The mental health related show I will be using during week 12 is 2020’s Ratchet starring Sarah Paulson and created by Ryan Murphy. This week’s reading of Nellie Bly’s “Ten Days in a Mad-House” reminded be of another show starring and created by Paulson and Murphy, American Horror Story: Asylum. Though heavily stylized and exaggerated, Paulson plays reporter Lana Winters who, like Bly, voluntarily commits herself for insanity to get the story behind the asylum walls. Just as Bly, Paulson begins to learn the true horrors of the asylum through her own first-hand accounts of abuse. Both stories highlight the amount of sane people present with in the asylum and the cruelty and borderline psychopathy of the staff.
