Basically I didn't really get what the point to the whole movie was. I mean nearly the entire movie is all the men, and the women as well, as picking on "Hot Lips", and I never bought that everyone would gang up on her like that, cause they didn't really establish, a reason as to why she is suppose to be so hated.

And then they have a football game, where the main characters win, by the most extreme cheating. So in the end, what was the point of all this? The whole movie is picking on some woman, and cheating to win, and then it's over. What was the point of this story?

Well, I think the narrative was supposed to be somewhat stream of consciousness to recreate the actual atmosphere of war. I do the think the movie's humor is somewhat mean spirited, Hawkeye and Trapper just seem like dicks and as I recall Margaret or Frank never do anything particularly bad to justify the harassment of them aside from being a little straightlaced. I'm usually the last one to say this, but the stuff with Margaret really comes off as sexist and does not age the movie well.

I'm also not a fan of the football sequence. They go to such great lengths to establish a Korean War (really more Vietnam War) feel, but then the last act of the movie is dominated by a farcical football game that could be in any slapstick comedy, from any era, in any setting.

So no, I'm really not a fan.

No, Frank is bad. When the one soldier dies on Frank's operating table he blames Bud Cort for getting their too slowly with surgical tool ('It's too late, you killed him") Elliot Gould later comes up and clocks him.

And Hotlips was the pain in the ass rah-rah military suck up that all the people drafted into the miserable war just hated on principal. She represented the by-the-book regime that the non-conformists were at odds with.

I love MASH. I like realistic movies. Real life doesn't always have a nice neat Beginning-Middle-End structure. Does anyone's?

But I agree the football game kinda sucks. It's like the pie fight ending to "The Great Race" and other dumb farces.

That's true, forgot about that scene with Frank.

I mean, Margaret's a little annoying, but how they treat her seems completely disproportionate to that.

I liked the general mood and the war stuff but I just didn't think it was very funny. Only seen it once, though.

I think the point is the whole, crazy thing - the humor, the cruelty as well as the compassion and hard work of all of the characters who are doing a horrible job in a horrible situation. The point was also to make a movie that had a lot going on at once - overlapping dialog and action in different areas of the image.

I know a man who was a doctor in a MASH unit in Korea, and he told me the movie is very realistic about what actually went on during the war in those units.

My father was a doctor and his friend was sent to Vietnam and he loved MASH. He thought it was completely realistic is someways to the madness and lunacy of the situations they faced. He said one asswipe surgeon in his unit always smoked a big cigar when he was operating. Can you imagine?

[laughing] That's amazing - they'd never get away with that in a hospital stateside.

Dysfunctional team learns to play ball.

Sounds fascist, brah.

Some parts of the movie were funny, I guess I am just not sure how to feel about the cruel humor. Cause usually in these types of movies, the bullies get their comeuppance, which we laugh at as well, but with MASH, they decide to randomly have a football game and forget about it, in the script.

As for the movie being sexist, I am not sure, because all the other joined the men in picking up Margaret as well, so maybe it's not sexist, when all the other women are against her as a person too.

all the other joined the men in picking up Margaret as well, so maybe it's not sexist, when all the other women are against her as a person too.

That's right. She was head nurse. Who doesn't that the uptight, by the book boss? But even she finds redemption at the end as a cheerleader.

Hot Lips was disliked because of her overall attitude. (She and Frank sent a letter to the higher ups complaining about the informal way the MASH unit was run.). An example of this attitude is how Hot Lips complained about the nurses addressing Hawkeye by his name because that sort of informality was inconsistent with maximum military efficiency.

Frank was not liked either. He was a lousy doctor and blamed his failures on other people. You'll recall when he made Boone cry by making him think he was the reason one of the wounded soldiers died. Frank was also a hypocrite. He was extremely religious and looked down on other people for their behavior, but he himself was cheating on his wife with Hot Lips.

The point of the movie is that the war and all its senseless killing was a tragic joke. Thus, characters like Hot Lips and Frank who blindly follow the military policies & procedures and have a deep patriotic love for the military and the war it was fighting, were disliked.

FFS are you totally retarded?

It seems me that sending letters complaining about how the place was run is not necessarily a bad thing though. I work in a factory for example, where the employers have violated health and safety procedures, which results in some injury and hospital leave, for some of the employees.

So me and some others filed complaints, but is that a bad thing? That's what complaints for.

Also, wasn't Hawkeye cheating on his wife back home as well if I remember correct? So isn't he just as much of a cheater as Frank?

It seems me that sending letters complaining about how the place was run is not necessarily a bad thing though.

It is a bad thing if you're someone who likes the way things are running and don't want it to change.

Also, wasn't Hawkeye cheating on his wife back home as well

Yes, but the difference is Frank is extremely religious and judges other people's behavior as immoral, Hawkeye does not. Frank is a hypocrite.

I'm not saying Frank is better, and yes Frank is a hypocrite. But I feel that Hawkeye is a narcissist, for how he just drug football players and get away with it, and have everyone see Margaret naked, cause he thinks it's okay, and it seems to that being a narcissist is bad too.