Withdraw John Wayne's Medal
Posted: Saturday, September 04, 2010
by John Sammon
Sammonsays
In 1979 Congress gave actor John Wayne a "Gold Medal" citing his heroics as an American patriot and I now formally ask Congress to rescind the award based on Wayne's being a slacker from World War II.
The fact that Wayne was able to excite American men by the way he swaggered around and that an entire generation of young American (white) men including the former president George Bush and myself wanted to be like Wayne, and the fact that for decades Wayne was a top box office draw. These are not reasons to award a medal.
"It's about time," O'Hara said.
O'Hara said John Wayne wasn't just an actor, "John Wayne is America." A Hispanic woman living in a tenement in a run-down section of Detroit struggling to find enough to eat would be interested to hear that.
I say now that an injustice was done in the awarding of the medal. It should be taken back, for several reasons.
First of all, no other performer was given such a medal including those who served in combat in World War II, including some who gave their lives. Wayne not only deliberately avoided military service, he cleaned up in Hollywood taking all the juicy movie roles fighting the war from the silver screen and had the town to himself because the other men (actors) were away fighting the real war.
One of them was Richard Fiske, a young up-and-coming actor who everyone except me has forgotten and who was killed in France. Fiske never got a symbolic award from Congress like Wayne, but got a real award, The Purple Heart.
Wayne cashed in handsomely on the war, making money as a movie star when other actors had their careers suffer because they went in, including Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda. Some like Stewart and Fonda, were able to resume their careers after the war.
Others were less fortunate, such as George Reeves, who could only get a part as Superman on television. Even Ronald Reagan, though he had eye problems that prevented him from seeing combat, left Hollywood for Santa Monica to make Army training films. This hurt his career. He was only able to get a later job as a host on the TV show Death Valley Days.
In Hollywood, being out of sight is being out of mind.
There are other reasons Wayne's medal should be withdrawn. After the war, apparently because of a guilty conscience from avoiding the war (according to his wife), Wayne was a leader in the Joe McCarthy anti-communist purges of the 1950s that targeted and blacklisted fellow actors, some who were innocent, such as actress Lee Grant, whose career went into a decade-long unemployed oblivion while Wayne's soared. This kind of vicious stupidity should be taken into account. Wayne's medal has carved on it, "John Wayne, American."
How American is it to brand somebody unfairly without regret and to damage their livelihood over an offense they didn't commit?
During the 1960s Wayne became a hawk on the Vietnam War, urging young men to go and fight, to do what he wouldn't do.
There are many different Americas, not just Wayne's.
Wayne has never been particularly popular with women, blacks, or any of the other ethnic groups that also comprise America.
Apparently, he was given the medal for the simple reasons that he was a successful movie star who made white American men feel good about wanting to emulate him, and for becoming an icon for those who wished America to be the kind of place portrayed in Wayne's movies. In other words, blow away the bad (physically smaller) guys, swagger through the saloon doors, put obedient, submissive women in their proper place, drink and play cards with slap-each- other-on the-back (usually submissive) cronies.
This was Wayne's America. A myth. Wayne's movies did not portray the real Old West.
On the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Wayne tried to roughhouse (for real) black actor Woody Strode. Director John Ford saw that the younger Strode was going to kick Wayne's ass and came running up yelling "Woody, don't hit Duke, we need him."
President Jimmy Carter at a reception rushed to shake Wayne's hand and called him the "genuine article." What was genuine? A USC football player too slow to make first string named Marion Morrison who was lucky to have and take advantage of a fabulous career?
Richard Fiske died for his country. Wayne got rich for his.
He shouldn't be rewarded for that.
The medal should be withdrawn.
2010 Sammonsays.
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