I saw that episode. It wasn’t actually about social or sexual issues, it was about fashion. There was some designer (or maybe it was multiple designers) who had designed a line of skirts for men, and Donohue, with the help of several male models in man skirts, was doing an episode about whether it could catch on as a fashion for men (it didn’t).
Best part of that is he was talking to Frank.
No, he was talking to Col. Potter as they were laying in a ditch waiting for the Chinese to come at them.
Stranger
That’s “Look Colonel, I’ll treat their wounds, heal their wounds, bind their wounds, but I will not inflict their wounds.”
Well its ironic that Alda has this reputation since he was one of only two cast member to have actually served in Korea (after the ceasefire though).
The other was
Jamie Farr who played
The cross dressing (for 8 seasons) Klinger.
The only thing that right-wingers hate worse than a left-winger that’s never served in the military is a left-winger that has served. 
You don’t run in the right circles…look up utilikilts sometime. I go to events where the biggest, burliest, hairiest, muscliest, most masculine men in the room are all in skirts. In the United States, not the UK.
Lad, you’re talkin’ about kilts, not skirts. . .
Love both of them, but they had quite the whiny voices, at times, didn’t they?
I don’t think that’s true at all. Just the opposite in fact.
I would totally have more respect for a liberal talking politics if he’d served honorably. What I don’t care to listen to is someone who has opinions about things that they’ve never experienced, and they’re spouting off some ideology from a text book.
So you have no respect for Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz, and a pile of neocons who started the wars?
^
So whats the dope on Alan Alda then mate?
I just see it as another example of how the media idea of masculinity is skewed, and I say this as a devout chavainist, male sexist whatever animal you want to say. Like some people think James Blunt is a wimp for being small, thin and lets admit it a rather seak voice, but I mean the guy was an army officer and has seen action.
I challenge the assumption that Alda and Donahue were ever considered “wimpy.” Sensitive and empathetic, yes, but a better adjective would be “evolved.” It took a big pair of balls to bring some of Donahue’s “adult” topics to daytime TV. I guess from the perspective of a Cro Magnon, we modern men would appear wimpy . . . but it’s not necessarily true.
:rolleyes: Oh please. You don’t have to experience something directly to have a valid opinion about it. Just because someone fought in a war, doesn’t make him an expert. Especially from his subjective, narrow perspective. How many opinions do you have that aren’t based on your own experience?
Wait a second. You’re denying historic fact because you don’t want it to be true?
How wimpy. 
But of course it’s true. Alda and Donahue and many others were considered “wimpy.”
I love Alda’s response to a Janet Maslin review. Note that this takes place back in 1988.
I highly recommend Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, a much-underrated 1989 satire of gender politics. Watch specifically from 7:10 of this segment, carried over in the next segment, for some idea of how Donahue and Alda (and others) are viewed.
I seem to remember him standing in the Swamp when he said it. Was it that episode where Frank was temporarily in charge of the 4077th?
One of them, yes.
Frank was trying to hand off the Officer-of-the-Day duty to Pierce, included the sidearm. Pierce made his little speech until Frank lost patience and kept the pistol, handing over the empty holster. Pierce put it on over his bathrobe, strutted a bit, McIntyre made a crack about the new sheriff in town, Pierce replied that he was gonna clean up this place… starting with the nurses.
Or that’s how I remember it.
No way was Alan Alda considered a wimp! He couldn’t do anything without drawing a crowd or getting an award. His movies “Same Time Next Year” and “Four Seasons” and “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” were hits and MAS*H went out at the top of the charts after eleven years and 99 Emmys. Most of this was due to Alda’s appeal and talent.
And what was wimpy about Donahue?
No. No. No. Thinking men are not wimpy.