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re: Question About the TV series MASH
Posted on 7/19/24 at 3:26 pm to selfgen
Posted on 7/19/24 at 3:26 pm to selfgen
It is fundamentally an anti war show set in war time.
Ironically it implicitly critiques the Korean War. Which is one of the last American adventures with a positive outcome. Looking at the difference between North and South Korea makes that case. There may not be a more miserable place on earth today than North Korea.
There obviously is some meat on the bone with criticism of military bureaucracy fwiw. And MASH did a decent send up of those types of middle and upper leadership.
Food for thought: if a MASH was made today how it would be interpreted would depend on whether it was set in Israel, Ukraine, Vietnam, or Korea. Which probably just shows how affected viewers are by political perceptions.
Ironically it implicitly critiques the Korean War. Which is one of the last American adventures with a positive outcome. Looking at the difference between North and South Korea makes that case. There may not be a more miserable place on earth today than North Korea.
There obviously is some meat on the bone with criticism of military bureaucracy fwiw. And MASH did a decent send up of those types of middle and upper leadership.
Food for thought: if a MASH was made today how it would be interpreted would depend on whether it was set in Israel, Ukraine, Vietnam, or Korea. Which probably just shows how affected viewers are by political perceptions.
0
Posted on 7/19/24 at 3:54 pm to selfgen
quote:
The characters talk, act and dress as if it’s modern day, which would have been the 1970’s. I did not watch much of this show at all, but I never felt like I was watching a show set in the 1950s.
Apart from the styles, the movie and TV show were also filmed in the distinctive foothills of Southern California. Kind of hard to square that with a ground war in Asia.
A lot of other shows had the same problem. Even as a kid in the South, I remember watching the Dukes of Hazzard with all of the rural Georgia references and then you see the General Lee roaring past scrub bushes and the San Gabriel Mountains. - yeah, that's clearly California.
Back to MASH, the book was based on and set in the Korean War, written by an actual Veteran MD who served in a MASH there. But Altman and the screenwriter intentionally muddied the water and changed the tone to make a low key statement about the ongoing Vietnam War, which was socially polarizing but at the time Hollywood and the Media were still reluctant to join the anti-war movement. I think the original author of the book (who was Conservative) had problems with the movie adaptation and hated the TV show and Alan Alda
Posted on 7/20/24 at 2:01 pm to TigerintheNO
quote:
My broadcast journalism professor at LSU told us that it was set for the Vietnam War. But switched to Korea because of blow back.
He’s wrong.
The book was written by a MASH surgeon serving in Korea. The book was turned into a movie and then a series.
Posted on 7/20/24 at 2:12 pm to selfgen
ITS A TV PROGRUM
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