Many people dislike John Wayne and his movies because of his right-wing politics, and a simplistic, stereotyped impression of his films, even decades after his death, when his opinions on the events of his time should no longer matter.
After World War II, he supported the Hollywood blacklist, and many conservative organizations, including the extreme John Birch Society, James S. Olson and Randy Roberts say in their book John Wayne, American.
John Kurlansky says in his book, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World, that, in those polarized days, believing "bad" things made you a bad person. Wayne supported the Vietnam War, and publicly denounced war protesters and hippies
The same polarization continues today, Kurlansky says, based on people's reaction to that war. Even people too young to remember the Vietnam War either absorbed or rebelled against their parents, whose attitudes were shaped by the war, Kurlansky said.
Political Opinions
In an interview with Playboy magazine, published May 1, 1971, Wayne said he was a socialist in college during the 1920's. He voted for Franklin Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election, and admired President Harry Truman.
But as he matured, he realized the socialist ideal would not work, because too many people would take from the system instead of contributing their fair share of the work, he told Playboy.
He told Playboy people on welfare should be required to work for it, and minority groups should not have special preference in hiring or higher education.
In the same interview, the Hollywood Indian fighter said he did not feel guilty for what white people did to Native Americans 100 years ago. He said settling the continent was a matter of survival for millions of white people.
World War II
John Wayne did not illegally "dodge" the draft, but he never took direct positive action toward enlistment, Olson and Roberts say in their book. They say he saw the war as a threat to his newly achieved stardom.
While many established stars rushed to sign up for military service. Wayne ignored public pressure to enlist, and was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, Olson and Roberts say.
He inquired about enlisting, but never followed up, Olson and Roberts say. He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to join Ford's military unit, but consistently postponed it until "after he finished one more film."
In May, 1944, less than a month before D-Day, Wayne was reclassified as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studio obtained another 2-A deferment, Olson and Roberts say, for "support of national health, safety, or interest." He remained 2-A until the war's end.
World War II Movies
Olson and Roberts quote Wayne's widow, Pilar Wayne, who said his failure to serve in the military during World War II was the most painful experience of his life. She suggests that Wayne's rampant patriotism in later decades sprang not from hypocrisy but from guilt. "He would become a 'super-patriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home," Mrs. Wayne said.
As a celluloid war hero, Wayne won World War II practically single handed. His war movies glorified naval engineers, Marine pilots, submariners, and combat infantry. Each military unit he commanded on film was a cross-section of white America. (Black and white people served in separate military units until after the War.)
His war movies were as popular with the troops overseas as they were at home, Olson and Roberts say. They reminded the troops that they were defending a way of life that was better than they enemy's. He showed GI's the way they wanted to see themselves, and wanted people at home to see them, Olson and Roberts say.
The Green Beret
Wayne expressed his support for the Vietnam War in the movie The Green Berets, which he starred in and produced. He resuscitated devices from his World War II movies.
The enemy ambushed our soldiers, and laid deadly booby traps, while U.S. soldiers were merely trying to protect the innocent civilians of South Vietnam. A member of Wayne's platoon takes a swipe at the news media for reporting only negative distortions of the American effort, and ignoring the positive news, a common complaint of military and political leaders who supported the war.
The chief difference between this movie, and the many World War II movies, is that almost everyone believed, during World War II, that the U.S. was a good country protecting itself and the world from very dangerous bad guys.
There was no such agreement on the Vietnam War. It was not taken seriously as a movie. People who supported the war liked the movie. People against the war held the movie and John Wayne in contempt, Kurlansky said in his book, 1968.
Cowboys and Indians
Wayne's movies, especially the ones directed by John Ford, show Native Americans as a far more dignified, admirable people than other cowboy movies in the 1930's, 40's and '50's. Typical Hollywood cowboy movies in that era show Indians as savages, and aggressors, in the battle against white people settling on the frontier.
In Wayne and Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy" (Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and Rio Grande), Native Americans are portrayed as a noble civilization in a hopeless fight to defend their homeland and way of life.
To hunter/gatherers, farming is women's work. Men go out and hunt. Forcing Native American men to farm on reservations is to take away their manhood. That was the theme of Rio Grande.
In Fort Apache the enemy is an arrogant, bigoted Cavalry officer (played by Henry Fonda), and a corrupt Indian agent and trader. Cochise, the Indian chief, is a man of honor, a man of his word, the leader of a proud nation. He negotiates to prevent war until Henry Fonda's character insults him and orders him and his people to move back to the reservation immediately or face war.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the first of the trilogy, is the exception to the noble native rule. An Indian tribe goes off the reservation and attacks white people. Wayne (Natan Brittles) fails to prevent that war, though the wise tribal elder, Wayne's old friend, hates war and the destruction it brings to his people. He tells Wayne that he no longer has influence over the young warriors.
He says the young men must do their thing while the older, wiser men, like him and Wayne, go hunting and fishing together as friends.
Comedies
Film historian Saul Austerlitz includes Wayne in his history of American film comedy in the 1900's, Another Fine Mess.
Wayne's True Grit was the culmination of a series of comedies that began in 1952 with The Quiet Man, and included Hatari and Rio Bravo, which Austerlitz calls the funniest Western ever, and "maybe the best Western, period." He might also have mentioned McClintock with Dorothy McGuire, a divorce comedy set around 1901.
Drama
The Shootist, (1976) with Lauren Bacall and teenage Ron Howard, is Wayne's last film, considered by many to be his best straight dramatic role, according to film historian Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies.
At the turn of the 20th Century, an old shootist (gunfighter), learns he is facing a slow, painful death from inoperable cancer. He rents a room from a widow (Lauren Bacall) and forms relationships with her and her son Gillom (Ron Howard).
When word of his presence gets out, local people seeking revenge or a reputation, try to goad him into a gunfight. He invites them all to the saloon early one morning, when there will be no one else around. In a dramatic shootout, he kills them all, but the bartender shoots him in the back. Gillom shoots the bartender with Wayne's gun. Dying, Wayne smiles in approval when Gillom throws the gun away.
As he leaves for the gunfight. he and Bacall know they will not see each other again. The scene is underplayed, with no words, and deeply moving.
James Stewart, Scatman Crothers, Richard Boone, John Carradine, Sheree North, Harry Morgan, and Hugh O'Brien have supporting roles.
Few people remember, or care, that Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot once sympathized with European fascism. We've made heroes or martyrs out of Hollywood artists who were blacklisted in the
50's for Communist sympathies.. Some of them had supported Stalin in the 1930's.
John Wayne died in 1979. When will he qualify for amnesty for his political opinions?
Sources:
- Olson, James S. and Roberts, Randy, John Wane, American.
- Kurlansky,.John, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World,
- Austerlitz, Saul, Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy
- Playboy Magazine, interview with Wayne, published May 1, 1971
Ken Braiterman - Ken Braiterman writes columns for the Concord (NH) Monitor print and online editions. He also writes and lectures on recovery from ...
