The Iconography of John Wayne

The genius of John Wayne is that no matter what you might think of the actor or the legend or the ideals that he stands for, at some point you have to consider him. You have to consider him because at some level, he represents some people's idea of what America might be like or the old West might be like, or what the American experience of War might be like, or at the last, what people's idea of true heroism might be like.

Say what you will, John Wayne matters even to those who despise what he stands for. John Wayne has been an heroic paradigm for me for a very long time. As I have grown older, however, I have become more picky about the films of John Wayne that I esteem. As with Clint Eastwood, I found that Wayne is much better in films where he must face himself and live with the vulnerabilities and doubts that reside within an otherwise strong and impervious exterior.

Perhaps my most favorite Wayne film would be The Searchers. The niece of stoic and abrasive John Wayne is kidnapped by Indians after her family is massacred. Wayne sets out to rescue her but quickly loses himself in a ride of revenge and racism against Indians, eventually turning his hatred on the very girl he wished to rescue when she becomes part of a local Comanche tribe. Wayne is forced to confront his own racism and thirst for revenge when he finally rescues his niece. But even at the end of this fine John Ford film, Wayne is still marginalised and cut off from the bosom of his family and community...sort of seen as an endangered stereotype that the world has left behind.

This theme of the modern world of law and order leaving behind the rugged frontier hero is no more apparent than in "True Grit" with John Wayne's shoot 'em up heroism being viewed as embrassing and illegal by the establishment that Wayne as Rooster Cogburn has served all his adult life. The image of him fat, drunk, and sick...laying on a smelly bed in the back of a Chinese laundry is still haunting, but his resurrection to see justice done in his one man charge against Robert Duvall and company still inspires and thrills.

And finally, Wayne in Red River, Howard Hawk's fine revisonist Western may show Wayne at the height of his powers in a tragic story that approaches King Lear in its scope and depth of human relationships. Wayne adopts Montgomery Clift and the two cowboys decide to drive a superherd of cattle to market. What happens is much like the Mutiny on the Bounty, where Wayne mercilessly drives his drovers into a mutiny against him. Even Clift is driven to this final betrayal and the look on Wayne's weathered face is enough to chill the soul.

Yes, Wayne did make a lot of bad pictures, particulary in the late sixties and early seventies which were mere shadows of films like She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. But Wayne, with all his faults, remains what he is...the best and also the worst of us and his performances still have the power to captivate me today!