Scrolling through Twitter today, I was a bit dumbfounded by a minor stir resulting from some folks only now discovering that, yes, John Wayne was quite racist. (The main source: a Playboy interview that’s been a matter of public record since before most of the tweeting parties were born, and which was likely “brought back” by his daughter’s recent endorsement of a certain Republican candidate. You can guess who.) More than a product of the unfortunate modes of thought that dominated his time, however, the man formerly known as Marion Morrison led numerous films that stood at odds with the unsparing character he displayed in public. Not simply titles in which people were shot from and / or off a horse, many (particularly those by Ford and Hawks) were works of compassion and foresight, ones that attempted to understand “an other” — even if physical struggles were a recurring ingredient.
Rather than assume superiority by tsk-tsking at clearly objectionable comments made by an old white conservative who died decades ago, I would suggest watching John Wayne: The Unquiet American, a 50-minute BBC Four documentary narrated by Peter Capaldi. While it could stand to be longer, this covers the ground well by oscillating between onscreen and offscreen life without directly passing judgement, despite deeming Wayne’s political leanings “extreme” and noting poor behavior via interviews with family. What emerges from the study is a complicated figure: one who, for instance, attempted a migration to Mexico because he felt his country was going down the drain, yet who’d readily defend Montgomery Clift on the basis that his fellow actor was, above all, “a professional.” That’s worthy of consideration greater than a screencap.
See it for yourself: