The Jeep
Hawkeye steals the Jeep in which he and Duke arrive at the 4077th and then proceed to leave in the exact same Jeep. At last, according to Radar. This may be difficult to grasp in a world overrun with SUVs that are made to replicate the look and abilities of a military jeep for no particular reason, but once upon a time the Jeep was the almost exclusive domain of the military. Thus, the vehicle becomes the symbol that represents the entry into and the exit away from military service for these two doctors drafted into the service of their country.
Nicknames
Just about everyone in the movie has or gets a nickname at some point. Hawkeye, Trapper John, Hot Lips, Radar, the Painless Pole, Dago Red Mulcahy, Ugly John the anesthesiologist, Hawkeye’s friend “Me Lay” and Spearchucker Jones. As even anyone who has ever listened to Cotton Hill rattle his list of army buddies on an episode of “King of the Hill” can attest, war creates nicknames. MASH, of course, puts a spin on this motif which also harkens back to about 10,000 war movies: Trapper John, Hot Lips, the Painless Pole and “Me Lay” are not exactly the kind of nicknames you would ever want to have to explain to your grandchildren. Likewise, Dago Red and Spearchucker have connotations that would not make appropriate for polite conversation. Really, only Radar and Hawkeye sports nicknames with origin stories one could be proud of. War, the film seems to suggest, is best left behind the participants even to the point of the nicknames your fellow combatants called you by.
The Football Game
Blitz. The Bomb. Formation. In the trenches. Possession. Offense. Defense. Pretty clear where football got much of its jargon from, right? Generally speaking, war movies tend to stay away from introducing sporting events into the narrative because the symbolism runs the risk of becoming way too obvious. Of course, that is actually the entire point of having the film climax with a football game. A long football game. A long football game filled with bad sportsmanship and cheating and perhaps the first the use of a certain four-letter word in a major American movie. War is a game played by coaches standing on the sidelines who never actually put their own bones on the line. The symbolism is obvious. Except it is the reverse and the meaning carries a dangerously obvious lack of patriotism within it.
The Olives
When the mysterious figure who will eventually turn out to be the semi-infamous Trapper John McIntyre arrives at the 4077th, he is courteously offered a homemade martini by Hawkeye and Duke. His reaction only serves to deepen the air of mystery surrounding his physical appearance: he rejects the idea of drinking a martini without olives even though, as Duke points out, it is not exactly convenient to procure such a luxury in the middle of war zone. Whereupon the stranger reaches deep into the folds of his coat and almost seems to magically produce a surprisingly hefty jar of olives as if from another dimension. Hawkeye and Duke are appropriately awed, but the olives are really just part of a larger pattern that created from the idiosyncratic fabric of so many diverse interests intersecting under unexpected circumstances. The symbolism of the olives could equally be applied to Frank’s desire to teach Ho-Jon Christianity or Hawkeye and Duke’s own ability to produce a martini in the first place: when you are in hell with no guarantee of getting out alive, you do what you can to cope. And everybody copes in different ways.
Blood
Everything that takes place outside the operating room is subject to levity and satire. Inside the operating room, however, thing remains relatively dramatic and free from irony. MASH was one if not the first major American film to portray surgery graphically with blood covering surgeons and even in one famous scene spurting into the air from a patient’s severed artery. The bloody portray of the reality inside the OR is not there for shock effect, it is a reminder of the cost of the lunacy of involved by those making what takes place outside that room possible.
