# The bullying of Frank Burns in M\*A\*S\*H **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [October 6, 2020, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329 "2020-10-06T10:53:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/21 "2020-10-06T14:10:33Z")
You tell 'em, Ferret-Face. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/22 "2020-10-06T14:14:24Z")
I’d guess that the army folks in M\*A\*S\*H were, if anything, less sexist and racist than the army was back in the '50s or even the '70s. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/23 "2020-10-06T14:16:08Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > Addressing the “transvestite/homosexual” question, that seemed to be a common misconception in the 70’s, at least on TV. I’m not so sure. Although the cross dressing was a ploy to get back to Toledo, the clearly straight Klinger still had a personal enthusiasm for it. I think the writers of the show were quite aware of the concept of a straight cross dresser. The reactions of other characters was based on 1950s military prejudices. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/24 "2020-10-06T14:26:55Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > You tell 'em, Ferret-Face. One place I worked had a district manager whom no one liked: mean, played favorites, was always trying to chop labor below the minimum needed, was cheap as hell and his arrival would make morale go from happy to “can I go home early?” in no time flat. He got nicknamed Ferret-Face. He apparently found out, stomped in and yelled “who’s calling me Ferret-Face and for how long?” ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/25 "2020-10-06T14:27:31Z")
> [@urbanredneck2](#): > > Its interesting that his replacement Major Charles Winchester, they also portrayed him as arrogant and who also had a semi-adversary relationship with Hawkeye but who also had redeeming qualities and who was generally shown in a positive light. So they made a semi new “Frank Burns” but didnt want to take it so far again. I was a kid when the show started and grew up with it. MASH had a real arc where it became much more “politically correct” for its time than when it started out. Thw Winchester character for one, much less cartoonishly evil and incompetent than Frank Burns. Then there was Houlihan who started out almost as bad as Burns but had a redemption arc to the point she was a whole different person. BJ was nicer and arguably more moral a person than Trapper was. Colonel Potter was loving and faithful to his wife, unlike Colonel Blake. Hawkeye went from a wisecracking (but goodhearted) ne’er-do-well to a preachy joykill toward the end. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/26 "2020-10-06T14:31:19Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > I’d guess that the army folks in M_A_S\*H were, if anything, less sexist and racist than the army was back in the '50s or even the '70s. And on the subject of homophobia, MASH did an episode in season 2 called “George,” which was about a gay soldier. Only Frank Burns was shown to have a problem with him. The other three doctors, Hawkeye, Trapper, and Blake, have accepting, live-and-let-live attitudes toward homosexuality. That’s really a much greater ratio than would probably have been the case in the 1950s. “George” is really a pretty progressive episode. George is not portrayed with any of the stereotypical mannerisms that were often used to depict gay people on 70s TV, and there are none of the familiar “sissy” jokes–except from Frank, who is clearly shown to be in the wrong. ---
**Author:** ![urbanredneck2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/5f8ce5/32.png) [@urbanredneck2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urbanredneck2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/27 "2020-10-06T14:37:19Z")
Does anyone remember when Alan Alda sort of replayed his character of a former army doctor (although not Hawkeye) on some episodes of the show ER? ---
**Author:** ![Dogginit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogginit/32/16920_2.png) [@Dogginit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogginit)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/28 "2020-10-06T15:01:56Z")
FWIW, MASH is still one of the best television shows around - nothing on the networks today comes close to it. They’re either cookie-cutter sitcoms with the same story lines and almost entirely predictable punchlines, or unrealistic drama/soap operas. MASH is still the one on at our house every night, watching during the commercial breaks on Jeopardy (hey, Jeopardy has to come first:) ), then in it’s entirety the second half hour. No, it’s not politically correct, but in some ways, it’s important for that reason - it teaches, if one is willing to learn. TV _should_ be challenging, because so many develop their life views from it. I’ve seen all the episodes probably hundreds of times, there are still episodes that pull my gut, especially the episode where Blake dies, and the final episode. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/29 "2020-10-06T15:13:14Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > > [@Author\_Balk](#): > > > > Yes, there was bullying. There was sexual harassment. In today’s world it would be considered a hostile work environment. The leader (Blake) is probably incompetent to lead. They are probably alcoholics. The episode i watched yesterday had a psychiatrist analyze Klinger and said that his report would show he was a “transvestite and a homosexual”. I don’t know where the homosexual came from. > > By the way, I do like the show and currently watching it again. > > I think the first season is a little silly. It’s better the second season. And later in the series Frank Burns and Blake leaves. As I was typing this I see someone made a comment about Winchester. This was along the lines of what I was going to say. > > Addressing the “transvestite/homosexual” question, that seemed to be a common misconception in the 70’s, at least on TV. Perhaps cross dressing was just TV shorthand for “gay”? Billy Crystal’s character on Soap was sometimes shown cross dressing. That would be accurate for the time. The framework of the time did not differentiate between cross dressing and homosexuality. Indeed, the concept of homosexuality was usually described as “a female personality in a male body” – what we’d call transgender today. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/30 "2020-10-06T15:15:39Z")
As the years passed, Alan Alda got more involved in writing, directing, and even producing the series. Hawkeye morphed from a womanizing frat-boy to an ultra-liberal (and, presumably, feminist). If I recall correctly, they toned down the sexcapades in the later seasons. Potter and Honeycutt were faithful to their wives. Winchester would never dream of dating someone who wasn’t a fellow Boston Brahmin (except in that one episode where it was a plot point). I think Alda convinced himself that Hawkeye’s relationships were egalitarian and non-exploitative (although he was still a doctor and a captain, and they were still nurses and lieutenants, so a modern feminist might still disapprove). Reading [Alda’s wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda), this caught my eye: > As a result, the 11 years of _M_A_S_H\* are generally split into two eras: the [Larry Gelbart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Gelbart)/[Gene Reynolds](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Reynolds) “comedy” years (1972–1977), and the Alan Alda “dramatic” years (1977–1983).[_[citation needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)_ ] Alda disagreed with this assessment. In a 2016 interview he stated, “I don’t like to write political messages. I don’t like plays that have political messages. I do not think I am responsible for that.”[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alda#cite_note-17) Boy, did he fail spectacularly! ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/31 "2020-10-06T15:17:20Z")
> Radar, put a mask on! ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/32 "2020-10-06T15:43:35Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The framework of the time did not differentiate between cross dressing and homosexuality. Actually, there was a time when cross-dressing was a real part of the gay community, albeit, more a lesbian thing, than a gay male thing. There was a time in the US when most better restaurants wouldn’t serve women in the evenings if they came in without a man escorting them. You might have a group of three women and one man, and that was OK, but three women alone was OK only at lunch. Don’t ask me why-- it was just how things were done. You’ll see scenes in movies from the 30s and 40s with women characters scheming to get men to escort them somewhere just because they want to go some place. (There’s such a scene I can think of off-hand in _The Awful Truth_.) Anyway, one of two of a lesbian couple would cross-dress if she could do so convincingly, so she and her partner could go out in the evening. ---
**Author:** ![Wheelz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wheelz/32/5718_2.png) [@Wheelz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wheelz)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/33 "2020-10-06T15:49:22Z")
> [@urbanredneck2](#): > > Its interesting that his replacement Major Charles Winchester, they also portrayed him as arrogant and who also had a semi-adversary relationship with Hawkeye but who also had redeeming qualities and who was generally shown in a positive light. So they made a semi new “Frank Burns” but didnt want to take it so far again. Winchester definitely had more depth as a character than Burns did, and it worked. But I don’t think they could have suddenly - or even gradually - “redeemed” Frank Burns in any believable way. They did that with Houlihan, and IMO it _didn’t_ work. Toward the final seasons, everyone became One Big Happy Family, and that took a lot of the edge away. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/34 "2020-10-06T16:06:30Z")
Well, maybe. But if _MASH_ started to get preachy when Alda began writing and directing more episodes, it also began to get deeper and more complex; it evolved from a “wacky hijinks” sitcom with fairly one-dimensional characters, into what we’d now call a dramedy. All the replacement characters - Maj. Winchester, Col. Potter, B.J. Hunnicutt - were far more rounded and deveolped than their originals, while the remaining ones were fleshed out; they could be antagonists to the POV characters, as Winchester and Maj. Houlihan were, but they were also capable of carrying a storyline on their own. Even secondary characters like Father Mulcahy and Nurse Kellye got deepened. Frank Burns’ problem wasn’t that he was malevolent; it was that he was _annoying_. He’d been Flanderized into such an obnoxious jerk that he couldn’t be rounded or redeemed into a sympathetic one. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/35 "2020-10-06T16:16:10Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@Jasmine](#): > > > > I think you have to take into account that pretty much all the characters were faulted or even a little crazy in one way or another, and I believe that was intentional on the part of the creators. Though a comedy, I always felt there was an underlying serious effort to show what war does psychologically to human beings. > > Yes, but Frank Burns was a cartoon character, not a psychologically deep character. > > At least, that’s the impression I remember getting when I watched some Burns-era episodes quite a while back. I think of Frank Burns as a Wile E. Coyote type of character. Smug, arrogant, and over confident. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/36 "2020-10-06T16:43:19Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Well, maybe. But if _MASH_ started to get preachy when Alda began writing and directing more episodes, it also began to get deeper and more complex; it evolved from a “wacky hijinks” sitcom with fairly one-dimensional characters, into what we’d now call a dramedy. You’re right, and I never really thought about it that way. When they made the “enemy” the war and the clueless bureaucracy (instead of characters like Burns), they paved the way for “Scrubs.” ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/37 "2020-10-06T16:46:56Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > As the years passed, Alan Alda got more involved in writing, directing, and even producing the series. Hawkeye morphed from a womanizing frat-boy to an ultra-liberal (and, presumably, feminist). As I recall, it was one of the first instances of a show where we commented that it appeared to have been written/directed/produced by, starring, and also apparently FOR one participant! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/38 "2020-10-06T17:08:23Z")
So, would you call Hawkeye a Mary Sue character? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/39 "2020-10-06T17:11:49Z")
I don’t think that Hawkeye fits the usual definition of a Mary Sue, even in the later seasons when Alda had more creative control over the show. Mary Sues are just impossibly perfect, and Hawkeye was always depicted as flawed; it was more that the character changed to become more idealistic and empathetic (but also preachier). While “later Hawkeye” more closely hewed to Alda’s own moral sense, I don’t think he was portrayed as utterly competent or perfect, which is what a Mary Sue usually is. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2020, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329/40 "2020-10-06T17:14:01Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > Nonetheless, in many scenes I had the feeling that Hawkeye’s and Trapper’s behaviour towards him is unfair and uncalled for. I sympathised a lot with Burns, actually. Did others feel the same way? Maybe a whisker of sympathy, at times, but IIRC Frank kept bringing it on himself by pulling rank to add an unnecessary amount of military rigor to everything. And he’s not even the commander, it’s not his place to do that! So he needed constant reminding to stay in his lane. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bullying-of-frank-burns-in-m-a-s-h/922329.md?page=3)