MASH

Viewers familiar with director Robert Altman's films which feature women in strong roles will be taken aback by 1970's MASH for a variety of reasons.   As the '70s wore on, Altman worked from more enlightened screenplays and lent a steadier, more graceful hand to his female actors, allowing them to be independent and complicated.  In this picture, they are either faithless, rigidly bureaucratic, slutty, or ditzy.  But surely this is part of the satire of Ring Lardner, Jr.'s adaptation of Richard Hooker's novel? Another element of how the insanity of war leads people to act badly, or at least, crazily?  Regardless of gender?

No, people act like this without a war.  "Boys will be boys", as they always say.   Korean War Army surgeons Hawkeye Pierce (Donald Sutherland), Trapper John (Elliott Gould), and Duke Forrest (Tom Skerritt) are brilliant at their jobs but unrepentant womanizers, pure and simple.  We can look at their non-stop pranks differently, finding some almost justifiable reason.  Why they select the targets they do.  Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) espouses Christian devotion yet fornicates with Maj. Margaret Houlihan, aka "Hot Lips" (Sally Kellerman), who is a rulebook phony, in their eyes.  So when our boys sneak a mic into their tent during their escapades, for the entire camp to hear, we understand why.  Or when they sedate a hospital commander and photograph him in bed with a prostitute, it's because he refused to allow them to operate on an infant.  A strange brand of nobility?

MASH is out to lampoon the Establishment and all it represents.  Rules are made to be broken.  Also to be mocked, along with religious faith.  But perhaps Altman, who encouraged the cast to improvise liberally, sees it all as insincere and deserving of ridicule, meanwhile believing he is providing some sort of public service for the betterment of mankind?   Maybe that's why the tagline reads "M*A*S*H gives a D*A*M*N."  A belief that through all the misogyny, blasphemy, sacrilege, and homophobia,  some sort of morality is being upheld.  Right.

MASH may give a damn, but it seems like Altman really doesn't, at least in any traditional narrative sense (which of course makes him the ideal overseer for this material).  I cite the odd character arc of Hot Lips, who is primed to be a true force in this movie and is reduced to a babbling idiot by that ridiculously lengthy climatic football game, which I also cite (though it was in Hooker's book).  Women are not portrayed favorably at all in this movie, which is a thinly veiled swipe on the Vietnam conflict.  The barbs at the Powers That Be are high minded yet presented in the most juvenile of fashions.  Part of the point, I'm sure.  MASH is as sharp as ever, but one must look beyond its odd predilections for full appreciation. 

R.I.P.  Donald.