Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in Best Slash Anywhere!'s InsaneJournal:

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007
2:22 pm [janecarnall]	M*A*S*H transmuted: Hawkeye I hadn't read the book M*A*S*H for years. I never owned a copy till, a couple of weeks ago, two houseguests presented me with one they'd found in a rather nice second-hand bookshop. So, I read it. And you can see how they derived the film from the book, just as you can see how they derived the series from the film. (IMO, improving it each time.) There are a vast array of differences between book and TV series, but one I'm going to pick on is Hawkeye Pierce. In the book, Hawkeye is married, with children, a large family (several brothers) and both parents still living. In the series, Hawkeye isn't married/has no children, has no brothers or sisters (okay, there's a reference to a sister in an early episode, but it's pretty definitely non-canonical by later episodes), his mother died when he was 10, and though he loves his father, he believed until BJ organised a family reunion for the 4077th that his father would always put his patients first, his son second. In the book, when Hawkeye and the Duke go home, they leave Trapper John behind for another five months, but they do say goodbye properly. (And in the book, it's Trapper John who produces the olives for the Swamp martinis...) Spearchucker exists for a handful of episodes in the series, before vanishing after he's discovered to be an anachronism: in the book, Dr Jones is a neurosurgeon who was Hawkeye's roommate in college, because none of the other medical students (all white) would share with a black man. In the series, of course, Trapper John gets to go home first, without even leaving a note. But at that point the series starts mutating away from the book and the film involuntarily, since Colonel Blake dies and Trapper John goes and Spearchucker is gone. Hawkeye in the book is strangely like I imagine Trapper John to be: the year in Korea was an interval in his life, strange and weird, but something that happened out of normal time. He could go home. Hawkeye in the series I cannot imagine being unchanged by Korea. (Partly because, canonically, Hawkeye stayed an improbable amount of time in Korea: he was there in September 1950, and he and Trapper John had obviously already been there for several weeks at least: and he stayed till the war ended in July 1953. Sometime I must figure out how this worked, since even according to contemporary military rules, none of the doctors ought to have been there more than twelve months, and they could not have been drafted for more than two years.) Hawkeye seems to have appeared, unattached to anyone except his father, and of the only two strong connections other than his father who aren't 4077th personnel, one dies on his table and one leaves him - definitely for good, this time. At the end of the series, Hawkeye says he's going home to his father, to Crabapple Cove, giving up a surgical career and settling down as a family doctor. This of someone who is clearly a brilliant surgeon: will he? But could he ever tolerate life in the discipline of a big hospital, after working in the 4077th so long, where no one cared what he said or who he said it to or who he slept with? This would not be the case in any big hospital in the 1950s, and while he could get away with being eccentric Dr Pierce in Crabapple Cove, there they would care who he had sex with. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 20th, 2008
11:18 pm [janecarnall]	Pimping M*A*S*H Okay. The plan is, I get together with a friend and I show her M*A*S*H episodes till she's hooked or she begs for mercy. Or, well, because I am a kindly soul (no, honestly, I am) plan on showing her six episodes, so just under 3 hours of TV time, with a backup six in case she's still interested. (She might be.) I want to make those six: Two really, really Hawkeye-is-bi episodes. So they could be Trapper-and-Hawkeye being a terrible couple, or some thing else. Two really good Hawkeye/Mulcahy episodes. Two good ensemble episodes in which Hawkeye and Mulcahy both have good roles even if they don't interact much. And of course they all six have to be good episodes. And it would be neat if they were spread out a bit through the seasons. I want to turn her on to Hawkeye/Mulcahy, but I also want her to like M*A*S*H. I'll post my current ideas in a comment, but I'd really like to hear yours. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, July 8th, 2007
1:31 pm [janecarnall]	Story rec: Knots and Crosses, by Grayswandir It's over at mash_slash on livejournal (*spit!*): Knots and Crosses, and the pairing is described as "Klinger/Mulcahy - if you squint". Wonderful sweet story, sort of just on the celibate side of slash. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 5th, 2007
9:12 am [janecarnall]	6th season comments: "Fallen Idol" and "The Last Laugh" For a while there was a community on livejournal called hawkeyeisbi. It was deleted by its founder, I have no idea why, but it expressed a great and functional truth: Hawkeye Pierce IS bisexual. And these two episodes - which I started to watch just because they were the next two in the sixth season after "Fade In Fade Out" are practically blatant about it. Hawkeye is bi. Radar knows it (he's telepathic): BJ knows it (Hawkeye came out to him or, more likely, made a pass at him). Radar has a massive honkin' great crush on Hawkeye - about as big a crush as a straight boy can have on another man - and really wants nothing but Hawkeye to stand there and be adored by Radar - if Hawkeye actually made a pass, it would terrify Radar. Hawkeye thinks Radar is cute - as he drunkenly admits to BJ - but mostly because Radar is so crushed out on Hawkeye and so shy and so straight about it. The devotion part is just irritating. Hell, everyone in the camp who's been there for more than a month knows that Radar has a crush on Hawkeye - but everyone (well, certainly the Colonel and Father Mulcahy and probably Margaret) take for granted that Hawkeye would never do anything about it. And then this slightly untenable situation comes to a head and Radar reproaches his idol for letting him down, and Hawkeye yells at him. Understandably: he was too hungover to operate because he'd got drunk because he couldn't stand to see Radar injured, and now Radar is lying there not looking the least bit happy to discover that his idol is so fond of him, but instead reproaching him for not being perfect. I love the end: where Hawkeye reaches out of the bottle of grape NeHi, and takes it from Radar, and Radar takes the bottle of beer, and they both toast each other in drinks they loathe. "The Last Laugh", following immediately after it, not only has the line Hawkeye yells after BJ as he's arrested, about coming for a conjugal visit: it also has Hawkeye sitting in the Swamp watching BJ and Bardonero interact, and having a more-or-less silent fit of jealousy. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 29th, 2007
12:08 am [janecarnall]	Fic rec: "The Next 48 Hours" and "if it hurts, it heals" The Next 48 Hours, by xylodemon: Trapper/Hawkeye. Gosh, this is good: it reminds me why Trapper and Hawkeye are my favourite canon couple. if it hurts, it heals, by mijmeraar: Hawkeye/BJ. Post-"Sons and Bowlers". Also good, though Hawkeye/BJ will never be more than my third-favourite non-canon couple. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
2:25 pm [janecarnall]	An imposter has Fr Francis J. Mulcahy's Myspace I did a google on Hawkeye/Mulcahy, as I often do because I hope to suddenly find a treasurechest of H/M M*A*S*H vids or fanfic that the Internet has been hiding from me (don't lie: you do this too) and I found an entry for Mulcahy on Myspace. Fr Francis J. Mulcahy. I was reading it with a certain amount of enjoyment until I got to Who I'd like to meet: "I would love to get to Rome someday to meet Pope Benedict XVI- a great man this is- the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger" and I thought no way. Father Mulcahy would want to meet Pope Rat, formerly head of the Inquisition? (Granted, when I think of Mulcahy staying in the Church, I assume he'd be a founder member of Dignity...) I can imagine Mulcahy wanting to meet Pope John Paul II, though Pope John Paul I was probably more his kind of person, but... Pope Rat? Current Mood: amused (1 Comment |Comment on this)