Outrage over John Wayne interview

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The point of the Searchers, so far as I can see, is that the hero (who really is an “anti-hero”, perhaps the first actual anti-hero in American cinema), holds such conflicted views on the Indians. There’s a point in the film where Wayne’s character seems perfectly willing to kill his niece, should he discover that she has become too much like her captors (the suggestion being that she has had sexual relations with them). The fact that his only friend is the young half-breed only adds to the peculiar dichotomy at the heart of the film. Wayne’s character hates Indians so much that he’s willing to kill a member of his own family should she have become too much like them, and right up until the end we cannot be sure whether Wayne will embrace or murder her.

To me, it’s one of the most complex Westerns ever made. It isn’t a perfect film (the young half-breeds romantic leanings towards one of the settlers always seemed a bit forced to me), but Wayne’s character is a triumph; and created the archetype that Clint Eastwood would spend much of his career as an actor and director in the genre aspiring to.

As to destroying Wayne, well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say anyone was trying to destroy him, but even during his later years some of his statements were rather uncomfortable. He was an unabashed conservative, and certainly held some views I would call “old fashioned”. I do not think he was a racist, in that he didn’t believe anyone was inherently inferior, but he had the misfortune of having his later career sit one foot in the door of the modern era, and thus some of his films and comments were inevitably compared to the changing mores. Even some of his admirers in that later period seemed at pains to square the man they met (who was by all accounts a warm and decent man) with some of his comments. Mind you, back in the 1960s and 1970s, we didn’t live in the 24 hour news cycle, so an offhand comment or poorly-made observation didn’t become headline news.
 
dvdjs said:
Good grief.
"I believe in white supremacy … "
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"…until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.".

Good grief, is that the only sentence you have read in the article? No paraphrasing, that’s what he said.

I’ll say, I don’t like the way that came out of John Wayne’s mouth but I see it was a different time, there are many factors on this. So, I do not see this as something that should be condemned.

It is interesting, there are so many varieties of music, most of us, not all, probably listen to something that reflects our background. I know people who listen to heavy metals. At times, I do think, that really fits your background. And so, in a strange way, it’s a bit racially telling.
 
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He was born in 1907 and people who fought in the Indian wars would have been alive at the time. When I was a little kid, I used to enjoy talking to an old timer who came periodically to the creek below our house to fill barrels of water for his livestock. His well sometimes ran dry.

I remember he was in his late 80s, or told me he was. He told me how, when he was a kid, Indians would occasionally come up the valley and dig for some kind of mineral they found there. When they did that, the man and his family would leave the house and hide. When he was a little kid, there still would have been hostile Indians up on the northern plains. Probably they had no substantial reason to fear the ones they saw, who came up from Oklahoma. But they were afraid of them all the same.

As to blacks, Lincoln said the following:

"In his 1858 debate with Sen. Steven Douglas, Lincoln maintained, “And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

At least John Wayne allowed as how “white supremacy” which didn’t have the flavor then that it does now, was a matter of education, not inherent condition.

But no hero of western culture can be left unsullied by modern progressive tarring. Not Wayne and not Lindoln.
 
Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, even JFK it is written, are alleged to have used ‘the’ unacceptable racial epithet. I look forward to seeing the record burnings over this and yes, I do consider that to be worse personally. But in past times, some times, people didn’t know better or in the case of the first two I mentioned, may have been too young to know better.
 
I think much of it is just a device by which some people consider themselves better than others. So JFK maybe said the “N” word. If I don’t say it, then that means I’m morally superior to him, and no matter what I think of blacks in my heart.
 
Victoria33 said:
I’ll say, I don’t like the way that came out of John Wayne’s mouth but I see it was a different time
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It was a time of change. It was a time in which the lingering gross indignities imposed upon blacks in America were being stripped away. Wayne’s remarks, in my opinion, show him as being part of the problem, not part of the solution. Rather than address the particular case of Angela Davis, he makes her point by talking about blacks: their level of responsibility as a group, their educational preparation, as a group, and their suitability for leadership, as a group.

Such remarks were seen as reactionary time; and they haven’t aged particularly well.
 
Ridgerunner said:
… John Wayne allowed as how “white supremacy” which didn’t have the flavor then that it does now …
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It had an odious flavor then perhaps even more so than it does now, because of its use among those who opposed the end of segregation.
 
dvdjs said:
It had an odious flavor then perhaps even more so than it does now, because of its use among those who opposed the end of segregation.
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One could easily say this was a metaphor and not some descriptive term striking up impressions of the Klan and Neo-Nazis. It is what it is.
 
I don’t care what any actor says for good or bad from a moral standard. Sure, you can argue, they are role models and their ideas set trends like it or not. I don’t believe it is spiritually constructive for the actors’ ideas to set trends even if I agree with their ideas.
They are entertainers by means of pretending. St. John Chrysosthom speaks as acting an unacceptable career for a Christian because it is based on lying. You may argue that the world has changed and now is seen differently than before. Yes it is seen differently than before but, in the light of truth, is it different?
I don’t hate actors, don’t get me wrong. I just think it is wrong for them to interviewed on moral issues and then judge or praise them based on their answers. Their job is pretending. Why not let them be entertainers without judging them but also without turning them into idols?
PS so, John Wayne said some white suprematist stuff. Then, today, many actors famous today who may also become legends say the opposite of John Wayne, some very tolerant stuff (whether this angers lovers of the old style Hollywood or not is irrelevant, people like them and like reading stuff about them and that’s the way it is). So what? Is the world better because of mean racist or nice tolerant stuff actors say? No. If the world is better is because people have more options and this is more linked to economy and even politics. Or if the world is not better is because economics and politics failed. What actors say…like it or not.
Say, were John Wayne’s characters inspiring you to be good or evil? Did he evoke magik or made people glorify evil?
 
Victoria33 said:
One could easily say this was a metaphor and not some descriptive term striking up impressions of the Klan and Neo-Nazis. It is what it is.
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That would be my guess. But for some, assuming moral superiority is important to them, especially if his daughter endorsed Trump. If she had endorsed Hillary Clinton, we wouldn’t be hearing this.
 
And I just saw that President Obama used the most maligned epithet. Oh, well, I have no expectations of this being brought up again, oh, it’s different I suppose. Whataboutism I suppose. No American should ever say such a word.
 
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I think a lot of peoples’ attitudes depend on where they are from or where they have lived. I’m not from the Deep South, but I used to travel there a lot, and one of the most noticeable things about it was that blacks and whites were together in ways they were not in the north. The relationship was far more easygoing.

There was even a trace of that in St. Louis where I lived for a time. Once on a somewhat intoxicated evening drinking with a group of black members of a motorcycle gang, I got irritated at the fact that ever second word out of their mouths was the “N” word. I objected to them saying it when I couldn’t. Well, keep in mind I had done a favor for one of the gang members, so I really wasn’t in danger, though those kinds of folks were pretty mercurial at times. Anyway, we tried to come up with a parallel thing they could call me, and eventually settled on “white trash” or something, and they gave me license to say the “N” word at will.

Even so, I was a bit ginger in its use, but for a time I was probably the safest white guy other than Mafiosi, in the city.
 
Well, I guess that there are several lessons here.
  1. Celebrities should never give interviews in Playboy.
  2. The Miranda warning should be expanded to include everyone at all times. Anything you say past, present, or future, can and will be held against you.
  3. No matter what John Wayne thought, Angela Davis must be pretty smart. Being a member of the Communist Party USA and its VP: nominee on several occasions did not keep her from being hired by UCLA, University of San Francisco, and obtaining speaking engagements at other universities.
  4. Judging past historical figures by current standards is a one sided operation, since dead people have no way to explain or defend themselves.
  5. No doubt future generations will judge us by their own standards. Maybe we will be condemned for our wholesale killing of unborn children and and the elderly or for pretending that sex can be changed.
 
JimG said:
Angela Davis must be pretty smart. … being hired by UCLA, University of San Francisco, and obtaining speaking engagements at other universities.
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I think that you mean SFSU (also UCSC) not USF, a Jesuit school.
There were effort to oust her from her position at UCLA for being in the Communist Party and fopr her speech. Courts intervened.
 
There are no film burnings going on of John Wayne films.

He said something bigoted. He’s dead now. He can’t make any retractions

Any John Wayne fan can watch all the John Wayne films they want, they can hold a marathon. No one will stop them.

I don’t have to like John Wayne. I don’t ever have to see another John Wayne film ever.

And that’s ok. Being a John Wayne supporter or fan isn’t an article of the faith.

He wasn’t infallible.
 
Your opinion is that he said something “bigoted”.

As far as I’m concerned, it was a metaphor that whites are getting a better education. I won’t take quotes out of context.

Obama said something in an interview referred to earlier, I won’t judge the appropriateness of it, all I know is that John Wayne from what I’ve seen, never used that word.
 
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I read the interview, Wayne clearly used a negative epithet about gays, one might even hear once in awhile today. That is unequivocal. To that, I think he was probably uninformed, in error, crude, bigoted. That’s a clear case, if one wants to get on John Wayne, I think it would be those words he used in discussing the movie ‘Midnight Cowboy’. Otherwise, the other is speculation.

I wonder what it says about those insisting those other words are “racist” while they don’t include how he described, I assume, gays.
 
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