Why Was MASH Banned in South Korea?

There are many large streaming platforms available in South Korea, and it’s quite probable that MASH is available to view on one of them. Right now, South Koreans may be watching reruns of MASH. However, they are probably quite annoyed or even angered by the depictions of Korean culture and the Korean people. The show was never as controversial in general as the movie version; however, MASH was surprisingly banned in South Korea! Why in the world did this happen?

small South Korean child sitting alone in street after battle in the city of Inchon in September 1950 — A small South Korean child sits alone in the city of Inchon after battle, September 1950

The original film version of MASH was banned on Army and Air Force military bases on the grounds that it portrayed the military in a negative light and might also cause soldiers to lose confidence in military medical care, should they need it. The film version was also banned in Israel, a story for another time.

Reasons MASH Was Banned In South Korea

Despite frequent criticism regarding MASH’s depiction of Korean’s and Korean culture, it was the realistic aspects of this portrayal that caused the South Korean government to ban its broadcast in the country. Up until the war, South Korea had never been a modern country. As depicted in MASH, the culture was almost exclusively agrarian, and most of the populace was quite poor and living in poverty. Both North and South Korea had been barely managing to maintain socio-economic stability following World War II. During this post-war period, after which the division of Korea along the 38th parallel occurred, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world.

Surgery being performed on a wounded soldier at the 8209th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, twenty miles from the front lines, Korean War, 1952

South Korea After the War

The Korean War, which started as a civil war but became an international one, involving China, the U.S., and other allies, further devastated the people of South Korea. In 1960, it is estimated that South Korea’s yearly gross domestic product was $79. This was lower than some sub-Saharan countries in Africa. This coincided with out-of-control inflation and a huge reliance on foreign aid.

The poverty of South Korean characters on MASH was clearly depicted. They were shown as refugees, subsistence farmers, craftsmen, or itinerant laborers (often working at the MASH compound in laundry and other jobs). The poverty of Koreans on the MASH show was, if anything, not as bad as it was in reality, both during and following the Korean War. After the war, things only became worse, as the rice crop failed and foreign trade began to collapse. ¹

It was the war, though, that helped lift South Korea out of poverty and allowed the nation to modernize. Aid from other countries, chiefly the United States, allowed South Korea to rebuild its infrastructure. In the decade following the war, the U.S. military remained in South Korea to help make sure that the country stayed independent from North Korea. By the time the first episodes of MASH were on the air, the country was already well on its way to becoming a modern, industrialized nation.

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The New Military Regime

During this time, there had been several power struggles. South Korea went through nine different presidents, many of them only “acting” presidents. The military vied for power, and achieved this in 1961 when General Park Chung-hee oversaw a military coup d’état in South Korea and formed the Military Revolutionary Committee. This removed the democratically elected government of Yun Bo-seon from power. The Military Revolutionary Committee installed a reformist military Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. This was led by General Park, who took over as “chairman” but was essentially the President. ²

Chung-hee was an authoritarian who believed in using propaganda to portray economic prosperity and to depict South Korea as fully superior to North Korea. He also oversaw much of the modernization of the nation, up until 1979. MASH, although it accurately depicted the economic conditions in South Korea at the time, conflicted with Park’s effort to portray South Korea as a modern and wealthy country. The fact that the show was set in the 1950s, not in the 1970s, did not matter. Like many authoritarian regimes, the government of South Korea wanted to rewrite history. MASH, as a somewhat historically accurate television show, ran counter to that effort.

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The South Korean People’s Reaction to MASH

The South Korean people largely agree with this effort. They do not wish their country to be portrayed as a poor, “backwards” country. While most Koreans have probably never watched the show, when MASH reruns finally started airing in South Korea in 1991, the show was not well-received. South Koreans did not like the depiction of their people as poor. They also did not appreciate the portrayal of Korean culture, or lack thereof. Some of these criticisms are quite valid. The Korean characters on MASH almost always lacked any real depth. And, most of the actors who portrayed them were not Korean, but Chinese or Japanese, and therefore did not speak Korean. However, no matter how modern Koreans feel about the poor conditions of Korean’s shown in the program, these conditions were accurate.

It would be difficult for a half-hour television show, trying to be funny while showing the realities of a medical unit in Korea, to portray Korean culture with any true depth. MASH was not a documentary; it was a fictionalized comedy show. Still, we should not dismiss the perspective of the Korean people! After all, it is their country and their people being portrayed! It did not help that more people in the world were familiar with MASH than with Korea itself. If people from all over the world formed their opinions of the United States from a fictional television show produced in another country, we, too, would not be very happy about it.

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I am not aware of how MASH is perceived today, in 2025, but at the time, it helped sour Korean’s against the American military presence in their country, and particularly the remaining MASH units. The last MASH unit in South Korea, 43rd Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (aka 46th MASH, Camp Mosier) was finally decommissioned in 1997. The ceremony was attended by Larry Gelbart, Larry Linville (Major Frank Burns), and David Ogden Stiers (Major Charles Winchester III). Many Koreans were happy to see it go. ³,⁴,⁵