Isolation, anxiety, insomnia, nervous breakdowns, emotional outbursts, obsessiveness, dependency, and fear are some of the symptoms a victim of Gaslight suffers every time their aggressor pushes them one step further into madness. This psychological torture is presented as a gripping story in a horror film that ends up stripping a person from absolutely everything.
Gaslight squeezes the life out f the victim leaving them exhausted, empty, and confused. In the middle of this ambiguity, the victim believes they are unable to survive without the other, being perched on the edge of madness. Gaslight consists of making someone doubt their senses, reasoning, and even the reality of their actions. So, the victim of this psychological abuse becomes totally dependent on their partner, the same person who claims ownership of the prey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPcYkxmhGs0
Besides being a form of slavery, Gaslight is also the title of a classic movie that was the first to portray the impact of this psychological manipulation. Gaslight dissolves the will power of the victim through careful seduction, isolation, lies, invalidation, and abuse. Ultimately, the victim comes to admire and rely entirely on their executioner.
“Gaslight is a classic from the silver screen and a bold representation of gender violence.”
This macabre game between the prey and the hunter begins by isolating the intended quarry away from those who would seek to help them. The mastermind induces the other person into an unreal world, and this is precisely how Charles Boyer ends up making Ingrid Bergman crazy in George Cukor’s Gaslight.
Both actors play an American marriage that just moved in her aunt’s house who recently passed away. This is the perfect stage for Gregory, Paula’s husband, to make her believe she is completely unhinged. From the moment they arrive to the mansion, strange events begin to strip away Paula’s peace of mind.
Precisely this is how the abusive technique that sociopaths and narcissists employ to sow doubt in the sanity of the prey and question their identity. Gaslighting is a form of psychological violence that brainwashes the mind by feeding the person incomplete or false information. This will make the victim doubt their memory, perception, and sanity; all of these elements are observed in Cukor’s film.
“A Gaslight victim not only loses sense of reality, but also forgets their own identity.”
This thriller and drama is a window into a confusing world that shows how gender violence is a vicious circle that is very hard to escape from. These types of mental tortures disorientate the victim, leading them far away from reality so they are lost in the fog of lies of the sadistic torturer. Relying on the tormentor is the only viable escape in the befuddled mind of the prey.
The term appears extensively in clinical psychiatric literature, but has been used colloquially since 1970. Manipulating the perception of others is employed by people with psychopathic or narcissist traits; it is a form of abuse that permanently erodes the sense of identity of the partner, just as it happens with Paula and Gregory in the film, whose relationship starts to function as that of a master and slave.
This 1944 film classic showed the effects of this torture and highlighted the chauvinistic conduct of the main character. It was so visually striking to the audiences that for decades other suspense films have emerged as its sequel.
These are other films in which the psychological torture ended up devouring the sanity of the victim:
Crimson Peak (2015) – Guillermo del Toro
Crimson Peak is Guillermo del Toro’s most recent film, which depicts this gaslight torture through ghostly apparitions. The manipulation of small details and the tiny doses of poison Edith Cushing ingests lead her to the very fringes of her sanity, and for a moment she is unable to distinguish reality from fiction.
Alice in Marialand (2014) – Jesús Magaña
Alice in Marialand is an example of the mental lagoons imposed or invented by the aggressor, which serve as a smokescreen that clouds the mental stability of the victim. Alicia, the victim of gaslighting in this Mexican film, completely loses the plot to such an extent that she adopts another identity: Maria.
All Good Things (2010) – Andrew Jarecki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7_VwoZKPRM
This film starring Ryan Gosling and Kristen Dunst is inspired by the life of Robert Durst, who for years was under investigation for the disappearance of his wife. All Good Things tells the story of a man who psychologically and physically abuses his wife and is later blamed for her murder. Gaslight becomes the main argument for Gosling’s character to blame his wife for her confusion and to justify his abusive behavior.
There is a lot of material you can explore that deals with the gaslighting technique, and the world of cinema has taken full advantage by offering different perspectives so we can understand the symptoms. No matter how inoffensive it may seem, it can be a dangerous manipulation that many confuse with love. Changing the dates of events, confusing your partner, pretending you don’t understand what the other is saying, calling their opinions invalid, or accusing them without motive are all tiny elements that conform the terrifying gaslight torture.
