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Jamie Farr played Corporal Klinger on M.A.S.H.
Klinger was trying to get discharged from the service during the Korean War and often dressed in women's clothing to show how crazy he was.
It was "hilarious."
Of course, it was a cringeworthy moment for some of us every time he wore a new outfit.
Does anyone else remember him?
Jill
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Comments
Do I remember the one character who stayed in Korea?
Yes.
That character displayed so many stereotypes.
I remember
Indeed I do. He was as unsuccessful in getting discharged from the army, but seemed to simply be accepted by all with the exception of Frank Burns and Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan
The other thing about Klinger is that he also never looked like anything but a man in a dress. I know, for years, I felt like I could never look like anything but a man in a dress. But the years have a way of homogenizing gender appearances. It's said that as couples get older, they begin to look like each other. I'm sure that the reason is because age takes the hard edge off of the masculine and is unkind to the feminine beauty.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
To paraphrase Jessica Rabbit
He wasn't offensive; he was just written that way. :)
— Emma
I never found Klinger offensive
I never found Klinger offensive. It started off on the premise that you had to be crazy to put on a dress, but everyone just acted like he was Klinger. He was never meant to be trans, it was supposed to be a kind of Catch-22 situation in the totality. And then he developed a love of the clothing. And he was accepted by a lot of the women (especially the nurses under Margaret who saw them as "one of them.")
There's an episode where he stops wearing the clothing and he develops a rash. The doctors couldn't identify the cause so they call in the shrink, Sydney Freeman, who basically says, "Sorry Klinger, this is protective armour for you. The clothes are now part of your life, and your barrier against the bigger 'insanity' that is the army and war." With the broad point that a man wearing a dress (translate it to trans people today) is 100% normal in any comparison to a nation invading a country and murdering tens of thousands of people.
MASH was counter-culture, the film certainly was. It was toned down for TV, but it still and often took the progressive, humanising view on things. Trans people weren't as "out" as we are now. It's definitely of its time, but broadly, with everyone taking the view that Klinger was a normal, valuable human, whatever he wore, I'd say it's an overall success.
Although now I'm thinking of an actual TG Fan-Fiction MASH where a Klinger-like character uses a Klinger style approach to getting out of the army as a "cover" for transitioning in the army. Maybe the army, as it's a MASH hospital, against "army" rules decide to let "him" keep going. Offering against-military-rules such as HRT, then surgeries, etc. to see how serious "he" is, with no-one actually saying the words "I'm trans"/"We know you're trans." It is "Don't Ask/Don't Tell." In the end, and the slow burn of it, is everyone knows the Klinger-like is trans, and they just want the military to pay for her transition, which otherwise would be unaffordable. (With lots of hijinks such as very officious Generals coming onto her. I can already see an episode where an investigator comes to the base as they hear the doctors are refusing to discharge a "man-in-a-dress" and he singles out every woman as "the-man-in-a-dress but the Klinger-like, who he immediately clocks as too beautiful to be a man, and enlists her to help him.)
I remember him well
It's impossible to forget the favorite son of Toledo, Ohio.. Both the actor and his creation are proud "Mud Hens". Other than wearing a Korean era feminine outfit, he was a G.I. He didn't bother t shave his legs. No attempt of apearrig transgender.
Congratulations to Jamie for I living well for so long
Ron
Abandoned
It was only after the writers abandoned that focus and made his character more realistic that Max Klinger became 'real.'
I attempted to deal with the very real possibility of a transgender character here:
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/43752/mash-all-our-li...
Love, Andrea Lena
Great Story
Loved your story!
All the comments have triggered memories of actually staying in on Saturday night to watch All in the Family, MTM, MASH, Newhart, and Carol Burnett.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I Rarely Missed
An episode of MASH and Jamie Farr was one of the ensemble of actors who gave the show its longevity. Let's hope he makes it to 100.
And...
Jameel Farah
Love, Andrea Lena
All the MASH people are memorable ...
Not specifically focused on Klinger, but ...
The one episode I particularly remember is a chopper pilot was about to be court-martialed for bringing in a wounded soldier more than a day late, after the main medical evac of the combat zone.
When the wounded soldier woke from surgery, he wanted to talk to and thank the chopper pilot. "Why? He was a day late getting you here. We're going to court-marshal him for nearly letting you die."
"You don't understand. The chopper lost it's cooling fan belt. He flew us 600 yards, landed to let the engine cool, walked 600 yard to scout the next LZ, came back to fly us. Over and ..."
The hair on my arms went up. "That one's real."
I'm utterly convinced that was real, and not "cooked up" by the writers in the back room.