Anyone else surprised?

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I'm a conservative and i love this movie, but your point is taken

Yeah, it's almost as if this movie was from a different time, when attitudes were very different. It seems like it's almost 50 years old...

Do you really expect anyone to take seriously anything said by someone with your signature?

That signature: "Marriage is between one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others."

I think perhaps you would be more comfortable at the 700 club website or something.

True, attitudes are different, but do you hear anyone on the Left say, "I love the movie MASH, but...." No "disclaimers", if you will.

Seems they prefer not to acknowledge the aspects of the film that no filmmaker would dare put into a movie today.



Marriage is between one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others.

The film is not politically correct. But why would I protest a film from 1970 for
reflecting 70's values?

In general the nurses are treated respectfully, not quite as equals, but close.
The only woman mistreated is "hotlips" an authority figure. The depiction of nurses
having extramarital sex is actually a liberated view. Women are entitled to enjoy
sex too.
"Spearchucker" is racist, but he doesn't seem to mind the nickname. The player who
is called a "coon" in an attempt to get him thrown out of the game does react to
that epithet.
The episode with Painless and his transitory impotence is less a comment on homosexuality
as it is a comment on male sexual insecurity and the idea of latent homosexuality.
The idea that homosexuality can sneak up on you.

I'm guessing that your objection to the film is it's general lack of respect for
authority figures and institutions.

I think anyone aligned with politics or religion is easily hypocritical

I would suspect the target audience for this film was centered on people about age 30-40. There really wasn't much youth appeal to it, musically or terms of the cast, though it could be argued it had a bit of wink to Vietnam era anti-authority/anti-war mindsets.

If you were 40 in 1970, you were born in 1930. Some fraction of the audience actually served in the Korean war -- 1.7 million Americans served then, and most of them would have been roughly in the 30 - 45 year age group.

So it was a zany comedy for more rank and file Americans who literally had some lived experience with either Korea specifically or as peacetime military draftees from the 1950s. I think the film has more in common with Gomer Pyle than "Apocalypse Now". And it likely represents more typical attitudes towards general social issues than anything else.

I think only once it became a network TV series largely after Vietnam did it gain its rep for liberal, anti-war attitudes, especially with Alda's political activism.