"If my dog had your face, I'd shave his butt and teach him to walk backwards."
- Corporal Klinger to Sergeant Zale, in what I would cite as the apex of American television.
I was a big fan of the TV series "M*A*S*H" when it first aired in 1972. It was witty, clever, insightful, sad, funny, poignant, uplifting — and flat-out silly — all rolled into one.
When VCRs came out, I collected the entire series on tape. I had a couple of reference books that included pics and info about every episode. I wouldn't have called myself an 'expert' on the subject, but I knew a few things.
Then thirty years passed.
One day, a while back, I read the oddest thing. I was just surfing around the Web, going from link to link, and suddenly blundered my way across an article in the L.A. Times that was talking about the MASH movie and TV series. It then said this:
...in the process surely raising no expectations that its Korean War vintage Mobile Army Surgical Hospital unit was anything beyond dark farce and a hooded metaphor for the Vietnam War.
Now, this is the liberal L.A. Times, remember, so it's no surprise that some liberal writer would try to connect the Vietnam War with the Korean War somehow. According to the writer, the show was all just a "hooded metaphor" for the ugliness of the war being fought at the time in Vietnam.
Still, I thought it intriguing. Was he right? I was, admittedly, politically naive back in those days, and a few analogies and allusions certainly might have slipped by me.
I realized there was only one thing to do.
Watch the movie and all 251 episodes and decide for myself.
Needless to say, it was a blast. I hadn't watched an entire episode in years, and suddenly I was watching about four a night, usually in the late hours. You develop a real feel for the pace; almost an intimacy with a show when you become so immersed in it. As they say, you almost feel like you're there. When Henry Blake died, it was almost as much of a blow as when it happened the first time. There's no question I wouldn't have felt near the emotion if I'd just happened to drift across that particular rerun on TV.
Oh, and the "hooded metaphor"?
Well, brace yourselves, but not only wasn't there anything that could even
remotely be tied to the Vietnam War, but the series, itself, wasn't "anti-war" in the slightest.
It was, in fact, the height of patriotism. People groping for a connection to the Vietnam War will remember Hawkeye as some kind of anti-war hero, but that's far from the truth. What he, and the other doctors, incessantly complained about, over and over and over again, wasn't the war,
per se, but:
1. Boredom
2. Being "up to my ankles in blood"
Now, to take the second complaint first, I think we can safely say that this is something of a universal feeling. Whether you're a MASH surgeon, a Boston General surgeon, or some guy at the local slaughterhouse, I think we can all agree that "being up to my ankles in blood" doesn't sound like it'd be very much fun.
As far as the boredom goes, well, that's war, fellas. Soldiers have been complaining about boredom since the formation of the first ragged cave man army.
The only episode during the 11-year run that could be viewed as "anti-war" at all was the one when Hawkeye drove to the peace talks and made a big speech in front of the delegates. But it wasn't the concept of
war that got him so motivated, it was just his frustration with how slowly the peace talks were going. Col. Potter had just told him that they'd been meeting for two months and had finally decided upon the floral arrangement for the table.
No one (except gung-ho Frank) ever made any serious pretense about
not wanting the war to end — all soldiers want war to end. And they wanted it to end quickly — as all soldiers do. But there was never the slightest hint from the writers that our presence in Korea was 'immoral' in any way, as the liberal writer of the
Times article was so desirous to believe.
As an example of the patriotic theme running throughout the show, here's a scene from Season 10, Episode 2, "Identity Crisis". A G.I. gets a 'Dear John' letter from his girlfriend back home. She's decided to break off their engagement and marry the son of the local rich businessman. Hawk and Margaret are sitting at his bedside when he reads it.
Hawkeye: Well, isn't she one for the money.
Margaret: She's a scheming little social-climber.
G.I.: Ya can't really blame her. I am a nobody.
Margaret: That little hussy's the nobody. You're a brave young man fighting for your country.
This theme ran consistently throughout all eleven seasons.
Hooded metaphor, indeed.
Various thoughts about the series:
— Despite the vast amount of people who directed over the years and the number of writers who were used, there was a remarkable cohesiveness that ran throughout all eleven seasons. I kept expecting the jokes to wind down; for the show to take on more 'serious' issues (read: practicing the liberal Hollywood social agenda), but it never did. To draw a likeness to an actor staying 'in character', the show stayed 'in war' from beginning to end. They never forgot where they were, and that their primary mission was saving lives, not preaching liberal dogma like the rest of Hollywood.
— They also did an exceptional job replacing characters. None of the main characters left 'normally'; that is, just waved goodbye and took off in a chopper. They either left the viewers quickly (Blake, Trapper), or slowly, over two or three episodes (Frank, Radar). There was never a feeling of 'discontinuity'. Either you were shocked by their sudden departure, or weaned away from the old character gradually.
— When it comes to casting, it was truly inspired to bring in a doctor who could put the screws to Hawkeye as Major Winchester did. It was the character we all wanted — someone to give Hawk a run for his money — we just didn't know it.
— That's not to discredit their choice of B.J. to replace Trapper John. It, too, was inspired, in that all Hawkeye had to do was keep acting normally and B.J.'s calm, family-man presence made Hawk's actions all the more bizarre and funny in comparison.
— One thing the writers have to be given credit for is that they never stooped to sexual or scatological humor. Despite a world of sexual innuendo at their disposal, they consistently veered away from it. There was a lot of suggestive leering on Hawkeye's part with the nurses and a handful of semi-sexual things said about Margaret ("busty blonde officer", e.g.), but it was always done in a public setting in an over-the-top manner.
— One of the interesting little background stories that ran throughout the whole series was Hawk smelling each bite of food before putting it in his mouth. I believe Alan Alda does this in real life, and because they're actually eating food in many of the scenes, he was allowed to incorporate it into his Hawkeye character just so the scenes would feel natural to him as they were filming. Nor was it any 'secret' on the show, in the sense that the B.J. character mentioned it at least once.
The reason I say he does it in real life is because there were two or three scenes over the 11 years where something exciting (and eminently distracting) was going on, and right as Hawk was (A) yelling at someone, (B) being yelled at, (C) grimacing in pain, (D) dodging artillery shells going off outside the mess tent, or (E) all of the above... he'd still manage to take a quick whiff of the bite before tossing it in his mouth. From those scenes, I'd have to say it was an unconscious gesture on Alda's part.
— And here's something to ponder: Of all of the long TV series that have been filmed over the years, how many times has the cast been asked to tear down the final set? Yet, in what could only be described as a fleeting stroke of brilliance, the script for the last show involved a 'bug-out' — with all of the actors running around tearing down the set!
Pretty clever of Management, I must say, although I imagine the local Stage Hands Union was none the too pleased.
To sum up, if you ever hear or read somebody making a comparison between MASH and the Vietnam War, tell 'em to blow it out their asterisk. Ask them if they've actually watched any of the episodes — or are they just "going by their gut feeling" and what other liberal writers have said?
Have they tasted the pudding for themselves?
Hooded metaphor, indeed.
