"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse." - John Stuart Mill, "The Contest in America"
Is war a game? The 1970 film "M*A*S*H" delves into the psychological, physical, and spiritual challenges manifested by the Vietnam War, approaching them with a dark and comedic perspective. While the film has achieved significant critical acclaim, I would argue that it has generally aged poorly. Multiple plotlines intersect and weave together, confounding the film's storyline. Additionally, the film carries a cynical and irreverent tone that can be disdainful to contemporary audiences. While it is symbolic and contemplative, serving as a commentary on the Vietnam War, it is also remarkably subversive, providing the audience with an alternative that is more doomed than the alternative it critiques. However, the film can serve as a meditation on war's symbolic and transcendent nature, albeit from a telluric or titanic perspective. Drawing on Julius Evola's work, today I endeavor to discuss the symbolism and logic of the film.
As far as the plot is concerned, set during the Korean War in 1951, "Hawkeye" Pierce and "Duke" Forrest, two newly conscripted surgeons, find themselves stationed at the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in South Korea. Despite their insubordination and occasionally confrontational attitude towards certain fellow combat surgeons, they demonstrate exceptional surgical skills, which the US Army requires. Alongside them are a cast of characters, including the bumbling commanding officer Henry Blake, clerk "Radar" O'Reilly, dentist Walter "Painless Pole" Waldowski, the pious surgeon Frank Burns, and the hospital's chaplain, Father Mulcahy. The camp becomes divided between the prank-playing "Swampmen" faction led by Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper and the strict, by-the-book side represented by Frank and Margaret Houlihan. Various mischief unfolds throughout the film; for example, the boys scheme to expose Houlihan as a "natural blonde," successfully remove Frank from the camp by provoking him, and help Painless overcome his sexual doubts. The film climaxes with an intense football game in which the M*A*S*H unit emerges victorious. Eventually, Hawkeye and Duke receive discharge orders and bid farewell to the camp, departing in the stolen Jeep they arrived in.
The film's opening, which begins with the song "Suicide is Painless" by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman, belies the film's symbolic elements. A medical helicopter, reminiscent of the Nordic conception of a Valkyrie (Evola, pp. 95-109) carrying away a fallen warrior, carries a man to a field hospital to receive treatment for his injuries. However, these symbolic themes are undermined throughout the film. While the warrior's spiritual path typically involves overcoming the chaos of battle and war through internal and external conflict—a contemplative and active path—"M*A*S*H" tends to embrace this chaos as if it is the epitome of the warrior's journey. Characters throughout the film consistently talk over each other, making the plot hard to follow, while their camp’s disorganized and undisciplined structure symbolizes the film's affinity for the anarchic. The base's colonel, played by Roger Brown, does almost nothing to provide structure or coherence to the medical camp. He lets his men run amuck, effectively inverting the chain of command. This inverting spirit courses through "M*A*S*H" and subverts the structures Man relies on to face chaos and war properly.
"M*A*S*H" also makes no pretense about critiquing the spiritual aspect of war. The film portrays Father Mulcahy as a peripheral figure, as his prayers, sanctification, and presence take on a secondary role. In a world where men are dying, as "Hawkeye" might say, Father Mulcahy's assistance is better utilized in tending to the wounded rather than praying for departed souls. While Robert Duvall's character may be strict, he undeniably takes his job seriously. We first see Frank Burns teaching a young Korean boy to read using the Bible. Duke and Trapper mock the reading and hand the young boy an adult magazine instead. Later, they dismiss Frank's prayers as childish. Eventually, they catch him in a compromising situation with Houlihan and broadcast their scandalous encounter over the camp's loudspeakers, exposing his seemingly hypocritical nature. Despite presenting himself as a pious man, Frank is just as prone to sin as Duke, Trapper, or Hawkeye. Hawkeye proceeds to taunt Frank about the incident until Frank loses control and attacks him. Following his outburst, Frank is forcefully removed from the camp, and restrained in a straightjacket, implying his descent into madness. Adding insult to injury, sometime before his departure, Trapper punches Frank after feeling that Frank was too harsh on a younger field surgeon, making him cry. The most charitable interpretation suggests that Duke, Trapper, and Hawkeye teach Frank, through their treatment of him, that his spiritual conception is inadequate for grappling with primordial chaos. However, the entire episode with Frank and the "Swampmen" goes beyond playful antics; it displays genuine contempt and cruelty toward individuals like Frank. More broadly, it represents a zealous disdain for those who seek comfort in spiritual practice during a war.
Its portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" intensifies the film's subversion of religion and spirituality. After experiencing a period of sexual impotence and delving into some psychological literature, Waldowski believes he may have latent homosexual tendencies. This realization pushes him towards a suicidal path, prompting Hawkeye, Trapper, and Duke to devise a plan to help him. They deceive Waldowski by offering him a "black pill" that supposedly grants his desires without pain when it is just a sleeping pill. Before he takes the pill, they share a "final" dinner with him, implying his Christ-like status – a man with three girlfriends in the United States, apparently involved with the nurses at the camp, and renowned as the "best-equipped dentist in the Army." The pun here is quite evident. While Waldowski is asleep, Hawkeye persuades Lieutenant Maria Schneider, a married woman he has been pursuing, to sleep with Waldowski and help him overcome his doubts. Symbolically, she represents Mary Magdalene. Through an act of spiritual inversion, Hawkeye brings Mary down and entangles her in an adulterous act instead of uplifting her. To be direct: the film satanically perverts Christ's passion.
After assisting a congressman's son stationed in Japan, Hawkeye and Trapper return to the camp in Korea and encounter General Hammond, who inspects the camp after receiving a letter from Houlihan and Frank highlighting the camp's disorder. Surprisingly, General Hammond appears unconcerned with the camp's anarchic state and instead focuses on organizing a football game to gamble several thousand dollars. General Hammond's disregard for the camp's anarchic state emphasizes the film's criticism of the army's disorganization, from the highest-ranking officers to the lowest-ranking soldiers. The football game itself is a playful representation of another game, symbolizing war in general and paralleling the context of the Vietnam War. This portrayal implies that war is reducible to nothing more than a game. While this perspective aligns with the traditional notion of war, it becomes evident that the film chooses to emphasize war's primal, chaotic, and anarchic aspects through the football game (cf. Evola's use of the term "Titanic": Evola, pp. 77 & 97). The film portrays a dissolution of hierarchy, discipline, leadership, and organization as dark and primordial waters undulate throughout its narrative.
Symbolically, the film depicts the warrior's soul as primordial and animalistic. Confronted with the brutal realities of war and forced to serve their country in a foreign land, characters like Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper become engulfed in chaos. However, instead of transcending their primal and animalistic nature, they find equilibrium by embracing it. An anarchic structure facilitates their passionate and impulsive will, allowing them to assert dominance over the illusory hierarchy that fails to reconcile with the surrounding chaos. The film exposes the vulnerabilities and flaws of self-righteous and contemplative structures, purifying and reconstructing them through the vicissitudes of war. Houlihan's character embodies this motif of reconciliation, purification, and reconstitution of the social matrix through war.
Interestingly, figures like Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper employ their primal and animalistic instincts to overcome the feminine forces ensnaring them in war's tumultuous waters. Nevertheless, discipline, order, and the asceticism of the warrior are necessary for their proper transfiguration amid the greater and lesser wars. Without these qualities, figures like Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper cannot effectively overcome the trials of war and will, inevitably, be overwhelmed by them.
As primordial beings, Hawkeye, Duke, and Trapper fail to realize the spiritual significance of their individuating power. Instead, they degrade and subvert both the spiritual realm and themselves. Consequently, they are bound to become individuated and atomized beings, incapable of attaining unity with the divine essence. If this sentiment permeated the Vietnam War, if Americans had lost their spiritual core, it should surprise nobody that America lacked the will to fight in Vietnam or achieve victory. It also should surprise no one that America has become atomized and nihilistic. A nation that forsakes its spiritual and sacred responsibilities, even among its warriors, will inevitably encounter a fateful destiny.
Overall, "M*A*S*H" is a thought-provoking film. The film presents a real challenge for viewers with a spiritual inclination, as it prompts them to confront and grapple with their beliefs about life, suffering, and war in light of the film's subversive elements. As a commentary on war, it attempts to mock it as a confusing and chaotic mess that brings out humanity's worst qualities. However, this criticism falls short when viewed through a traditionalist lens. While the film engages with the logic of the traditionalist man and satirizes it, it fails to fully address the spiritual transformation that occurs when one unites his animalistic and divine aspects. It dismisses the divine nature of humanity while simultaneously showcasing the main characters' essential ability to transform and differentiate themselves within the social framework. The film becomes overwhelmed by irreverence and cynicism, ultimately presaging its culture's decline. This defeat, however, cannot be seen as unification with the divine through self-dissolution, but rather a regression into primal and abyssal waters, resulting in further atomization and hedonism. In this regard, the film lacks a genuine catharsis. Hawkeye and Duke do not undergo the hero's spiritual descent, soul rebirth, subsequent fulguration, and final rebirth through spiritual transcendence and unification with the divine light's source.
Within the chaos it portrays, "M*A*S*H" beckons us to question our spiritual inclination, for in its subversive elements lies the call to unite our animalistic and divine essence, but as it drowns in irreverence and cynicism, it eludes catharsis, leaving us adrift in chthonic waters, yearning for the illumination of our souls' rebirth.
References:
Evola, Julius. Metaphysics of War. Arktos Media, 2011.
