A disgusting film

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2009)

Though MASH has many gory scenes, its values are what make this film really horrifying. Primarily for the crime of being religious, Frank Burns is humiliated and then provoked into hitting Hawkeye for which he is unjustly hauled off by the MPs. Never mind that Hawkeye is guilty of the same hypocrisy as Frank, or that when Trapper punches Frank, his punishment is no more than having his promotion delayed a week.
Even more appalling is the deliberate humiliation of Margaret by exposing her to the entire camp while in shower -- all to settle a bet about the colour of her pubic hair. When Margaret begs the Colonel to intervene, he suggests she resigns.
When a colleague believes he is gay, he is made a source of ridicule until he is cured of what the film sees as a psychological illness. The cure? Hawkeye railroads a nurse into sleeping with him.
Hawkeye and Trapper use every trick of intimidation, especially threats of violence (as when they frighten an African American nurse away from her post) to pursue their empty hedonistic whims -- and we are somehow meant to think it is all charming.