I’ve always imagined John Wayne as the epitome of gun-toting
American racism. And I didn’t expect this white-supremacy parable to change my mind …See the other classic missed films in this seriesThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolationWhen people ask me what kind of films I like, I never know what to say. I like everything! Total trash, high art,
comedy, horror,
British realism, Czech surrealism, Hong Kong action, Hungarian inaction, you name it. But if there’s one kind of film I’ve never really loved, it’s westerns. Sure, I’ve seen some great ones, but as a genre it has never really appealed. I’m not American. I’m not into guns. And the demonisation and slaughter of indigenous peoples doesn’t really grab me.
Most of all, I’ve never really liked John Wayne. I think of him as the personification of humourless, swaggering, macho
Hollywood conservatism: a supporter of McCarthyite anti-communist witch hunts, gun rights, the Vietnam war, Ronald Reagan and white supremacism. (In a 1971
Playboy interview Wayne said, “I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility.”) And I recall anecdotes about how he stole his whole drawling cowboy shtick off the veteran stuntman Yakima Canutt. He did have a great voice, though.