Hey folks - remember the popularity of John Wayne

[malaise]

cowboys and Indians - we love killer heroes.

Nothing has changed - the ignorant will always cheer on murder.

Eastwood is as empty as his chair -fugg him.

[ileus]

1. You do know JW was an actor...

[SheilaT]

3. He was an actor but a lot of people assumed he was

exactly the person he portrayed up there on the screen.

I always thought he was a crappy actor. I'm thinking his politics were rather right wing, but I could be remembering that wrong. What I do recall quite clearly was that when he died he was suddenly Saint John.

[FSogol]

7. John Wayne, as a Roman Soldier in "The Greatest Story Ever Told"

[SheilaT]

9. Oh, dear. Even worse than I remember.

[malaise]

21. Ding ding we have a winner

[kydo]

4. yeah, so was ronnie raygun

and people loved them anyway.

Marion Mitchell Morrison was a jerk and I never liked his movies.

[JackRiddler]

11. So? He was the franchise.

People went to see John Wayne movies, just like they do those of the actor Clint Eastwood.

[yeoman6987]

2. I don't remember that at all

What I do know is a decent movie earned some money this weekend and some are going crazy over it. It's just a movie. Although I am sure the movie studio loves all the exposure good and bad. It peaks interest in more eyeballs seeing it. I think some of these reviews are from other movies out that bombed. Jealousy is ugly but alive and well.

[oberliner]

6. Have you seen it?

If so, what did you think? Would you recommend?

[yeoman6987]

10. I saw it Saturday at 2:10.

I would recommend it because I think it is getting a wrong rap saying it is a pro-war movie. It isn't at all. It is a conflicted sniper who goes through a lot of problems in both professional and personal life. It is not a cut and dry movie. Although the end is unbelievable with regards to the audience. I never experienced it before in any other movie. I don't want to give away anything but it was amazing.

[oberliner]

12. Thanks

I will probably check it out at some point as well though I am not usually a huge fan of Eastwood's movies.

[JackRiddler]

13. Oh the poor mass murderer!

I'm so glad someone made a nuanced, complex film about the conflicted feelings he may have had while murdering people in a foreign country.

(Which he didn't. His tortured soul is the film's fiction. Kyle's actual memoir is clear about how unconflicted and proud he was of his obedient participation in the U.S. government crime against Iraq.)

It doesn't matter that you can read "anti-war" messages into this apologia for the U.S. war of aggression. Good for you for reading the subtext. Meanwhile, how do you think the majority of the audience is taking it?

The propaganda campaign on television is much more important than the movie, because it will reach ten or more times as many people. People who don't want to see the movie are still getting the message several times a day, unsolicited, through the media.

The message of the propaganda is maudlin, un-nuanced and clear. Hundreds of movies are released every year and I would never pay American Money to watch such a film.

According to the propaganda on TV, the mass murderer who killed all those people resisting the aggressive invasion of their country was a sincere, Christian, suffering guy.

Meanwhile, his idea of how to help a soldier with PTSD was to take him to the gun range! The recipient of the treatment went nuts and shot Kyle dead.

Normally the only prize they'd be giving for this would be the Darwin Award.

[yeoman6987]

28. Lol. For someone who claims you didn't see it

You seem to know all about it. Hopefully it will win best picture and actor.

[JackRiddler]

34. But I did see it.

I saw the propaganda campaign. This is separate from the movie. It involves thousands of commercial buys, interviews on talk shows, the awards buzz, etc. The propaganda campaign is not the movie. I don't care about the movie. The propaganda campaign has its own message. This is obvious. I assume you're not dense, so your still pretending that this isn't obvious is... obtuse.

Obviously there are people here (you seem to be among them) who think the supposed artistry of the movie is a more important subject than the obvious political function of the propaganda associated with it.

You ask, is it a good movie?

I ask, will there ever be justice for the war of aggression and the murder of all those people?

Not when these are the kinds of movies that are being made and promoted. It doesn't matter if it shows war is hell. It is about a mass murderer.

Please go ahead and deflect. Continue to pretend Kyle isn't a mass murderer.

[JaneyVee]

23. I saw it as well, it was a good movie, but would...

Recommend people wait for it to come on cable. From a film perspective it was done well, but could have been done much better imho.

[cherokeeprogressive]

24. This whole kerfunkle kinda reminds me of the foaming-at-the-mouth revulsion over Forrest Gump.

Not to mention the anger it generated...

[oberliner]

5. Avatar is the highest grossing movie in US history

It doesn't get any more cowboys vs. indians than that one.

[JackRiddler]

15. At least it doesn't glorify the biggest mass murderer

among the cowboys. The Indians are the good guys, defending their planet against the aggressive invasion.

(Not an endorsement for Avatar. Boring as hell.)

[oberliner]

19. Did you think American Sniper glorified the sniper?

Have you seen the film, incidentally?

With respect to Avatar - we just had the Good Cowboy saving the Hapless Indians.

[JackRiddler]

20. I'm not paying American Money for this movie.

Like hundreds of millions of people, I have been exposed many times to unsolicited propaganda messages on behalf of the film. Among the hundreds of films released every year, the marketing does not interest me in paying for this one. The propaganda is its own work, however, and it has a clear message, heroizing a mass murderer, inviting us to feel his inner conflicts and struggles. It promises maudlin crap. The movie itself may be somewhat different. It may be a great work of art. Doesn't matter. The propaganda stands alone. It works to whitewash a war of aggression. Nothing can change the reality of the U.S. government's guilt in the commission of this great crime against humanity.

[TexasProgresive]

8. John Wayne, Eastwood and Raygun all celluloid heroes.

There's nothing there.

Here's a example of a real hero:

The "sixth passenger," who had survived the crash and had repeatedly given up the rescue lines to other survivors before drowning, was later identified as 46-year-old bank examiner Arland D. Williams Jr.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90#Honoring_heroism

He died a hero in the Potomac River after helping others survive the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 into the 14th Street bridge on January 13, 1982.

No athlete is a hero for what he/she does on the field only for self-sacrificing action. No soldier is a hero for actions on the battlefield, except for putting their lives on the line to preserve others. And no actor is a hero for what they do on screen.

This last one should be a no-brainer but no-brain people will believe most anything.

[malaise]

29. Nice post

Wish I could rec

[TexasProgresive]

32. Thank you

[theboss]

14. I like John Wayne

For the life of me, I do not understand this American Sniper debate.

I like movies. I like Boys Don't Cry....and Porky's.
I like True Grit.....and Brokeback Mountain.
I fucking love Patton. And The Godfather. And About a Boy. And Stripes. And - I dunno - It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

[bigwillq]

16. This sounds like me.

I love movies. All kinds.

Some I may disagree with, but I still watch and enjoy them.

[Octafish]

17. You forgot Randolph Scott!

And who remembers the Dulles Brothers?

[jberryhill]

26. Randolph Scott?

[Octafish]

36. The guy was great.

And he was nice to kids.

[jberryhill]

37. Whatever happened to Randolph Scott?

[Lint Head]

18. Wayne was also part Latino.

[WinkyDink]

25. Um...NOT! He was Marion Morrison from Iowa, of Scot, English, and Irish descent.

Ethnicity: English, Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), Irish

John Wayne was an American actor. He was the son of Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison.

John’s paternal grandparents were Marion Mitchell Morrison (the son of James W. Morrison and Martha Purdy Ewing) and Wealtha Chase Parsons (the daughter of Henry Charles Parsons and Abigail Buck). James’s parents, Robert Morrison and Mary Mitchell, were immigrants from County Antrim, Northern Ireland (Scots-Irish). Many of John’s father’s other ancestral lines traced back to New England in the 1600s, and England before that.

John’s maternal grandparents were Robert Emmet Brown (the son of Edward Brown and Margaret J. Good) and Margaret Cullenan. Robert had Scots-Irish (Northern Irish) ancestry. Margaret Cullenan was an Irish Catholic, born in County Cork.
http://ethnicelebs.com/john-wayne

He married 3 Latinas, though.

[TexasProgresive]

33. You're right that John Ethan Wayne is 1/2 Latino.

Wayne was married three times and divorced twice. He was fluent in Spanish and his three wives, each of Hispanic descent, were Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Pallete. He had four children with Josephine: Michael Wayne (November 23, 1934 – April 2, 2003), Mary Antonia "Toni" Wayne LaCava (February 25, 1936 – December 6, 2000), Patrick Wayne (born July 15, 1939), and Melinda Wayne Munoz (born December 3, 1940). He had three more children with Pilar: Aissa Wayne (born March 31, 1956), John Ethan Wayne (born February 22, 1962), and Marisa Wayne (born February 22, 1966).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne#Personal_life

[TheKentuckian]

22. I feel like I'm missing something, John Wayne didn't kill anyone I'm aware of

And if that isn't what you mean why reach for him when you could go with Harrison Ford, Scarlet Johansen, Denzel Washington, Matt Damon, DeWayne "The Rock" Johnson, Chris Pine, Zoe Sadana, Patrick Stewart, or Daniel Craig and be a lot more current for actors who play characters the kill as heros.

Or do you mean something else yet?

[msongs]

27. unlike obama, john wayne only pretended to kill people. your point is...? nt

[AgingAmerican]

30. When I was a kid murder and mayhem were all the rage

Every night at dusk, we played 'war'. My next door neighbor and I were always the, 'Americans', and my brother and his friend were always the, 'Germans'. We used toy guns and sticks for weapons and you had to die for ten seconds if you got shot. We used my neighbors walkie talkie's if we could rustle up batteries.

I read WW2 comics and watched war movies on the TV box on the weekends. We were all about World War II, which our grandfathers fought in. Oddly, we never played 'Vietnam war' which was raging at the time. Only WW2. We would probably have a swat team on us if we did it nowadays.

Fond memories of murder and mayhem from my childhood.

[Dawson Leery]

31. Eastwood is a putz, Wayne far worse.

Chris Kyle and John Wayne are from the same ignorant cloth. Neither had any doubts about killing. No bad feelings whatsoever.

[JackRiddler]

35. So what I'm learning here is that Hollywood product...

is a lot more important to people than politics. Certainly more important than the lives of non-American brown people. Apparently more important than the trillions stolen from them, and used to destroy peace in the world.

They don't care about the criminal government that waged an aggressive war and killed hundreds of thousands of people, or the obedient and busy mass-murderers like Kyle who helped to make that possible. When a film comes along making him into the (flawed, complex, etc.) hero, they ask the really important question: is it a good movie?!

[Bluenorthwest]

38. What I have learned is that when it comes to judging things they have not seen conservatives have

plenty to learn from liberals. If you have not seen the film, and yet you have an opinion about it and also about anyone who liked it, that's a form of cultural bigotry. If you don't want to see it, say why that is, but don't talk about a book you have not read and pontificate upon the flaws of those who have read it. That's behavior best left to the right wing.
The OP, it's cute, but the OP comes from a country that has 'dance music' hits about killing gay people and yet I do not make OP's that suggest that this is some universal definition of the OP and her culture. But I'll tell you this, I'll take John Wayne in True Grit over some foul mouth bigots singing about throwing acid at lesbians and shooting gay men. If that's what this is about, I'll take Duke, she can take the raging loons who urge people to commit real world hate crimes any day of the week.

[JackRiddler]

39. I have seen the propaganda campaign.

Hollywood A-list films are not just movies, they are accompanied by large-scale propaganda campaigns that often cost more than the production of the movie itself and reach a far greater number of people through unsolicited commercials, talk-show interviews, media buzz, awards bullshit, etc. etc.

The campaign is bigger than the movie. It also conveys a message. We all know how to read commercials, which contain content. The message in the case of the propaganda campaign for "American Sniper" is crystal-clear. It's fair game for discussion, regardless if one has seen the movie.

In this case, the commercials also happen to suggest an incredibly maudlin and disgusting movie, one that I would not choose to pay for from among the hundreds of movies released each year. But that's a minor matter.

More relevantly, we are talking about a monster engaged in a monstrous war. Kyle's life and words are part of the public domain. For example, his hallucinations of murdering black people in New Orleans from the top of the Superdome are well-known.

If they released a movie called "Ted Bundy: Teen Hero," and paid $100 million to advertise it during NFL playoffs, you'd be entitled to have an opinion on it without needing to see the film.