I was driving home from work and saw a pickup (of the “do you reeeeeeeaaaaallly need a vehicle that big?” variety) with a Bush/Cheney sticker and another one that said “God Bless John Wayne.”
WTF?
Newish truck, new stickers…
. . . maybe the part that said " . . . Gacy" got torn off?
Any SDMB “Doper” knows by now I am NO John Wayne fan. But enough about what I think - here’s what “the Master” has to say:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_004.html
I cannot understand the fanatic hero worship for a guy now dead 25 years. As I also like to say, the most decorated hero of WW2 was Audie Murphy 5’ 5" tall and won every medal including the Congressional Medal of Honor. But John Wayne looks the part of the hero and appearances are what counts right? (I am 5’3" by the way)
I assume you’ve never seen In Harm’s Way. :: sniff :: That’s what makes a man a hero . . . 
Tripler
Aw, who am I kidding? My heroes include Indiana Jones and Martin Riggs [sub]Lethal Weapon[/sub] fer chrissakes. . .
Well, if you draw twickster’s name in the upcoming SDMB Secret Santa exchange, you now know just what she’s angling for…
Then again, if you go drivin’ around with that kind of bumper sticker on your truck, you may be a fan of Kinky Friedman.
Damn, Sternvogel, you saw through my subtle manipulations…
But seriously, as wolf_meister says – he’s been dead a quarter of a century – why him? why now?
A scene in one of Tor Åge Bringsværd’s (a Norwegian fantasy/SF author) novels or short stories goes something like this:
The main character is in a bar in USA, sitting in deep thought. Someone beside him says “God bless America”. The main character doesn’t answer, so the guy repeats, loudly and agressively: “God bless America!”
Main character: “Oh, sorry. God bless John Wayne.”
Second guy: “Good, for a moment there I thought you weren’t a patriot.”
Maybe it would be interesting to look at actors who did do something:
Frank Capra, John Ford, Henry Fonda and John Huston enlisted.
Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart joined the Army Air Corps.
Captain Kangaroo and Lee Marvin joined the Marines. Marvin watched the Captain stand up during a firefight, making a target of himself so others could get to cover.
Hedy Lamarr invented frequency hopping, spread spectrum communications for the military.
Eddy Albert invented a better torpedo.
I liked The Duke, but he ain’t no real life hero. He was just an actor.
Yeah, the article wolf_meister linked to was extremely interesting, I thought.
Of course, I grew up during the '60s, when John Wayne was best known for The Green Berets and other reactionary claptrap (sic).
Glenn Miller formed the Army Air Force Band. Hell, even Ronald Reagan made training films in Hollywood, for crissakes!
Audrey Hepburn and Magda Gabor worked for the Resistance; Marlene Dietrich smuggled information overseas while entertaining the troops. Carole Lombard died on a War Bonds sales trip.
Jimmy Stewart was also the only American actor I know of who joined the military before Pearl Harbor. He walked away from his Hollywood career and enlisted while everyone else in Hollywood was still making movies. He also remained in the USAF reserves until the 1960s, retiring as a general, IIRC.
Tuckerfan
Although he became an actor later in life, Jason Robards Jr joined the Navy about one week before the Pearl Harbor attack. And he was stationed at … Pearl Harbor.
(He won the Navy Cross by the way).
Another person who became an actor later in life, Ernest Borgnine, was in the Navy from 1935 to 1945.
Right, and I’m not belittling their service or the service of anyone who honorably served during that war, but Jimmy was already well-known as an actor when he joined up, and he enlisted a year before Pearl Harbor. According to men who served with him, Stewart had the option of taking “milk run” missions, but never did. He also continued to serve in the military after the war was over, which probably makes him unique among Hollywood actors.
Not to diminish the service of two men who did enlist in the Marines, but this didn’t happen. http://www.snopes.com/military/keeshan.htm . Captain Kangaroo never saw actual combat.
Not according to Snopes
About John Wayne- he was an actor. I don’t personally think a great one. But for some reason the darling of the right.
That was circulated and made the rounds at work. Since it didn’t seem to serve any agendas, I had no reason to question it. My apologies to all.
Well, John Wayne was a bigoted asshole. In his best role, as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, he plays a bigoted asshole. Who can say he wasn’t honest?
Wayne wasn’t a bigot; you confuse his roles with the man. He also played several roles where he was very sympathetic to Indians (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Fort Apache, and IRL he showed no signs of actual bigotry.
Wayne was quite patriotic – in the sense of a WWII patriot, when things were black and white and the world was divided into bad guys and good guys. Things were different in the 60s with Vietnam, but he continued to see things the same way, which led him to think that protest was unpatriotic.
People are, of course, looking at Wayne’s image, and his image in a few of his many roles. In addition, they fail to see the complexities in the roles he was in (again, see Fort Apache).
Wayne was a pretty good actor, BTW. Just the fact that a lot of people believe that he is some sort of hero certainly shows his ability. Those who don’t think he’s good don’t know what good acting really is.
RealityChuck
When you say “Wayne was quite patriotic”, I don’t take it the same way you do. I think of his patriotism as the “summer soldier, sunshine patriot” type as Thomas Paine said. The article by Cecil mentions that Wayne had many chances to serve but didn’t. He could not get into the Naval Academy so he went to college. Why didn’t he join the Navy in the 1930’s as Ernest Borgnine did?
And yes it really bothered me when he became such a vocal 150% supporter of the Vietnam War. AND to think that he thought protesting it was UN-patriotic. If Mr Wayne thought about it, if it weren’t for a bunch of complainers and protesters, we’d still be ruled by England.