Gender Roles Defining Mental Illness in the movie Frances (1982): A Review

Arpita Ghosh

              Over the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the healthcare system was changing, especially for women in the United States (Reed,1992).  Standards of ‘health’ and ‘normality’ depended not just on the social and historical context in which individuals lived, but also on their gender. This blogpost aims to analyze the movie, ‘Frances’ (1982) directed by Graeme Clifford, which portrays the life of Frances Farmer, a Hollywood actress in the 1940s, shedding light on how mental illness was historically defined, inhumanely ‘cured’ and used as a tool to suppress women who dared to be different.
    The movie begins with 16-year-old Frances writing an essay about her disbelief in God. Her ‘anti-deity’ essay won her an award but gave rise to controversial debates against her. She began her acting career in Seattle and soon got an opportunity to learn theatre in Moscow. Her mother, opposed to Communist parties, was completely unsupportive of her going there. Frances’ decision to go to Moscow gave rise to a national uproar because society believed that she had made a ‘politically incorrect’ choice. Frances was therefore considered to be a ‘societal misfit’, for being a non-conformist and a ‘non-ideal’ woman (Reel, 1992).
    Frances demonstrated ‘masculine’ behavior in a society that ascribed those characteristics to an ‘unhealthy’ or a ‘sick’ woman (Reel, 1992). Diagnosis of mental illness in her time was done from an androcentric perspective. Research done by Broverman et al. (1972) showed the existence of the stereotypical definition of ‘healthy’ men and ‘healthy’ women. Mental health clinicians defined ‘healthy men’ as being independent, rational, and ambitious, while, ‘healthy’ women were defined as being submissive, emotional, and dependent (Broverman et al., 1972). The movie demonstrates this by highlighting the agency of societal control and normative gender roles in defining mental illness and determining its treatment.

     The mental healthcare system of Frances’ time was used as a powerful weapon to oppress women deviating from socio-cultural norms. The movie shows that after failed relationships, and societal rejection, Frances engages in self-destructive behavior, which leads to her eventual institutionalization. There was a scene where Frances physically injured her hairdresser in the heat of an argument. This led to several legal procedures, and her being perceived as a ‘mad woman’. Her mother, frustrated with her unacceptable behavior, forcefully admitted her to mental-asylums. Such forceful admission of women, by their family members, stripping them off their power, was common in the 19^th century (Sigurðardóttir, 2013). Admission to some asylums did not require proof of their mental instability. Evidence suggests that women were often admitted for questionable reasons like the use of abusive language  (Sigurðardóttir, 2013).

              Female assertiveness was viewed as ‘madness’ in the 19^th century. New diagnoses attributed especially to women were established at that time, the most common one being hysteria (Sigurðardóttir, 2013) Independent and opinionated women like Frances were diagnosed with hysteria as it served as “…a dramatic medical metaphor for everything that men found mysterious and unmanageable in the opposite sex.” (Micale, 1989). Women who tried to express their opinions received opposition from “medical institutions that specialized in nervous and mental illness.” (Sigurðardóttir, 2013).
    The movie shows the horrific picture of asylums that prevailed historically. Psychiatric institutions of the nineteenth century were male-dominated, and patients were treated cruelly (Sigurðardóttir, 2013). There are several scenes in which male attendants use physical restraint on Frances during her ‘treatment’. During the 1930s and 1940s experimentalizing on patients in the asylums was prevalent (Loukides, 1996). It was during this time that Frances was repeatedly institutionalized. She was the victim of the inhumane treatment in the asylums starting from insulin shock therapy, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and cold water baths. These treatments were thought of as ‘remedies’ to transform her into a ‘healthy’ woman (Reed, 1992). There were many absurd treatments for hysteria used in the mid-19^th century, like the recommendation to keep the patient away from their family, use of drugs like opiates, and bloodletting (Brousslle, 2014). The movie also shows Frances being raped in the asylum, several times by inmates, attendants, and soldiers of a nearby army base. Although graphic, these scenes disclose the truth about the sexual assaults that took place in asylums then and continue to take place today (Rodgers, 2014).
    The movie portrayed Frances undergoing transorbital lobotomy, which “involved the manipulation of a pointed instrument resembling an ice pick driven with a mallet through the thin bony wall of the eye socket and into the prefrontal brain” (APA, 2020). The surgeon in the movie explained how it cured mental illnesses by leading to loss of creativity and flattening of emotions. At the end of the movie, Frances appears in a television show looking not like herself—detached and subdued. The movie perhaps tried to show how the surgery ‘cured’ her by ‘restoring her lost femininity’ (Reed, 1992). This psychosurgery was initiated in 1946 by Walter Freeman to cure several mental illnesses (BBC, 2021).  He claimed this surgery to have a success rate of 85% when in reality, only one-third of the patients showed improvement (BBC, 2021).
    This movie educates its audience about the dynamic interplay of gender roles in the diagnosis and treatment of disorders in the 19^th century. It showed the terrifying environment of asylums along with how patients were treated there. Current stigmas associated with ECT, lobotomies, and asylums can only be understood after one is aware of their historical context. The lobotomy scene can encourage further research in this area since most individuals have an inadequate understanding of its effectiveness, and legal concerns (Gostin, 1980).
    Knowing the historical context of the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness is essential to help viewers detect flaws in the current healthcare system and take ethical actions. The conduction of ECT and lobotomy may seem to be misrepresented today, but during Frances’ time, they were conducted in the way the movie has shown. Through the life story of Frances Farmer, this movie did a commendable job of presenting the audience with a holistic idea of how mental illness was previously defined and treated.
 
                                                                         References

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Inge K. Broverman; Susan Raymond Vogel; Donald M. Broverman; Frank E. Clarkson; Paul  S. Rosenkrantz (1972). Sex-Role Stereotypes: A Current Appraisal. , 28(2), 59–78. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1972.tb00018.x 

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