Hawkeye Pierce & the Queer Politics of the Incorrigible Flirt
When someone thinks of Dr. Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, the first thing that would float up in one’s imagination is surely a ruby-red robe hanging from a willowy frame. The second is probably a martini glass. The third, I would say, is the flirtiness- oh God! All that flirtiness!
Hawkeye- America’s favourite TV doctors’ TV doctors- flirts with most things that move. It’s a big part of his whole deal. In fact, ‘carousing’ and ‘womanising’ are listed just below ‘drinking heavily’ and just above ‘pulling pranks’ in the first two lines of his Wikipedia page.
Nothing particularly out of the ordinary for a white male ‘hero’ at the centre of a beloved piece of American popular media. Hawkeye Pierce is an unlikely television Lothario. He is reasonably far from a picture of mid-century Hollywood machismo. Rather he embodies a ‘slinkier’ masculinity - he slithers around like a cat, constantly gesticulating, prattling on in a rhythmic New York accent flavoured with a dash of vaudevillean spark, wielding knife-edged quips and show tunes like a cowboy in a western wields his gun. This is a joint creation of both the text of the show as well as Alan Alda’s burlesque and vaudeville upbringing.
I would argue that Hawkeye’s flirting goes beyond being a charming quirk of character, and has a lot of political potency wrapped underneath it. Hawkeye’s flirting, whether written to be or not, is an act of subversion and of fostering radical intimacies- which makes it an act that is just so very queer. Whether written to be or not.
First things first, a disclaimer: most of the interactions I think of as Hawkeye “flirting”, the show itself does not frame them as such- especially his interactions with men. The more salacious and suggestive comments he makes to and about men are coated in heavy layers of humour within the show. However I would argue that even if you don’t prefer to read these interactions as sincere, you would draw pretty much the same conclusion about what they tell us about Hawkeye the character- that he is charming, wisecracking, smooth-talking, funny. What Hawkeye engages in is, in a very loose sense, ‘flirting for fun’ (Fox 2017), delinked from any romantic, sexual or homosexual intent. Yet what differentiates it from bantering or some good ol’ fashion rapport-building is how the dialogue and exchanges makes connections with different kinds of intimacies.
Flirting as a mode of intimacy: Hawkeye's flirting doesn't mean anything or go anywhere, in the strict heteronormative sense of what it should mean or where it should go. Yet they are instrumental in creating a kind of intimacy “in and of themselves” (Byron, Moeller 2021). Think of the first exchange he had with BJ Hunnicutt in 4x01 : "You married?" / "Someone will have to get me pregnant first." That exchange is not intended to be romantic or sexual, of course, but you can't help but clock the flirty undertone. It's a crucial moment in the episode as the first stone paved in the road to the deep intimacy forged between BJ and Hawkeye over the rest of the show. Think also of the parting gift trapper leaves with radar for Hawkeye: a kiss on the cheek. The show doesn't end the joke with radar kissing Hawkeye with an exaggerated grimace, Hawkeye pecks him back.
Flirting to create a transgressive, private space that disrupts the rigid institutional structure: Hawkeye's flirting, along with his larger performance of vulnerabilities, creates "the kinds of connections that impact on people, and on which they depend for living (if not "a life"), do not always respect the predictable forms" (Berlant 1998). The flirtation is a substantial part of the camaraderie Hawkeye develops with BJ, with Trapper, with Margaret, with Klinger, with the nurses at the 4077 MASH. The flirtation, especially due to it being so far from the picture of midcentury machismo and coupled with Alan Alda's (the actor) 'slinky' burlesque-theatricality flavoured masculinity, is 'improper' behaviour for an officer in the US army and thus is a deliberate mockery of the normative ideologies of the military institution.
Flirting as a performance of (queer) failure: Halberstam (2011) reimagines "failure" not as a lack of achievement, but as a radical refusal to participate in the "success" metrics of a heteronormative, capitalist, or this case, militaristic society. Hawkeye "fails" to be a good GI Joe. He lounges around in his red robe, knits and plays golf with an orange, swings a martini glass, has no respect for the linguistic propriety of the military, and he flirts. All this, though in a more muted, less obvious way, contributes to a performance of "unfitness" much like Klinger does with drag.
Flirting as friendship as a way of life: Hawkeye forges deep, intense bonds with friendship with multiple characters on the show and much of the forging is done through flirting. These intimacies exist in spaces where institutional codes of the army, but also more broadly codes of "good ol' meat and potatoes christianity" can't regulate them. "These relations short-circuit it and introduce love where there's supposed to be only law, rule, or habit", as Foucault (1981) put it. His friendship with BJ and Trapper feature a lot of emotional intensity, tactility, shared body language and domestic rituals. His relationship with Margaret too lives and thrives in a liminal space between heterosexual romantic love and platonic friendship, and in a stunning contrast to most stories in popular media of its stature, does not lead to a neat ending, either in a marriage or a breakup.
By inhabiting a persona that is sets up a tent and stubbornly squats in the "in-between”, between gendered performances, between platonic and romantic love, and between soldier and civilian, Hakweye becomes a potent ambassador of M*A*S*H’s anti-war message. He utilizes flirting, friendship and frivolousness to show the proverbial middle finger to the Great American War Machinery, which also, in some way, makes him a fitting 70s American icon.
Berlant, Lauren. "Intimacy." Critical Inquiry, vol. 24, no. 2, Winter 1998, pp. 281–288.
Foucault, Michel. "Friendship as a Way of Life." interview by R. de Ceccaty, J. Danet, and J. Le Bitoux, Gai Pied, 1981. Translated by John Johnston in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, New Press, 1997, pp. 135–140.
Halberstam, Jack. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press, 2011.
Byron, P., & Møller, K. (2021). Flirting and Friendship at the Periphery of Hook-up App Research.Lambda Nordica, 26(1), 23-52. https://doi.org/10.34041/ln.v26.720
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