strung and old fashioned.
BTW: This is one of the movies I consider a perfect 10. A perfect movie in almost every regard.
I was more irritated by the notion that mental illness is sort of adorable, and that we can all learn to be better people by emulating the insane, than by the treatments offered at that hospital.
Whenever I watch things like the Twilight Zone, I wonder that, too. Everytime someone says something the least bit off kilter, they call for the men in white to cart them off. Or give them a stern talking to.
bt of course it is… well, when referring to myself or my BFF. I mean really - how can you not adore someone whos imaginary friend is none other than Darth Vader himself?
Well it would make it a hell of a lot easier to obtain world domination! But NOOOOOO, you “normal” people are just untrainable!
Dont even get me started on the evils of hospitals and the medical field! (and that my friends, is no laughing matter)
But in the movie, Elwood was not insane, he was a gentle eccentric, a bit of a rummy and only appeared insane as he was unconventional and saw the 6’3½" tall rabbit named Harvey.
Elwood wasn’t mentally ill: Harvey did exist (the head of the hospital saw him, and he made his presence known to his aunt and the Maytag Repair Man ). If you take that away, no one really thought him insane at all.
Heck, his philosophy is what makes the movie so appealing: you should take life easy and be nice to people. That’s hardly a sign of insanity.
As for the treatment portrayed, I’m sure it had some basis in reality of the time, though clearly focusing on the more frightening treatment. But treatment for mental illness has never been pretty (even now), mostly because there’s no satisfactory way to treat every case.
Anyone else think that the head of the sanatorium bears a passing resemblance to C.G. Jung? Who would have found the movie amusing, I’m sure, and known all about pookahs.
I think those jokes (and it is humor) were pretty standard at the time. When I was a kid, the image of men in whitecoats catching loonies with a butterfly net was a cliche, it was used so much. And remember the novelty song “They’re coming to take me away, ha-ha”?
Chase’s point about kindness and happy creative eccentricity being more valuable than materialism is still valid.
And notice that the play/movie indicates that Harvey is real and not just a figment of imagination. The wording in the dictionary changing for Wilson (Jesse White), for example, and the doors and gates moving for him by themselves.
The 50s were a time of intense social conformity; being a “productive member of society” was the standard. Judges could be extremely conservative both on proscribing aberrant behavior and wanting to help family members avoid the “embarrassment” of an oddball relative. I remember reading the story of a young man whose parents got him committed basically for being a beatnik.
I guess my problem would be making the two mutual exclusive. If I had to pick one, I prefer smart. But I like to believe that I am both. (I try to be pleasant.)
If I seem to be taking a light-hearted comedy too seriously, I was only matching the tone of the OP.
Look, “Harvey” has never been one of my favorite movies, but Jimmy Stewart has never been more charming or likeable than he was in “Harvey,” and it’s fine by me if people watch it and get a few laughs.
Now, for purposes of the play/movie, Elwood Dowd is not really insane. Harvey is, apparently, real. So, in the imaginary, magical world where that story takes place, people who talk to invisible rabbits (okay, okay, POOKAHS! Happy now?) aren’t crazy.
And if the philosophy that we’d all be better off if we were just a tad, er, eccentric were confined to screwball comedies of the Forties, I wouldn’t mind.
But the philosophy that the insane are cute… no, not just cute but BETTER than the rest of us did NOT remain confined to fluffy comedies. It became mainstream, and was carried to a ridiculous degree in pop culture. I get sick of winos and homeless bag ladies dispensing profound wisdom. And I get annoyed by movies or TV shows that suggest we have a lot to learn from the mentally deranged, who have oh-so-much to teach us about life.
I love the movie. I named one of trucks Harvey, because he could have stood up inside it.
The Lobotomist, a documentary about the neurologist who popularized the “icepick surgery”, is on PBS tonight.
Some people were quick to apply the “insane” label then. Some still are. I was no more ill-behaved than most kids, but my dad threatened to take me to “the insane doctor” if I didn’t straighten up. :eek:
Thinking about this now, I suppose it shouldn’t have shocked me so–but I just wasn’t ready for it. Racism and sexism, for example, when they rear their ugly heads in movies, don’t surprise me so. Or maybe it was just that I couldn’t understand how people could react in such an extreme way to such an obviously harmless eccentric. (Leaving aside, of course, the fact that Harvey was quite real.)
I apologize for getting myself involved in something some folks think isn’t worthy of it; I’ve been known to do it in the past, and’ll do it again in the future, but I know it does bother some.
I am in the movement against psychiatric oppression.
(This is not news to very many people on this board, yes?)
One theme that comes up fairly often when people ask us about all this is “But why would they subject people like you folks to involuntary psychiatric treatment and do these horrible things to you like you describe? It’s not targeting political opponents to any meaningful degree, it’s obviously not something that happens to everyone who ever sees a shrink, and you’re saying it’s not effectively targeting the truly dangerous or incapacitated. So if there’s ‘psychiatric oppression’, as you call it, who is being oppressed?”
Answer: you are.
Or, rather, to whatever extent we all harbor enough of an awareness of the “men in the white coats” for them to come to mind whenever people express sincere worried concern about whether we’re OK upstairs, it’s a threat: act normal so we know you’re OK.
The fact that it does happen to some people (and legally can, without many systemic protections to prevent it or protect you from it) operates less on an everyday “ooh watch out” level (like the Russian populace worrying about the secret police during the Cold War) than as a rare situational reminder, and the overtones of sympathetic kind concern make it more of something to be avoided rather than defiantly resisted.
In the movie, “smart” doesn’t mean thoughtful or intelligent. It’s more the “shrewd businessman” definiton, which has often had the connotation of borderline illegality. In the context of the movie, it means out for number one, and selfish materialism.
“pleasant” doesn’t mean bland or stupid, it means kind, compassionate.
So the opposition set up isn’t between intelligence and blandness, but between selfishness and compassion. The taxi driver hammers the point home nicely when he insists on being paid before Elwood P. Dowd gets the shot. The sanatorium is so lacking in compassion, even the head of it fantasizes a place where he can experience it.
So if you ask me, I’ll choose compassion over selfish materialism. But compassion, to be helpful and not harmful, needs to be expressed intelligently. So yes, I’d like a couple orders of wisdom along with the compassion, please.
). If you take that away, no one really thought him insane at all.