I don't thinkg M*A*S*H would've made it in today's PC climate. (Brown, programs)
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Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA
Funny that the race factor is what people zoom in on. I frankly think the uproar these days would be "disrespect for the fighting men and women whose sacrifices guarantee you the right to smear their characters" or something along these lines.
Seriously, can anyone imagine a time where we'll be ready for comedy about Afghanistan? Let alone the sort of comedy with integrity that MASH was?
Good lord. That's insightful. GREAT POST. I never even thought about that. Or a comedy about the Iraq war, too.
Spearchucker Jones was one of the original swamp men and his character was a javelin thrower in college. Perfectly appropriate for a period piece such as M.A.S.H.
Yeah...I get that.
But it won't fly these days. As much as folks rightfully yammer on about political correctness, there are some things that I'm glad about changing over these decades.
If you make a modern day film about American soldiers in the middle of a war zone and you were doing it from scratch, calling a black former javelin thrower by "Spearchucker" won't fly and it SHOULDN'T fly because it's unrealistic and wouldn't happen in modern times. It just wouldn't.
I have no problem with it being in MASH...I like the show. But that was then...
Look, you'll never get an argument out of me that All In The Family is the greatest network television show in history hands down. It just is.
It was an appropriate show for the time because we were only 3 years past the death of Dr. King, in the midst of Vietnam, and finding our economy in decline...and many white conservative males ala Archie Bunker were very disillusioned about the country's direction.
The show confronted those issues and every side aired out their positions.
So it's a case of "been there/done that. We all know where the nation is, and the need for a show like that is pretty much nil. They covered all the possible ground that can be covered.
I'm an old guy. I have been watching TV since the 50s. Never ever has there been a more overtly racist TV show as "The first 48". Almost every single mentally challenge, criminally inclined killer on that show is some black ghetto rat. Their average IQ is about 80, they can barely speak English....
Today it is subtle. Programs where all the cast are of one flavor.
Recently the TV program Pan-Am was about air travel in the 1960's. The only black characters is saw was a black couple in dashikies standing at the terminal.
Actually, you may have missed the subtlety in that show.
For sure, the reality was that air travel in the early 60s was mostly white--and the show did not revise history to show otherwise (I hate it when period-based programs put black people where black people never were at the time).
However, it certainly did include episodes revealing the racial issues of the day, and did a good job illustrating the naivete of whites who considered themselves non-racist.
It also included some issues that people so far today from WWII would not recognize--like the unbridled hatred the French stewardess had for Germans.
professor Alda is a great guy, got to sit in on one of his seminars at Stony Brook
I think so too. Never met the guy, but he seems to be a good person who does worthwhile things. But I still think the show was better before he had so much pull.
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