Pop Film Narrative: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Holding in mind Bertrand Russell's use of Rebel Without a Cause as metaphor for brinksmanship in the Cold War, I have chosen the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest  (adapted from Ken Kensey's novel) as a popular narrative to think about the policy formation surrounding FL S.B. 6, in particular, and the proliferation of high-stakes standardized testing, in general.

Problem/Disturbance: R. P. McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson) upsets the routine of the ward immediately.  Some of the most memorable examples:

• He bring the patients into the world and the world into the ward (hijacks the ward bus and takes the patients deep sea fishing, brings girls and alcohol into the ward)
• He gets Chief Bromdem to talk (all the staff and patients believe the Chief to be deaf and dumb) and proposes a plan to escape from the ward
• He  (organizes a patient basketball team and they beat staff team, invades nurse station, almost chokes Nurse Ratched to death, etc.) 

disturbance

Solution: After individual & group therapy and electro-shock treatment have clearly failed to discipline McMurphy, the ward staff decides to give him a lobotomy, effectively turning him into one of the "vegetables."

lobotomy