Misogynist, not pacifist

Rating: 1/10 (18 June 2001)

I'd always heard that MASH was a great anti-war film. So I was shocked to find out, when I saw it, that it was really much more interested in making fun of the female characters than in saying anything about war. Frat boys around the country will recognize their own immaturity when Hawkeye plants a microphone in Houlihan's tent to broadcast her cries when she has sex with Burns. In probably the most blatantly sexist bit of dialogue I've ever heard, Trapper John, when he's flown to another unit to help out, demands a steak and "a nurse who won't get her tits in my way!", to which an inexplicably unoffended nurse replies, "How do you want your steak cooked?" Seemingly half the film is taken up by a dull football game in which the medics drug and otherwise cheat their opponents, while Houlihan is yet again held up as an object of ridicule for her foolish ignorance of the rules of the game. I can't figure out why everyone thinks this dopey "comedy" was such a noble commentary on the Vietnam war.