Loretta Swit, who played ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan on M*A*S*H, dies aged 87

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Anyone old enough to have regularly watched MASH will remember how relentlessly sexist and vile the scriptwriters and the two 'hero' male doctors were towards this character.
It was particularly infuriating because the male doctors, Hawkeye and Trapper, were supposed to represent all the virtues of humanity. And yet they reacted with typical male hatred and cruelty to an older woman in a position of some power (who tried to protect the younger nurses from their relentless womanising).

So it was interesting to read in this article, https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/may/30/loretta-swit-actor-dead , how Swit fought to bring some realism and depth to her character, and to combat the sexism. I seem to remember that the portrayal of Hot Lips did improve, but not enough to let the series off the hook for its sexism.

Reminds me of the viciously sexist portrayal of another nurse, Nurse Ratched in the film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Of course, the critique of mental health facilities that that film (and book) provides is valid, and the abuses of mental health patients were/are real. But it seemed to me that the author, the director and especially the actor Jack Nicholson just LOVED putting all the blame for this abuse on some uppity bitch of an older woman (despite the - naturally - male-dominated nature of mental health care in the period).

I haven't even been able to bring myself to watch the Netflix series Nurse Ratched for this reason. Does anyone know whether it tackles the sexism of the film?

I could tell you lots of stories about men in left wing politics, and the women who enable them.

I've watched mash over and over but I can't think of one rape joke. Please could you share one if I'm missing them. I wouldn't watch any of them if this was the case (talking about the series not the film or book).

I think that what gets to me (EDIT: and what makes MASH so much more annoying than Carry On) is not so much the sexism in itself but the combo of being so sexist and so complacently righteous (something that is certainly present in today's version of sexism 😏)

Well, that is like a lot of things. We have a thread discussing Peter Tatchell being arrested, and the trope of "you agree with him about Gaza means you agree with him about PIE, or the "oh you agree with Trump on trans issues? you're a MAGA loving nazi"

it is lazy thinking. MASH was a direct protest, at the time of filming, against the Vietnam war, couched rather cleverly in a humorous take on the Korean war. (tbh to me it's not a comedy, it is a drama with hilarious moments and ridiculous hyperbole to drive a point home)

What Swit did so brilliantly, as Alan Alda has talked about, is making the writers let her develop the character so much that they stopped billing her as Hotlips Houlihan and used Margaret Houlihan instead. The humour/sexism is interesting. IME people in dangerous situations (military) make jokes that are unacceptable in any occasion, but they are a reaction to that stress. Houlihan, as an experienced major, could roll with the punches. That was (still is) how you get on in the military. You get rank, and then change the system from within.

Modern sexism and misogyny are actually worse. No-one was telling Margaret that she had to like her privacy and dignity being trampled on. No-one told Clinger how brave and wonderful he was for wearing dresses.

I wonder how they’d handle the Klinger character nowadays. It would never have occurred to anyone then that he should bunk with the nurses just because he wore dresses & if it had, Hawkeye would probably have put a dress on too.

May Loretta Swit rest in peace and thoughts for all who knew her and mourn her death.

As for the programme, remember the time period it was set in, perhaps the characterisation was realistic.

The story line about Klinger was that he wore dresses to try and get himself discharged from the army as a psych case. The joke was that nobody thought he was really a transvestite or a psych case, so he stayed. Trying to get away from the war was a sane response to a mad situation.

That joke wouldn't work in the current environment.

the whole Klinger thing was brilliantly done. Very Catch 22 - you're pretending to be insane to get out of an insane war, but only the very sane would spot that so... you stay!