Culture

Netflix’s "Ratched" Reaches 48 Million Viewers in First Month


 

Ryan Murphy’s new lesbian thriller Ratched just made a huge global achievement.

Netflix announced Friday that the show’s first season has been streamed by 48 million viewers in 28 days, making it the platform’s most viewed debut of their original shows in 2020.

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Lead actress Sarah Paulson, who plays the titular character Nurse Ratched, shared the news on Twitter. “What absolutely mind blowing news to wake up to — I am so grateful to each and every one of you for your willingness to dive into the world of #Ratched, embracing Mildred, and making her yours,” Paulson wrote.

“So often the joy of making the thing is in the doing — and is one’s reward,” she continued, “but what a feeling to have the overflowing bounty of such a response. You have all made everyone in the #Ratched family burst with pride and joy.” She ended her post with a couple of heart emojis and a single peach emoji, as a nod to a moment in the show when the fruit serves as a symbol of doom.

The accomplishment is a huge win for Murphy and queer television at large, especially since Ratched is a rare drama that has lesbian lead characters who are actually played by out queer actresses. The first season sees Nurse Ratched, the villain from the classic film and novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, falling in love with press secretary Gwendolyn Briggs, who is played by Cynthia Nixon.

The show also tackles the topic of conversion therapy through the lens of horror. In them.’s September streaming guide, writer Michael Cuby calls Ratched a “spiritual successor to American Horror Story: Asylum” and notes that in the show, “several lesbian patients are subjected to lobotomies and locked into boiling hot bathtubs” to scrub them of their “impure thoughts.”

Ratched is among several of Murphy’s projects that came out this year, as part of his mega-deal with Netflix. Throughout 2020, the screenwriter and producer has also rolled out the drama series Hollywood and the film The Boys in the Band, a film adaption of the Broadway play of the same name. Murphy has also announced that Pose has resumed filming and that he has a new limited series about Jeffrey Dahmer called Monster in the works. His new star-studded film called The Prom is slated to arrive in November.

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