I was thinking of this from something a week or so back. Now, with Donald Sutherland's passing, it comes back to mind. Given the age of many, but not all, Lounge denizens, I'm curious to the exposure levels. So, as regards M*A*S*H*, a show that ran longer than the actual war, a movie that spawned a TV show, and a spinoff (possibly two?)
I don't think I ever saw the movie, at least, not entirely/ The show was part of "we are watching TV" time growing up, so I saw most of the eps. I wasn't aware, at that age, of much about the Korean war, but I think it shaped a lot of my sense of irony, humour, thoughts on war, etc. To my mind, it was a great show. A bit of TV that I don't think can be repeated.
...have you, did you, will you watch? I didn't do a poll, as I was hoping for more nuanced commentary vs me making limited poll choices.
-Have you seen the movie?
Yep.
-Have you watched all/some of the TV show?
I started binging the TV show in the wee hours of the morning lately. I'm midway through Season 2 now.
I doubt I've seen all of the episodes (syndicated tends to play episodes randomly), but I've seen most of it, I think.
-Original song with lyrics from the movie, or the acoustic intro for the TV show?
Absolutely.
♫Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
But I can take or leave it if I choose ♫
-Favorite character(s)?
Hawkeye. Made stronger because of the episode where he noped out on a racist lady. #2 is definitely Potter. #3 is Father Mulcahey. I used to be a fan of Radar O'Reilly as well, but he's got a surprising number of scenes where he's exhibiting stalker-ish behavior, peeping on the women.
-What about Trapper John, MD?
I didn't know that it had anything to do with MASH until years after it ended.
-Do you own physical media for any of the above?
Yes, I have a Bluetooth of the movie in the bookcase directly behind me, and I've owned other media of it over the years. Might have a complete set here somewhere...
I also used to own a half-dozen of the novelettes, but I lost track of those ~3 moves ago.
-Do you own any props?
Nope.
-Are you Radar's stunt-double?
-Or, Potter's horse?
-It wasn't a chicken, and none of us are crying now.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
One thing that really, REALLY aged poorly from that show is the black doc in season 1 being nicknamed "Spearchucker". That was.. Messed up.
That was deliberate. Spearchucker was a character in both the movie and the TV show, and his nickname was deliberately thumbing the nose at the racist nickname - Dr. Oliver Harmon Jones, the 4077th's top neurosurgeon, was called Spearchucker because he was an award-winning javelin thrower in college. The
truly racist part is that he was dropped unceremoniously and without any "goodbye" episode from the TV show because some shitstains of people insisted that it was historically inaccurate - that there hadn't been any black surgeons in the Korean War. It wasn't until several years later that they learned that this claim was utterly false, fabricated, and was just a pack of racists trying to kick out a popular (and obviously intelligent) member of the cast.
He was good. Never really developed his own identity, I felt, but rather was always second-fiddle to Hawkeye. That's why I liked B.J. much better.
(regarding Trapper John) Wayne Rogers left MASH after Season 3 for exactly that reason - he was sold the role as being part of a 2-man team of equal pranksters, and got written into being Hawkeye's sidekick instead of having his own spotlight every now and then. They learned from that, which is why BJ Hunicutt is often viewed as a better character than Trapper John.
Oh yeah, it has its place in an academic/cultural perspective. It's just not great entertainment anymore IMO (see also Revenge of the Nerds and Animal House).
And yet it actually respects things like consent far better than those two did. There are numerous examples of Hawkeye and the other men respecting the women's consent from the start. The pilot episode had "Lieutenant Dish," a woman who had been faithful to her boyfriend back home. And while Hawkeye
was trying to get into her pants (and was a little "sex pest pushy" about it), he still rigged the raffle so that Father Mulcahey would be going to Tokyo with her, rather than himself, implying that it was so that Lt. Dish could continue to honor her promises to her boyfriend.
While it's strongly implied that the men in the MASH units are always horny (up to and including Lt. Col. Blake), it's also strongly implied that the women aren't just sex toys for the men, they're making their own choices of who to sleep with (or not) on their own. And while Hawkeye and Trapper John often make ribald comments to them when things aren't serious, they also set that aside when surgery demands their full attention, and respect the nurses' competence in the process. There are sitcoms years or even
decades later that don't show the same level of respect.
Similarly, MASH has people of many skin tones in the show, and non-white characters are generally demonstrated as intelligent, thoughtful, and while they're always secondary characters or bit parts, they're given the respect of not being drop-in stereotypes.
