MAS*H and the Military Brat

Last updated on: January 22, 2014 at 12:00 pm by Guest Contributor

M*A*S*H and the Military Brat 2014-01-22T11:00:59-07:00 Guest Contributor

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Gina Dalfonzo

One of my very earliest memories is hearing the haunting, minor-key theme song from M*A*S*H playing on our TV. When I heard it, I’d head for the family room and plop down with my parents to watch the show. In my childhood, of course, there was a lot that went right over my head—which, given the nature of some of the humor, was a good thing. Nonetheless, I grew up on Hawkeye and Hot Lips and Klinger and Radar (who’s still my favorite), their camouflage-clad figures as familiar to me as my own room and toys.

When I got a little older, I started to figure out that there was something of a gap between the way my family saw M*A*S*H and the way M*A*S*H saw itself. I don’t remember the first time I heard the term “anti-war,” or heard the show described as an anti-war show, but I do remember that it threw me for a loop.

Anti-war? I didn’t get it. My dad was a career Army officer who’d served two tours in Vietnam, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1988 after 22 years in the service. The military was an ever-present force in our lives, the source of our livelihood, the omnipotent entity that dictated where Dad worked and where we lived and how long we got to live there.

To this military brat, “anti-war” made about as much sense as “pro-oxygen.” War wasn’t something that you could be pro or anti—or if you could be, it wasn’t like it mattered. It was just something that happened sometimes—something horrible but inevitable—that had to be dealt with, by people like my dad.

When my family watched M*A*S*H together, it was in the same way that a cubicle worker’s family might watch The Office. Those people, stuck in that grim place, just trying to do their jobs, fighting boredom and terror and despair with everything from jokes to tantrums to parading naked through the mess tent—they were people Dad might have known. They made us laugh and grieve, and gave us years of inside jokes and quotes, because they were so real. To this day, you might hear me say “Horse hockey!” when provoked, or catch Dad and me discussing the feasibility of mailing a Jeep piece by piece.

Those people made the Army experience come alive, in all its horror and craziness and camaraderie. But how could they make it so real, make us care so much, if they were against it all?

No, I didn’t get it.

All these years later, I understand the issues and the various perspectives a little better than I did. I understand that M*A*S*H’s creative team was trying to make a statement about how truly awful war can be, about how senseless and pointless it can all feel to the ordinary people caught up in it. (Nowadays, the thing I don’t understand is how Korean War doctors and nurses got away with 1970s haircuts.)

Yet I still tend to cast a skeptical eye on any actor or writer or director who claims his or her film is “anti-war.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they’re being deliberately dishonest. I think they think they’re anti-war. But I’m not sure they—or anyone—knows what that actually means. Because, as simplistically as my mind worked in my childhood, I think I somehow managed to hit on something true: the issues surrounding war are far too complex to be summed in terms like “pro” and “anti.”

Take any film that’s been called anti-war—say, The Bridge on the River Kwai. What exactly is it “anti”? The cause? No, the film makes it pretty clear that those involved believed in what the British and Americans were fighting for in World War II. The troops? Hardly. The most radical filmmaker today, much less David Lean in 1957, would scarcely dare to make a movie that condemned those who put their lives on the line in battle. The military leaders? I don’t think so—Alec Guinness’s Col. Nicholson is a tragic fallen hero, not a villain. Is it anti-violence? Not even that—the blowing up of the bridge is portrayed as a necessary and even a good thing, notwithstanding Jack Hawkins’s famous final cry of “Madness!”

I wouldn’t go so far as to say, with The Atlantic’s Calum Marsh, that “every war movie is a pro-war movie.” I’m just saying that, when you really try to define it, you soon find that “anti-war” is a term that’s very hard to pin down. Though there’s a lot that’s problematic about his article, Marsh does have a point when he writes, “In fact, it isn’t clear what a thoroughly, effectively anti-war film would look like. Even those that want to be fall short.”

Why? Because a story about war is a story about people. And people in any setting—violent or peaceful—fall into all sorts of categories and have all sorts of goals, dreams, motivations, and desires, many of them good and worthy ones.

Ironically, it was “anti-war” M*A*S*H that helped teach me that. Even in its final season, which played like one long sermon by the Rev. Alan Alda on the subject of “War Is Evil,” it was never quite as straightforward and simple as all that. Just by telling its story of brave people in a terrible place with integrity and heart, it transcended propaganda, and became more realistic and memorable than any merely “anti-war” show could hope to be.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog.

photo credit: Ochre Jelly via photopin cc

Of the Moment

Television

Previous Post

January 22, 2014

Flowers in the Attic and the Allure of the Dark

Next Post

January 23, 2014 Kyrie Irving as Uncle Drew, Grant Hill as Uncle Tom: The Problematic Myth of the "Authentic" Black Experience

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Asides Elsewhere Featured Film Games General Culture Headline Literature Music Of the Moment Podcast Politics RetroPost Sports Technology Television Uncategorized Viral

Select a Month February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz