not even gonna fact check this im choosing to automatically believe anything anybody tells me about owen winston

Hello! Apologies that I took so long to respond to this ask; I’ve had a lot going on.

I’m so sorry you felt misled by my post :( I certainly never meant to deceive anyone with it. I’ve actually received multiple responses to it that are similar to yours, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to offer my perspective on this topic, if that’s OK! :)

Firstly, various people have replied to my post by explaining Maxwell Klinger’s Section 8 scheme subplot to me. People seem to treat this as a rebuttal that disproves a claim I made, which is puzzling to me because this is the only thing I said about Maxwell in the aforementioned post:

“this guy walks around a 1950s military outpost in drag and everyone’s just like hey nice dress.”

So as you can see, I only state two canon facts here:

1) Maxwell wears dresses.

2) Other characters compliment his outfits. (If you’d like proof of this one, please allow me to direct you to this wonderful clip compilation :D)

People seem to read into what I said a lot, which is unfortunate! I specifically did not give any further details about this aspect of the show because I think Maxwell’s character has many different possible interpretations and I did not want to discuss that complexity in the course of my joke.

Now, regarding the idea that Maxwell is “mocked ceaselessly” by the other characters / the narrative: I don’t feel that way myself, but I completely understand why you do! I personally believe that there are a variety of ways to read the narrative tone of M*A*S*H. The show is at least partially a comedy and humor is, of course, highly subjective. Even the simple inclusion/removal of the laughtrack makes a world of difference in the tone of many scenes. Perhaps a line that I view as Hawkeye laughing with Maxwell, you view as Hawkeye laughing at him. That’s part of why I think this show is so interesting!

(As a side note, for personal real life reasons I sadly haven’t been able to rewatch M*A*S*H in a while, and I’ve doubtless forgotten quite a bit of it. If you’d like to share some specific moments you were bothered by, maybe I could give you an alternate perspective on them? ^_^)

Now, you may be saying that the intent of the writers was always to mock Maxwell, no matter how we, the audience, choose to interpret the show. I’m sure that’s at least mostly if not entirely true, and I would never fault someone for refusing to watch M*A*S*H because of it. However, I feel that this is an issue inherent to the circumstances under which the show was created. In my opinion, it is impossible to expect a character like Maxwell to exist in an American sitcom from the 1970′s without such problematic origins. As a queer person, I recognize that when engaging with any media, I must either be prepared to look past intent and seek to reclaim and reinterpret stories and characters for myself, or else be severely limited in the queer representation I am able to find. 

Additionally, I’d like to address your claim that I and others don’t find any homophobia or transphobia in M*A*S*H to be worthy of warning and condemnation. With all due respect, I really don’t think you can make that assumption of someone from a blog post, or even a whole blog. The mere fact that something has aspects deserving of condemnation doesn’t mean that it has to be condemned every time it’s mentioned; that would be a little impractical, if nothing else. ;P

As a matter of fact, I think there are a whole bunch of things about M*A*S*H that are terrible! Racism, sexism, and plain old bad writing, to name a few. But surely you realize I could not have feasibly listed warnings for everything bad about the show in my post, yes?

Which brings me to the most important thing I’d like to say: You say you can’t trust Tumblr reviews of shows, and you are correct! (Especially if you count silly little posts like mine as “reviews”, which I’m very flattered you did! ^_^) You should always do your research on things and never rely solely on random posts posted by random people with blogs. They may be lying, or be exaggerating, or be misinformed.

Or, like me, they may simply be telling a joke that they didn’t realize 45,000 people would hear. 

In the end, my personal stance on this particular issue is as follows: Maxwell Q Klinger is a gender-non-conforming AMAB character created in an incredibly homophobic and intolerant environment who is not punished by the narrative for his queer attributes. He is never beaten up or attacked with slurs or killed off. Instead, he is a complex, unequivocally good and moral person who is loved and supported and receives the happiest ending of any of the main characters of the show. While there is a whole host of things to complain about in regards to the writing of this character and of M*A*S*H in general, I believe his existence is overall a wonderful thing and should be celebrated. ^_^