M.A.S.H: The Dramedy That Kept Me Sane

A close friend of mine shared a video by Ladyknightthebrave, where she had given a very in depth analysis of the TV series M.A.S.H, a show that both my friend and I adore. I will admit I disagreed vehemently on her own thoughts about the film version by Robert Altman, but the majority of her points on the series were ones that I shared as well. If you have an extra hour to spare, I still recommend checking out her video below.

The main reason I'm writing and mentioning this is that lately, I haven't been able to properly find an excuse to write about media despite claiming that this is my dream job. Writing as a hobby has not happened like I wanted it to, and now its only been reserved for my online courses that I mostly dread. In one class in particular, I was told to trim down an analysis I had done of a M.A.S.H episode, and then I sadly lost the original file. But today, I want to share what little of my analysis I could salvage, as I felt it was some of my best writing, and all done in APA formatting. The following will be what I had written almost a year ago:

Introduction

Modern television today usually consists of programming containing some form of drama or conflict to keep the audience engaged and hopefully show them another way of life that makes them grateful for what they have. This wasn’t always the case, and modern television has shows like M.A.S.H from the 1970’s and early 80s to thank for that. The formula for dramas had rarely been mixed with comedy during the time M.A.S.H began airing, or at least not successfully. According to Potter on his analysis of comedy, “The action is neatly resolved at the end of the show, and all the main characters end up happy, because the tension created by their problems has been eliminated” (Potter, 2016). This would happen in some cases on M.A.S.H, but it was more grounded in reality and because of this, some conflicts never had a satisfying conclusion.

The Message

In the specific episode of M.A.S.H  I viewed, entitled “When There’s a Will, There’s a War”, the main character of  Captain Benjamin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce is sent as a replacement surgeon to another camp since one that had been assigned there has been killed due to the continued firing from the enemy lines. Pierce’s superior, Colonel Potter, mentions to him that it’s his turn to lend himself to the camp since his colleague and best friend B.J. Hunnicutt cannot with him on temporary break. This suggests that the camp Pierce is being sent to is in a dangerous territory compared to the 4077^th camp he now lives in during the Korean War. It should be noted that when Potter had told Pierce the news, he was playing chess with another of his colleagues, Major Charles Winchester, and in the end he loses to him in a brief comedic moment.

When Pierce reaches the camp, its being fired at and the only other surgeon who is left mentions to him morbidly that the last surgeon at the camp had been hit by a mortar bomb right where he had parked his jeep. This signifies the major contrast to the safety Pierce had felt at the 4077^th’s operating room. He now unfortunately has to work in a much more stressful environment. 

When a particularly bad bombing happens at the camp, Pierce takes shelter underneath a table and decides to write his will. The majority of the episode then centers on Pierce writing to each person he has worked with at his camp, how much they mean to him, and explaining what he wants to leave to them and why. For example, he decides to leave Potter a copy of the book The Last of the Mohicans, one that was given to him by his father because he feels that Potter has become a surrogate father to him during their time at the war, and in his words, “he not only knew what to say, but what not to say.” Concurrently, Hunnicutt is back at the 4077^th camp worried about Pierce after hearing word from new wounded that a surgeon had been killed in the camp that he was sent to help at. Since Hunnicutt was supposed to go, he feels guilt at spending some time off from the camp while Pierce had to go in his place and risk his life. In the end, when Hunnicutt sees one of the wounded he is attended to has been operated on a certain way, he feels relief knowing Pierce is alive, since he’s well aware at the techniques he uses on patients. When Pierce is finally told that he can go back to his camp, the other surgeon casually asks him if he had finished his will, something Pierce hadn’t shared with him. This strongly implies once again how dangerous the camp is, as the surgeon there has seen many others write their wills. The episode ends on some relief, as Pierce has returned to his camp, but he finally finishes his will and decides that for Hunnicutt, he will send a list of all the army doctors and wounded soldiers he’s helped during the war to his daughter, so that she’ll know one day why her father was away.

Author: Message Creator

The show was based on MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, by Richard Hooker, a pseudonym for writer W.C. Heinz and Dr. Richard Hornberger, who had been stationed in the Korean War in a M.A.S.H unit similar to the one written in the book. Larry Gelbart and Gene Reynolds developed the show version of the book, as it had already been made into a film by director Robert Altman in 1970. In this specific episode, actor Alan Alda, who plays the main character Hawkeye Pierce, took over directing duties with a script by David Pollack and Elias Davis, two frequent writers for the show. It should also be noted that during this time in the show’s run, Alda had a lot of control for where he wanted the stories to go after Reynolds had stopped participating in the show.

Format: Creative Techniques

The show uses long takes whenever a moment of dread is taking place. An example of this is how Pierce slowly walks away to wash his hands of blood after declaring a soldier dead when he failed to revive him. The show wants us to focus on tension and dread Pierce is feeling at his inability to save every patient he has. There’s also times where there are close up shots at specific characters to get their reactions to the situation they’re in. Since this episode is centered on Pierce, many of the close ups are on him and his feelings about the war, his patients, and the surrogate family he had made of his friends and colleagues at the 4077^th camp. When Pierce is writing his letter, a voiceover detailing his writing and feelings is heard since we cannot see exactly what he is writing down. Each time he writes and narrates, a flashback to a particular time at the camp is shown to explain each moment that to him defines the kind of people he believes his colleagues to be. An example is the flashback to Potter, where he’s sitting next to Pierce after a tiring session of surgery and discussing with him the times he used to fish, which reminded Pierce of home and how he loved to fish with his father. Potter agreed that when there was free time that he and Pierce should try and fish as well, another reason why Pierce felt he was his surrogate father.

Audience: Interpretation

  Because of the time of when the show was made, some viewers might have been shocked by how little comedy was included in this episode, as the early seasons of the show were much more comedic in tone with the few dramatic scenes usually confined to the operating room. Some modern audiences watching today may find the show sexist, as the majority of the showrunners are men and there is only one main character that is a female. They may even complain that the woman is delegated to the duty of nurse because of her gender, despite there being females doctors as well. What they may fail to realize in that instance is it’s not because the show is sexist, but is unfortunately true to the time period it is portraying, as there were rarely any female doctors in the army stationed in Korea. Loretta Swit, who was the main female character of Major Margaret Houlihan, dismisses the modern lenses of sexism of the show as well, stating, “There was no predation. The nurses were using the doctors, too—they had needs of their own” (Freeman, 2018)

Context: Values and Points of View

From the beginning, Alda had intentionally decided to dismiss the way Pierce had been portrayed in both the original novel and the film that had preceded the show. In his words from Howard Freeman’s article on M.A.S.H, “I don’t think that the somewhat depressed character portrayed in the film would have worked for very long in the show” (Freeman, 2018). Alda set out to create a positive character who was also human and who obviously was anti-war. While he may not be his usual insubordinate self in this specific episode of the show, Alda seemed to purposely have the situation be an anti-war statement itself, as hid character is just a replacement for a camp that’s lost so many other surgeons and soldiers to a war that seems to have no end in sight.

Purpose: The Reason for the Message

Overall, I believe the message of this episode of M.A.S.H and of the show as a whole is how the war effects the people in the front lines. Majority of the time the focus has been on the soldiers of war in entertainment media, but the show had the doctors of a hospital camp as the focus. This specific episode for me showed how the war had taken a toll on the happy go lucky Hawkeye Pierce, who had always used humor to counteract the negative atmosphere he was in but when faced with death as close as he had ever been, resorting to writing a will because he truly felt that he might not get back to his friends. The humor and more lighthearted moments of the episode mostly come from Pierce’s flashbacks, but they define the reason why Pierce wants to get back to camp, because despite his hate for the war he’s truly made friends that have brought him just as much joy and uplifting as he had done before.

References

• M*A*S*H TV Show (2019 January 29^th, ) (MASH Season 10 Episode 16 Where There’s a Will, There’s a War) Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDRK3-pp3S8
• Freeman, H. (July 24, 2018) What MASH Taught Us. The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/what-mash-taught-us
• Potter, J. W. (2016). Media Literacy (8th ed.) [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/ Chapter 10: Entertainment