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(Deep Cuts) Who Believes the Patient? GOTHIKA and the Horror of Medical Dismissal

By. Davalyn Baker

 

In 2003, Halle Berry starred in the psychological horror film Gothika. Berry stars as Dr. Miranda Grey, a psychiatrist at the women’s ward of a penitentiary. After having a rough session with her patient, Chloe Sava (Penelope Cruz), Miranda speaks with her husband, Dr. Doug Grey (Charles S. Dutton), who assures her that eventually, Chloe will come around. Miranda’s biggest flaw is that she struggles to actively listen to Chloe discuss her problems, because she’s so centered on immediately finding a solution, wanting to simply fix Chloe and her mental struggles.

This is one of the best things about the movie, but it gets buried under the ghost story/serial killer plot line. At least one in three women feel dismissed or unheard by their medical health professionals. Watching this older, and as a woman who has often felt ignored when expressing my health issues to doctors and other various health professionals, I watched this movie from a different lens.

Like GOTHIKA, many overlooked studio horror films have been overshadowed by their supernatural trappings. Pleatherface explores another misunderstood corner of 2000s horror in his essay on Dark Castle's House on Haunted Hill and Thir13en Ghosts, arguing that both remakes deserve a second look.

In between Miranda before she becomes a patient and after she becomes a patient, we learn that she is co-dependent upon her husband, who seems caring towards her despite being arrogant. Their relationship is seemingly healthy, but it seems that Miranda might be a bit lonely. In comes Dr. Pete Graham (Robert Downey Jr.), a close friend of Miranda and Doug, who does not hide that he is in love with Miranda. Despite Miranda affirming to Pete that there is nothing there, he ignores this, still trying to be in her proximity, despite her marriage. There may be something there, sure, but Miranda is married, and Pete struggles to respect that boundary. On the way home, Miranda crosses the path of Sheriff Bob Ryan (John Carroll Lynch), Doug’s best friend. He warns her about a sinkhole ahead, and she takes another route. Upon taking this different route, Miranda sees a woman standing in the middle of the road, bruised and crying. She immediately goes to help the woman, and when the young woman touches her, something happens to Miranda where she blacks out and wakes up to find herself on the other side of the glass in the penitentiary. She learns from Pete and nurse Irene that she has been incarcerated for the murder of her husband, Doug. Miranda has no memory of this and spends the first half of her institutionalization trying to explain this to everyone that will listen.

Everyone who respected her before she became a patient is suddenly condescending or flat-out refuses to listen to her. As the phrase, “NOT ALONE,” follows Miranda through the film, she decides that she will have to take matters into her own hands to defend her case. Her relationship with Chloe improves after the women have a shared experience, and Miranda apologizes for not listening to Chloe about the abuse she suffered and is still suffering. Without judgment, Chloe immediately hugs Miranda, and they bond through this, with Chloe warning Miranda that she will be next. Miranda eventually learns that her husband was creating snuff films of him torturing, raping, and murdering various young women and girls throughout their small town. One of the women is the young woman that crossed paths with Miranda the night she murdered Doug, which also just happens to be the daughter of their colleague, Dr. Phil Parsons. The film ends up being wrapped nicely in a bow when Miranda discovers that NOT ALONE symbolizes Doug having help with his crimes in another co-dependent, slightly homoerotic relationship with bestie Sheriff Bob. Miranda must literally fight for her life to fend off Sheriff Bob, who makes threats of having more “fun” with her than Doug possibly did. Miranda’s a fighter though, and Sheriff Bob’s threats are empty when Miranda kills him with the help of Rachel Parsons’ unsettled spirit.

I think the plot of Gothika is amazing. This is a story about a woman who must overcome a patriarchal view of the female patients in this penitentiary, learning that sometimes the bad guys are the perceived good guys in many such cases. It’s no surprise that the movie was critically panned, despite its box office success. The script could be better, of course, but the film is not bad – not by any means. Halle does a great job of conveying her hurt and pain to the audience. The plot progressing into “Surprise! Your Husband is Terrible!” – territory is predictable, mainly because there was a huge resurgence of those films after the success of What Lies Beneath.

Dr. Miranda Grey had to literally be put into the shoes of women like her patient, Chloe, to understand the abuse that many women who are institutionalized suffer. If women who are considered sane aren’t having their concerns taken seriously by medical professionals, what happens to the women who aren’t considered sane? Penelope Cruz’s character, Chloe, is immediately seen as “hysterical” when she is forced to relive the trauma of being abused by her stepfather. She speaks of how she finally murdered him after she was tired of being physically assaulted. Instead of having conversations with her to help aid her through her trauma, Miranda complains to Doug about all the medicine she throws at this poor woman. Eventually, Chloe is released after discovering that her abuse is only being continued by Sheriff Bob, but it takes Miranda having to see it with her own eyes, and even then, no one is listening to Miranda because of the situation that leads to her being institutionalized. Miranda was a woman who was highly respected by her peers, and she had to fight like hell to be seen as an individual after being placed in the same place as her patient, Chloe. Pete, a man who admired her, still struggled to see her side of things or take her pleas seriously because now she’d been given the stamp of hysteria after one moment.

Men like Doug and Sheriff Bob take advantage of women like Chloe and Rachel Parsons, because they’ve already been diagnosed as difficult and hysterical, so who cares if they speak out against the horrors they’ve faced. Up until the latter half of the 20^th century, women were being institutionalized simply because they refused to meet the ideals placed upon them by the patriarchy. Now, couple that with women who do need help and showcase how they’re viewed in society. While Gothika is fictional, the real issue hidden under the layers of a supernatural horror film is a very true issue within our society. Women’s concerns in the medical field are still struggling to be taken seriously.

I am one of them.

GOTHIKA asks what happens when a woman can no longer convince others she's telling the truth. Hedda asks what happens when a woman refuses to live the life everyone expects of her. Read our review of Nia DaCosta's elegant and psychologically charged adaptation.