A Foucauldian Analysis of Power , Punishment and Docile Bodies in Milos Forman’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Stuart Rosenberg’s Brubaker (1980)
| dc.contributor.author | LAOUARI Mohamed Larbi | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-01-21T10:43:00Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-01-21T10:43:00Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2015 | |
| dc.description | 145p.; 30cm; +(CD-Rom) | |
| dc.description.abstract | This thesis studied the themes of power, punishment and docile bodies in Milos Forman’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Stuart Rosenberg’s Brubaker (1980) from a Foucauldian approach. Looking at these movies as countercultural artistic works that Hollywood released to dramatize a very remarkable period in the American history known basically for its political instability both at the national and the international levels, this thesis analyzed the unjust doctor/ patient power relations inside Oregon Psychiatric Hospital as well as the unfair and corrupt trusties/prisoners relation at Wakefield State Penitentiary. It explained how these oppressive relations are tantamount to the relationship between Americans and their government during a time period marked by the government’s strong and effective grip on people and society. It also demonstrated how other strategies like discipline, surveillance and observation are implemented inside institutions, namely prison and hospital, to create a panoptican climate through which both patients and prisoners are, ultimately, transformed into docile conforming bodies. In short, I have explained the symbolic clash that appears in the two movies between freethinking and its ability to reform and question the established order, and the adjusted and controlled life, which is suggestive of an existing clash between two discourses in America. A rather traditional, conservative and pro-government discourse calling Americans for conformity, and complete allegiance to the government on one hand, and an anti-government discourse, which, on the other hand, denounced blind conformism and asked for radical reforms and improvements in the American society. Leaning on Michel Foucault’s theoretical perspectives about institutions of punishment, confinement and imprisonment, this work, in its four chapters, has critically analyzed One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Brubaker. It uncovered thereby the two movies’ ideological and artistic bearings to history by drawing attention to the dramatization of some challenging countercultural ideas and radical movements in the history of the United States in particular and human civilization in general | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Cultural Studies | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://dspace.ummto.dz/handle/ummto/29597 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Université Mouloud Mammeri Tizi-Ouzou | |
| dc.subject | A Foucauldian Analysis | |
| dc.subject | Punishment | |
| dc.subject | Power | |
| dc.subject | Docile Bodies | |
| dc.subject | Stuart Rosenberg | |
| dc.title | A Foucauldian Analysis of Power , Punishment and Docile Bodies in Milos Forman’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and Stuart Rosenberg’s Brubaker (1980) | |
| dc.type | Thesis |