Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in 1944 movie "Gaslight"
By Nancy Thorner -
Are Americans being "gaslighted" when told that the presidential election was on the up and up, that to question the results means you’re a Fascist who should lose your job if you happen to have one or if you happen to have one or be knocked off social media because you’re a threat to democracy?
The term "gaslighting" originates in the systematic psychological manipulation of a woman by her husband in Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play Gas Light and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944.
In the story, the husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements in their environment and insisting that she is mistaken, misremembering things, or delusional when she points out these changes. The play’s title alludes to how the abusive husband slowly dims the gaslights in their home each evening while pretending nothing has changed to make his wife doubt her own perceptions. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm that the lights are dimmer, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and that she must be going insane.