If John Wayne Were Alive

[SoDesuKa]

If John Wayne were alive today, which of the presidential candidates' military service would he portray? Kerry at the helm of a patrol boat through hostile waters, or Bush and some bimbo snorting cocaine in a hotel room?

This refers to John Wayne in the movies. The real life John Wayne was as hawkish as Charlton Heston.

[Syrinx]

1. he would play Kerry, he would vote for Bush

[pacalo]

3. He and Jimmy Stewart were both Republicans

but the Republican party was much different than it is today. I don't see them supporting this neocon movement at all. I don't think they would approve of this bullying, step-on-the-little-people, non-elected president.

[pacalo]

4. Oh, & let's not forget that Dubya is not only a bully,

but he's a coward, too -- but aren't all bullies cowards under the veneer?

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Don't sell John Wayne short

He was politically a more complex creature than are most of today's neo-con Chickenhawks. I sincerely believe he would have been incensed by the Swift Boat liars. Wayne never went to war, but in spite of his "hawkishness", he seemed to understand the human stakes in war.

He was open to change, and he had a radical change of heart concerning race relations between the mid-60s and mid-70s. There are still many stories being told in Hollywood of his insistence (after the 1950s, when he was able to dictate script changes) that American Indians be portrayed with as much accuracy and dignity as possible. The English-only crusades of the 90s would not have found a friend in Wayne, who was fluent in Spanish and supportive of Mexican and Mexican-American cultural and legal rights. He sponsored and supported several environmentalist and conservationist groups. And he made a series of anti-smoking advertisements when he learned he was dying of smoking-induced lung cancer.

Many people forget that a lot of the hawkishness seen in the 1960s was a reaction to the ham-handed politics of the popular leftism of the time. Just two decades after a life-and-death struggle against Fascism was won by the Free World, that same world was attacked and mocked by people with sincere politics but bad manners. People like John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, etc., were turned off by the politicking of the "Generation Gap". It was profoundly painful to have risked one's life for freedom at age 19, only to be called a "pig" at age 45 by a 19-year-old enjoying the freedom without seeming to appreciate it.

John Wayne has become the symbol for all that is bad about America, but he doesn't deserve it any more than Jane Fonda deserves to carry the entire blame for the excesses of the antiwar movement. Wayne certainly had his feet of clay, and they probably ran stright up to his ass, but he was far from a human cliche. I doubt that he could be termed a "leftist" under any definition of the term, but he wasn't the one-track robot he's often made out to be.

It's time we re-discovered John Wayne -- as a man, not as a symbol.

Anyway, isn't it long past time we stopped making our stars the receptacles for our love, our hopes, and our hatreds?

--bkl

[kskiska]

5. The real John Wayne

was born in Iowa as Marion Morrison and never served in the military.