Outrage over John Wayne interview

[Peebo]

Hey…I was a kid back in the fifties…Saturday was matinee time…westerns…John Wayne…Hopalong Cassidy…Audie Murphy…Randolph Scott…Roy Rogers…etc…they were every kids heroes back then…they are legends to us old guys…gimme a break will ya…lol

 

[Rhubarb]

I don’t understand this whole “he was a product of his time” defense. I thought Catholics believed in objective morality. Which means the rightness of those statements doesn’t change based on what time he was born.

 

[Victoria33]

We don’t really know what those statements mean before we condemn others, that’s what that means.

The meanings of words change. I had a boss in the 1990s, no, he was not even white and he’d say things that I charted down to his being from a different time and different background. I did not assume what he said was because he was a racist.

Homophobic language may have been more acceptable in the past, now it is not.

Nowadays, we have Islamophobia. I think while caution is needed, we should not give in to hysteria. That can happen as well.

So, yes, one might see these above two as significant of the times we live in.

I thought being Catholic meant not judging others too harshly @rhubarb You know, let those who are without guilt throw the first stone.

Society was at one time segregated, supreme count decisions, legislation had to come into affect to change our great nation. Yes, times were different. We were segregated, how did one’s companions talk? Is one guilty if they repeat dumb things they said?

Have we fought wars against opponents where an epithet might be commonly used because it’s just a sign of our hostility to the enemy? Yes, the word might be racist to use, whether there is malice in it, I don’t know. I do think it is wrong, I think it is natural for some to use such language.

Has Jesse Jackson and even others been forgiven for things they have said? Why not John Wayne?

 

[Victoria33]

Right now, congressional representative Ilhan Omar has been accused of saying certain things. Are those words anti-semitic? Is she a product of her environment? How quick should we be to judge because it is said that she has done so again.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I don’t remember John Wayne himself being held up as a hero or an example.
He’s a Hollywood actor like every other Hollywood actor.
But people have often discussed the John Wayne “type”, as the kind of roles he took, the strong, silent, rugged man’s-man type. And the merits or demerits of such a type.
Contrasting-ly, the “Alan Alda type” (sensitive and pacifist and modern). It wasn’t about Alan Alda the actor, it was about the characters he was cast as…

 

[lilypadrees]

People are making mountains out of mole hills about an interview that was given in the early '70s by a man who is now deceased.

Let the Duke rest in peace!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t understand this whole “he was a product of his time” defense. I thought Catholics believed in objective morality. Which means the rightness of those statements doesn’t change based on what time he was born.

It is not only him. It is also the time. It has happened, historically, that a fairly advanced people comes across a more primitive people. In such cases, the more advanced people generally provide the leadership. Nothing strange or racist about that. It’s just what happens.

 

[F_Marturana]

Bravo. (10)

 

[Victoria33]

Bravo. (24)

Looking forward to the consistency by Catholics being applied on a consistent basis.

 

[Theo520]

I don’t understand this whole “he was a product of his time” defense. I thought Catholics believed in objective morality. Which means the rightness of those statements doesn’t change based on what time he was born.

There’s nothing morally wrong with the above quotes attributed to Wayne.

• he actually implied we needed to provide equal education to blacks
• Catholics led the charge in the settling of the Americas, it wasn’t obviously morally wrong.

 

[F_Marturana]

I’m not sure what if I agree. I don’t see a mountain.

I don’t approve of what he said. I’m disappointed by it. He’s dead though, I hope he rests in peace.

He’s got a number of good films. I’ve never been a big fan, although I do like “The Longest Day”

I don’t understand the reluctance to say, “what Wayne said was wrong.”

Gary Cooper, for example, impregnated his costar of the Fountainhead, and procured an abortion for her. That was wrong. I can still watch a Gary Cooper film.

 

[Victoria33]

I don’t understand this whole “he was a product of his time” defense. I thought Catholics believed in objective morality. Which means the rightness of those statements doesn’t change based on what time he was born.

Whose objective morality is this? Those carrying out a witch hunt? Don’t dare call that objectve morality Catholic in my name. One could say the same about Columbus. So, the objective morality changes or not?

Cultures change, in the '70s there were comedians like Richard Pryor, there were shows like Sanford and Son, All In The Family and Chico and the Man. These shows couldn’t even be put on tv prime time anymore. So, yes, cultures change. I’m not going to follow the politically correct witch hunt of progressives trying to bring an American icon down who has been dead for 40 years.

I object to shoe-horning this as somehow having to do with Catholicism.

We saw Columbus held out as a hero but now, some want to change it. Which was it? Which is it? We have the Knights of Columbus and so on. Were Catholics wrong then?

This is more like a Stalinist progressive purge if you ask me.

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

Only if we tear down the Jefferson Memorial due to his proclivity for slave ownership.

Come on folks, stop viewing everything in the past and judging every person through our perspective.

 

[F_Marturana]

Sanford and Son and All in the Family have been rerunning for years.

We laugh at Archie because he’s a bigot. We don’t agree with Archie (I hope).

The show wasn’t popular because people thought Archie was morally correct in his bigotry.

 

[Victoria33]

Only if we tear down the Jefferson Memorial due to his proclivity for slave ownership.

Come on folks, stop viewing everything in the past and judging every person through our perspective.

And Christopher Columbus has been on the bloc as well. Oh, how Catholics will say the same thing in this case, many, absolutely not and yet, we have the Knights of Columbus.

Sanford and Son and All in the Family have been rerunning for years.

I said prime time meaning the main networks, ABC, NBC and CBS. These shows are not made a new though.

And again, will see the same standards being applied to Columbus.

Let’s hope we apply standards consistently.

 

[Dr_Meinheimer]

Perhaps if those up in arms about Wayne’s comments were simply looking for an acknowledgement that this wasn’t a nice thing to say rather than considering changing the name of an airport, they’d find support. People take these things to far, which is why you always see pushback.

I don’t think you’ll find too many folks on either side defending past attitudes that we no longer hold en masse. You will find people stopping short of doing stupid things like tearing down statues or renaming airports because it simply isn’t necessary.

I bet I can find some dirt on Thurgood Marshall and if I did, should we rename BWI? To what end? he was not perfect, and we knew that when the airport was named in his honor.

Unless we simply decide to name everything after Christ or His mother, which is fine with me, but won’t fly outside of Catholic circles.

 

[F_Marturana]

Is there any initiative at all to ban his films, or revoke his Oscar. I must have missed it.

The story is, John Wayne gave an interview with Playboy Magazine, and said bigoted things.

Some John Wayne fans think it’s no big deal that he said bigoted things.

Other people disagree with the bigoted things, but realize he’s dead and can’t do anything now to retract them.

Others are offended and are not going to watch his films anymore.

Apparently, over the course of the years, the consumers of Playboy just for the articles, forgot about the article since then. Four or five guys might have been distracted.

 

[Victoria33]

I’m not declaring what he said as racist, if he’s talking about the system, remember, the early '70s was when school integration and busing occurred, Why did that busing and integration occur if one system was not superior to the other?

(busing occurred in the '70s and I guess, forced integration started happening as far back as the '50s, fine with me).

We sure are quick to call or assess the words of others as racist, I don’t think that is Catholic nor Christian.

 

[gracepoole]

gracepoole:

I agree that we are destroying every hero we might have had through a revisionist lens.

Is this a concern?
Shouldn’t strong values and principles prevail over mythos?

Sure. But often a mistaken assumption is made that it’s either/or: either we uphold strong values and principles or we cling to myth. There’s no reason not to recognize the complexity of humans, even and especially those held up as icons. When I teach Little House on the Prairie, my students confront the racist attitudes of Laura’s parents and neighbors. We also recognize the uniqueness of her novels, given that a) she is describing a period of unprecedented change, and b) she creates a character (herself) who asks questions about the racism she encounters. It’s unnecessary and unhelpful to bury or burn her books or stop seeing her in heroic fashion when we could simply recognize the complexity and messiness that exist in every time period and in every human being. Similarly, MLK Jr doesn’t need to be forgotten because he was a philanderer. And no one needs to stop watching John Wayne’s films because he was a white nationalist.

 

[niceatheist]

It’s why The Searchers was John Wayne’s greatest film. Ford and Wayne (whatever either man’s private thoughts) made clear the dichotomy of the Old West; that atrocities were committed on both sides, and hard men do bad things, for reasons good and bad.

As to Wayne himself, he was a man of his era; openly conservative, largely out of touch with the wider society, and held some retrograde views even by the standards of his time. As with the likes of Mel Gibson, when I watch Wayne’s movies, I have to separate the man from his art. If I were to reject every work of art because I thought the creator an odious individual, I’d have a very small library indeed.