M*I*S*H M*O*S*H

M*A*S*H (1970)
dir: Robert Altman

M*I*S*H M*O*S*H
MAD #138, October 1970
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Angelo Torres

The movie and TV show are two different entities and as such I will be posting them separately. Besides that the TV show, because it was on for 11 years, was parodied at least twice by all four of the major humor magazines, enough times to devote four days to parodies of it. Consider this to be M*A*S*H week.

M*A*S*H, short for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, has to be one of the most divisive movies along gender and generational lines. The movie, about three surgeons making the most of having to go through the Korean War doesn't age well, to stay the least. Originally seen as something that brought a needed anti-establishment mood into long-repressed cinema, looking at it now it seems more about male privilege. Burns is driven crazy because he is an incompetent doctor and religious zealot, Houlihan is driven crazy because she is a woman. Unlike Animal House, in which you really aren't supposed to cheer for anyone (despite the fact that 90% wrongly do), this expects you to. That's my two cents worth, anyway.

The movie begins with Hawkeye (Donald Sutherland) and Duke (Tom Skerritt) first arriving and meeting. Duke thinks Hawkeye is his driver but they end up getting to their destination by stealing the President's Jeep. M*A*S*H was supposed to be about the war in Korea but was in name only. It was more a commentary about Vietnam disguised as Korea to not seem controversial.

The commanding officer is Colonel Henry Blake (Roger Bowen). The third surgeon Hawkeye and Duke meet is Trapper John (Elliott Gould), who is more unconventional than them.

Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) is a strict rigid displinarian who ends up killing a patient when he has an orderly do a job a nurse is supposed to do, so Trapper John punches him. All the soldiers commit adultery because they are overseas, and when Burns has an affair with Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan (Sally Kellerman), their affair is spied on and broadcast throughout the camp, with equipment set up by Radar O'Reilly (Gary Burghoff). Word gets around that dentist “Painless” Waldoski (John Schuck) is impotent and contemplating suicide because of that.

They all arrange a ceremony making him think he's committing suicide but having him lay with one of the nurses, Lt. Dish (Jo Ann Pflug), makes him forget his problem in the morning. Someone sings “Suicide Is Painless” which becomes the theme of the TV show. The misogyny comes in when they all destroy the shower Houlihan is using to find if she is a natural redhead.

The M*A*S*H unit plays a football game against another army unit and have “Spearchucker” Jones (Fred Williamson, another reason this film doesn't age well) as their ringer. In this, “Red” Grange, Joe Namath, and O.J. Simpson are the other team's ringers. In the last panel are anti-Vietnam activists The Chicago 7.