LogFAQs > #942033286

John Wayne was a bigot. I don't think he saw himself as one.

In the context of the rant, he was taking a dig at Angela Davis before making a sweeping generalization of black people. He then backpedaled a bit by commenting on two black teens at his high school who were among the smartest in the school and how anybody can get a fair break.

To my knowledge, he never formally apologized for the remarks. He did make mia culpas though by casting black actors in movies he produced and having his characters speak lines of dialogue such as, "Mister, I don't have a bigoted bone in my body."

The remarks defined him going forward in life. Blaxploitation films would often have a portrait of John Wayne hanging in the home or office of the bigoted police officer bad guy. (Most notably found in Black Caesar starring Fred Williamson.)

He was a bigot. I don't think he saw himself as one. He saw homosexuality as disgusting. He was friends with Rock Hudson. He generalized black people in an interview, he cast black people in his movies since the 1950s and was friends with Sammy Davis Jr. and I believe Woody Strode. He acted as if Democrats and liberals were communists out to get the US, but got along swimmingly with Katherine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, and Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

Oh, and bigoted John Wayne shut down production of The Searchers to have a Native American girl flown out to a hospital and again shut down production so that a Native American woman could attend her daughter's marriage. (That son of a bitch.)

I think he was more complex than just being a one-note bigot to be written off in a single stroke. But, at the same time, I can't blame people who feel that way about him. It's a pretty damning statement. Though I'm sure if he were a Democrat, we'd be getting a bunch of "What he really meant statements..." from the same people calling for his removal.

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2020 going to be a CE kind of year ~ Panthera