Writes Ellen Finnigan:
11:56 am on July 22, 2015I watched the film Changeling (2008) last night starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. It’s directed by Clint Eastwood and based on a true story.
It tells the story of Christine Collins, a single mom whose son goes missing in Los Angeles in the 1920s. At the time, the police department is reviled for its violence, corruption and what appears to be their main priority of self-protection. Desperate for some positive PR, the cops find a random boy who fits the description of Collins’ son, foist him into her arms, and tell her, and the whole city, that they’ve found the boy! When Collins insists that the boy isn’t her son, they basically tell her, “Yes, he is. Go home and shut up.”
She doesn’t. With the help of a local radio personality, she goes to the press. The cops are pissed. So the cops deem her “crazy,” you know, delusional and disobedient, a real agitator, kidnap her, and throw in her in the insane asylum! When she continues to deny that the boy is her son, they start giving her “meds” and threaten other punitive “therapy.”
A great film about the dangers of psychiatric “diagnosis” as a political weapon.
Inmate: “You should eat. Eating is normal. You gotta do everything you can to look normal. Only chance you got…Finish it all. I know it’s hard but you gotta try…I heard them talking. You’re here on Code 12? Police action? The doctors, the staff, they figure that if the police brought you here there must be a good reason for it.”
Collins: “There isn’t a good reason for it. I’m perfectly sane, and I will explain that to them.”
Inmate: “How? The more you try to act sane, the crazier you start to look. You smile too much you’re delusional or you’re stifling hysteria. If you don’t smile, you’re depressed. If you remain neutral, you’re emotionally withdrawn, potentially catatonic.”
Collins: “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Inmate: “Yeah, I have. Don’t you get it? You’re a Code 12, so am I. We’re here for the exact same reasons. We both pissed off the cops. Now, you see that lady there? She was married to a cop, kept beating her up. When she tried to tell somebody about it, he brought her here. That one there? Police beat the crap out of her brother, broke both his arms. When she tried to tell the papers…”
Collins: “And you?”
Inmate: “I, hm. Work nights. I …work. Nights. This one client kept hitting me and he wouldn’t stop, so I filed a complaint and it turns out he was a cop. Next thing I know, I’m here.”
Collins: “But they…they can’t do that.”
Inmate: “Are you kidding? Everybody knows women are fragile. They’re all emotions, nothing going on upstairs. Every once in a while they say something that’s a little inconvenient. They just go f*cking nuts. Pardon my French. If we’re insane, no one has to listen to us. I mean who are you going to believe, some crazy woman trying to destroy the integrity of the force, or a police officer? Then once they get us in here we either shut up and learn to behave or we don’t go home.”
