by Ken Sanes

MASH is arguably the best thing that has ever been on television. Although it is set in Korea during the Korean War, its obvious target is Vietnam and the pretensions of traditional culture, including over-the-top patriotism, prudery, and going by the book.

In many ways, it reenacts the "culture war" that was going on in America when the show started in which liberalism, the counter-culture and the anti-war movement, were in a battle with traditional culture, government, and the military. MASH takes these two cultures and turns each one into a kind of society. It then pits the two societies against each other in ways that are symbolically similar to the battles that were taking place in America. *