WEBVTT - Part Three: John Wayne: A Dude Who Sucked 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:15.120 What's Johnny my Wayne O? What's destroyed? Yeah? Shattering my pelvis, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:25.760 my thirteen pound baby? What's irradiating? My racist movie about 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.479 Genghis Khan starring a white man is Genghis Kan? That 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.200 is the funniest thing in terms of like ways John 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.680 Wayne could have died nuked while playing Genghis Khan in 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:42.800 a movie is pretty funny. That. That's pretty good? How 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:48.840 are you doing? Francesca Fiarentini, our guest returning for part 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:54.040 three of three. I have to find out how this ends, 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.400 you know? Well? I mean it's I feel like he 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.800 becomes even more bad, aastardly towards the end of his life. 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:06.839 But I'm excited. Yes, actually he becomes Chris Catan. Um, real, 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:12.480 real curveball for the story. That makes as much sense 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.120 as anything else. Um, Chris Catan, great career not over? 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.720 Is it not? Are we still doing christ? I don't 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.520 have anything against Chris Catan in particular, but are we? 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:26.559 I mean there could be a Night at the Roxbury reboots, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.240 So there could be or we could even do like 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.920 a like a like an Avengers in game where a 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.720 Night at the Roxbury meets the Blues Brothers and uh, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:41.560 it's another one of those Lord Michael's movies. Uh the Superstar, 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:44.240 I don't know Superstar. Throw that in there, you know, 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.440 throwing the David Cross one where he plays plays a hillbilly. Um, 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.480 make it all happen, but everyone's jacked. It's it's basically 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:57.720 everybody exactly get everybody like on it, pumped with H 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.840 G H destroy their hearts. Get him just like David 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:06.600 Cross has like sixteen inch biceps. Yeah, and then nume 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:08.239 on set and then we knew them, and then we 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.880 knew them on set. That's right. Finally, that's how we 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.239 that's how we end Lauren Michaels' career with that film. 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:22.640 Uh shouldn't have brought that Night at the Roxbury so um. Yeah, 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.160 he's like the center of this idea of like white 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:30.440 conservative masculinity um and and has has been for decades 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:32.840 at this point. By the time we hit like the 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.200 mid Night to late nineteen sixties. Uh, all of these 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.640 people who are like eighteen nineteen twenty uh and old 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.040 enough to start going over to Vietnam have never known 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.079 a world in which John Wayne wasn't like the biggest 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.720 action star in there. Like he's you know, there's not 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.200 really anyone to compare him to. Now, I guess your 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:55.839 closest would be someone like The Rock. Um. But even then, 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.280 like we we don't really have. The media is so 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:00.840 much bigger now, so like you have like a million 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.840 different kinds of action stars for everyone in this period 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:09.079 of time, John Wayne is like uh it yeah, um. So, 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.120 though not publicly a man of particular religious vigor, he 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:16.800 embodied what muscular Christianity enthusiasts respected, while also speaking to 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.080 the more secular, arch capitalist right wingers who sought a 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.760 more muscular US willing to throw down for the free market. 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.760 All of this sworld together to make him an irresistible 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:32.079 frontman for Republican politicians. Christine Cobbs Dumez writes in Night, 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.560 he gave a rousing patriotic address at the Republican National Convention. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.280 When Nixon wanted to explain his own views on law 0:03:38.320 --> 0:03:41.160 and order, he pointed to Wayne's Chisholm, which is one 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.520 of his movies, as a model, a bloody tale of 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:47.280 frontier justice in which Wayne achieved order and revenge through 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.200 violence some sixty eight like at the RNC, Nixon is 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.360 specifically pointing to John Wayne movies is like this is 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.040 this is how law and order is supposed to be. 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.720 This this cowboy movie by a draft dodger. You know, 0:04:00.800 --> 0:04:03.480 who could take care of these dirty hippies who want 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.600 to stop seeing their friends slaughtered? The Duke John Wayne, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.320 these we can't it be more like that? Remember when 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:13.960 the good guys were good guys and the bad guys 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.839 were the brown people. Let's do that. Let's do that again. 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.000 It is also very funny he spent so much time 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.880 shifting on anti war protesters, a lot of whom are 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:27.120 veterans who didn't dodge the draft like he did. But whatever, so, 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.840 Wayne himself was flabbergasted at the resistance among many Americans 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.760 towards continuing to escalate the war in Vietnam. I'man's biography 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.960 tells a particularly lurid story about Wayne seeing a one 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.120 armed veteran walking across the campus during a protest, and 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.080 this group of protesters like approaches this veteran. They're heckling 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.000 this brave man who lost his arm in combat, and 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.840 John Wayne has to like walk up and say, now, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.320 don't you like you can speak your piece, but you're 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.320 not gonna yell at this man, and you don't get 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:57.520 to say this to a hero and YadA YadA YadA 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:04.919 together becau actly and then everyone clapped. Yeah. Um, there's 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.560 no evidence this ever happened. Uh, it's there's a lot 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:10.359 of fake stories about stuff like soldiers getting spit on 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.080 from this period and John Wayne being a liar. I 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:18.279 don't have any trouble believing made this up. Um, he 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:23.080 needed one for himself. The spit the spit soldier story 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.720 was getting way too much play. Let me invent one. 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.360 He needed a John Wayne version one. Now I don't 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.760 think that particular story is true, Francesco, but we do 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.160 have audio of John Wayne addressing a group of students. 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.800 I think they're like r OTC kids, cadets at like 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.680 a military academy or something. What matters most is that 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:45.479 he's obviously fucking hammered. It's so funny. He is, he 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:50.160 is housed. He is just completely fucking still after all 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:53.320 these years. It's so funny. Um, here's how he says, 0:05:53.360 --> 0:06:06.840 hello to these kids. My name is what? All right? 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:16.080 First of all, it's Marryan is married. Suddenly you will 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:21.320 John is short for William. What am I saying? It's 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:26.800 so funny? This is unimportant? Oh my God, it does 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.920 not get wildly more coherent from there, but the audience 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:32.720 is very much on board. And honestly, if I had 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.480 been a college student and a drunk movie star had 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.480 come to give my commits like that would have been 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.040 super funny. I would have been all I think most 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.800 kids would write. Um, the audience, I mean this is 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.760 also a more right wing, militant audience. So they're they're 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.440 on board here. Um. Now I'm gonna play another clip 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.920 and for context. Here he's talking about how different things 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:55.440 were when He's talking about like protests in college and 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.400 how different things were when he were in he was 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:00.080 in college. Remember, this is a period where students are 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.120 taking over faculty buildings and whatnot. They're trashing the offices 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.840 of certain professors. Like there's all these protests against the 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:08.960 war by students. We talked about some of this in 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:12.040 the Kissinger episodes. So John Wayne is talking about how 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.160 different things were when he was in college. Let me 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.280 explain something to you. And I went there. I went there. 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:26.280 One that was a fella in troll Over College, I mean, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:38.600 I mean, boss many buddy had walked in there, A 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:45.240 good one got the office and did excrement and his 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:52.920 power through buddy, you got it. The waste paper basket, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:57.920 that's what it is. Had written lewd words on his uh, 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:05.400 the pictures of his family. We as members of the college, 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:13.640 would have kicked the god damn hell out of this argiza. 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:21.280 It's very funny. He's so drunk, does he nod off? 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:24.640 Because that's where it feels like I feel like he 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.280 might have, like he was sort of he was sort 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:32.319 of graying out there for a little while. What's the 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.439 having a little brown out, drifting off into the land 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:42.800 of vodka and fantasies. Classroom, right, the class class I 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:47.840 never stopped classroom. Just a drunk old man heckling teens. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:52.120 So from this point he continues to his main argument, 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.800 which is that he thinks these kids he's talking to 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:57.280 should beat the hell out of left wing protesters who 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.040 dissent from the view that war is good in the 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.400 US can do no wrong. Well, a lot of the 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.240 speech is very funny. It's mostly very funny. The last 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:07.880 bit does kind of get a little terrifying because in 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.920 it John Wayne calls for the establishment of the sort 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.079 of violent right wing street organizations that we are currently 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.079 swimming in as a nation. For you guys, you better 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:22.280 start thinking. It's it's getting to be re god damndiculous. 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:30.840 If you guys don't start thinking is men, we're gonna 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:40.160 have a lousy country. Jesus, I'm I have had the 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.920 chance to be you as guys who are with things 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:52.200 and against things. Christ try as because I try as 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.640 a human being to listen to both sides of everything. 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.640 But there's no both sides anymore. They're just trying to 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:07.240 wreck our goddamn country. It's time for you younger guys 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:13.679 to take over. I don't know what they do. Awesome. 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.880 That was brilliant, and you know what, it very much 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.920 is a speech that fits into the year. It does 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.240 it does. That's that's a Giuliani speech right there. That's 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.160 a right down to the drunkenness, right down to the 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:35.080 fairly being able to stand yes exactly. He was so 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.920 ahead of his time. But it's so he's also it's 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.800 funny because he is also while the hero of every 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:47.520 single film just kind of like interpersonally and incredibly like 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.240 he's lazy and drunk half the time, like like and 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.000 his only work ethic, Like the hardest thing he did 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.800 was I think, well, I don't know, did he learn 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:58.640 to lasso or that was the hardest thing, just like 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:03.079 bringing seven from Mexico. I mean, like he's most people 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:05.000 will note, and I think this alters a little bit 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.080 at the end of his career. But he's like he's 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.559 generally most people will agree, pretty good on set. He's 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:13.719 good at like what he does. He's got this kind 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.480 of background in props, so he's he's he knows how 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:20.120 things should look. He's an active member of like the 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.640 of the crew beyond just sort of like standing and 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.160 hitting his lines. That's generally agreed upon. But you do hear, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:28.800 you hear really different stories. So you hear all these 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:32.440 stories about you know, John Wayne seeing something a directors 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.400 doing and realizing that one look good on camera and 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.560 like fixing the scene and being like very much a 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:39.719 team player. And then you hear these stories about like, well, 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.760 they couldn't shoot the film before noon because that's when 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:45.200 he woke up and they had to wait for him 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:47.160 to take a giant ship first, so they couldn't start 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.920 until he tend like that. I respect that, I definitely respect. 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.360 So I I don't know, like you do hear like 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:56.360 a lot of rumors on both sides. It's probably fair 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:58.280 to say he would not have gotten as far as 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.199 he did if he was not really good at certain 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:03.440 aspects of being a movie star. So I'll give him 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.680 credit for that. Um. But it's also like, John Wayne, 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.040 you were never willing to go do anything for your 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.800 country overseas. Where are you now saying that groups of 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.400 teenagers should beat the ship out of people protesting a 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.000 war that you can't even like you have. No, He's 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:23.760 there's no elucidation there in that speech and the other 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:27.000 ones he gives about like why they should be willing 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.880 to do violence on behalf of this war, right, because 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.080 that's not what's important. What's important is something vague about America. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.120 And that's the thing that seems most familiar where it's like, well, 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:39.920 you're not really elucidating anything that they should be fighting 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.920 for other than the vague idea of America, and that's 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.240 that's really enough to rile people up for violence. I 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.120 mean again, it's just super fitting. It's like, America isn't 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:53.920 a country that protests the bludgeoning and killing of civilians 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.839 and the death of like young men uh coming home 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.280 in bodybags their parents. America is the country that does 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.040 those things not a sound without why would you why 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:07.160 would you make a sound that's just gonna be loud. 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:09.640 You know you're gonna wake up John Wayne, and he's 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:13.880 going to be hungover absolutely before noon. Yeah, without the 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.480 yeah kids these days, it's very much just the kids 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.760 these days speech. And then at the end it's fun 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.240 because instead of him being like and that's why I'm 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.600 going to start up blah blah blah or whatever, or 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:28.840 I'm going to start a militia, which glad he didn't, 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:33.719 but instead of that, it's just like anyway you figure 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:38.800 I don't know how to do drunk asked John Wayne. 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.680 Very funny, except great. You know the fact that he 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.599 holds this position in our cultural memory that makes the 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.040 fact that he was a drunken warmonger much more influential. 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.640 But let's continue, So we should talk again about these 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.440 kind of rumors about the Duke that you'll hear because 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.040 you get this like I'm in very much presents this 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.520 picture of him as this incredibly diligent um with quotes 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.880 from people who worked with him, including guys like Ford, 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:06.280 that he was this he had really, he was really sharp. 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:07.920 He was always willing to put in the extra effort, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:09.920 he'd do multiple jobs, even though he was supposed to 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:11.760 be the star, just to make sure the film got made. 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.600 And then you'll hear these stories about like his scenes 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.000 needed to be finished shooting before noon every day because 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:20.240 he was gonna be too drunk after that. Um, but 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.160 he couldn't film in the morning until he'd taken his 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.400 first hungover ship and like, so he's got like half 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:26.680 an hour, he's got like a good hour in there. 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.480 That's why I those can't be true comprehensively, like they 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.880 may have been true on certain films or in certain times. Right. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.000 I'm sure there were times and people like, well, you 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.320 can't shoot, you can't you got if you shoot too 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:40.320 late in the day, he's gonna be drunk, because we 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.960 know he got drunk at and impacted shooting at times. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:45.560 But he made way too many movies for them to 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.440 have been for things to have been that ridiculous. You 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:49.600 can't shoot a movie with an hour a day from 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.040 the star, right, But who knows how the radiation impacted 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.040 his gas row? Intestinal can be and I'm sure the 0:14:57.120 --> 0:14:59.840 older he got to the more it was, like you 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:02.200 his lifestyle took a toll on him, and that took 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.760 altered the way he was on set. But um, like drinking, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.640 I mean obviously that's like the sign of an alcoholic, 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.160 but like being like a young kid like on set 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.160 and like drinking and then waking up the next day 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.120 in hell. Yeah, Like obviously we all remember what it 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:18.160 was like to be nineteen, blessed that moment, but like 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:25.320 great hangovers in your fifties, hangovers in your fifties as 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.040 a guy who has been just basically inhaling cigarettes and 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.800 nothing else since he was like twelve, Like, um, that's 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.000 I mean, I do want to note, like I'm sure 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.560 aspects of this were true, and I'm also sure aspects 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.600 of what I'm in reports in terms of his like 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:43.920 diligence on set were really true. Um, it's worth noting 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.000 that two of his very best performances in his career 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.680 were filmed really late in it when he's an old guy, 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:52.280 the shootest and true grit, true grit being maybe the 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.160 most the one that's most famous today probably that he 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:58.360 was in you know Rooster Cockburn, great film, really good performance. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.040 He was not a bad actor. Um, there were some 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.520 moments I forget which film it was, but like because 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.440 most of his early roles he had not had to act. 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:09.600 He's in a movie that John Ford sees and Ford 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:11.600 is like a hell. If I had known he could act, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:16.400 I would have Tooked done some stuff differently. Um, but 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.920 he isn't some better performance as The Shootest, which is 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.400 his very last film, is a really good movie in 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.000 a lot of ways. That's that's interesting too, because it's 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:25.960 we'll talk about The shoot is a little at the end, 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.560 it's kind of it's kind of a strange one for him. Um, 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:33.080 but I don't think honestly, it's very like it's a 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.880 little bit of his character, like true grit, A drunken 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:42.040 hard nos Us Marshall and Texas ranger helps a stubborn 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.280 teenager track down her father's murderer. There you go, like 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:52.040 hard nosed and hard nosed, never served his country. So 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:54.640 that's allow one. You gotta take it a little bit. 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.200 So it's interesting, um, because it's one of those things. 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.360 I don't think he's as these anti John Wayne anecdotes 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:03.880 about how drunk he was. I don't think he was 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:07.560 as unfunctional as those anecdotes imply. But we might have 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.280 been better off if he had been because another movie 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.600 John Wayne cared a lot about making and put a 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.040 lot of work into later in his career was The 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.840 Green Berets. And this is a film that would go 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.960 on to have pretty disastrous consequences for a number of 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:25.600 members of a generation. So you're not necessarily a bassard 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.320 as an action movie star if your films like reinforce 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:31.480 attitudes about violence and masculinity that lead young men to 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.760 make some like dumb decisions such as joining the army. Um. 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.199 But John Wayne knew that his films could do that 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.439 and actively sought to use them to convince people to 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.240 go and fight in Vietnam. Right. He understood that he 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.400 had influenced a generation's idea of manhood, and he decided 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.600 to use that influence to try to get more young 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.760 men to volunteer to go fight in Southeast Asia. Um. Now, 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:56.240 before we get into that a little more, I want 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:57.960 to read a quote from this right up I found 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.240 in Salon dot com that gives a good overview on 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:02.199 the broad strokes of kind of what it meant in 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.760 nineteen sixty eight to be what some people called a 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:09.600 John Wayne man. John Wayne, Yeah, John Wayne stands simply 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.720 is the most persuasive and overwhelming embodiment of our ambivalence 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.800 about American manhood. His persona gathers in one place, the 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.760 allure of violence, the call away from the frontier, the 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.920 tortured ambivalence toward women and the home, the dark pleasure 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:25.639 of said romanticism, all those things that reside unspoken at 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:27.320 the center of our sense of what it means to 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:32.359 be a man in America, dark ambivalent towards the home. 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:38.560 Just just say, do women like, Yeah, the man who 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:42.360 strikes his wife, Well, it's this thing that you have 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:44.639 because you know early in his career. They're like, we 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:46.359 want him to look like a guy who doesn't have 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.199 a lot of experience with women because he spends all 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:49.879 of his time in the frontier, so he kind of 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:54.199 is uncomfortable around women. And that's kind of part of 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.240 I think why that expands to even more of a 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.439 thing in a Hollywood is you have this mix of 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.520 the male lead. Number one has to be very clearly 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:04.360 not gay. So you've got to show a woman as 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:09.080 being interested in him, right, Um, which not necessarily a 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.919 sign that they're not gay for sure. Um, but you 0:19:11.960 --> 0:19:15.399 know we're talking nineteen sixties Hollywood logic. You gotta you 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.639 gotta show him with a woman, but also like sex 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:20.720 and stuff, that's that's going to get you in trouble. 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:22.360 So you don't you don't ever want him to get 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.920 too close to him necessarily, and so you you wind 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:26.640 up with a lot of these heroes who are like 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:31.800 magnetic to women but also kind of pushing them away. Um, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.440 these these sort of like yeah, it's all and also 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.960 just like these ideas about masculinity. You don't want to 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.760 have a guy who's like vulnerable with a woman. It's 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.919 the kind of James Bond thing right where he's gonna 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.000 you know, he'll sleep with a woman, but he doesn't 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.879 have relationships or whatever. I think that's up in the 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.080 shower unannounced and they'll just start having sex and you're like, 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.720 I guess that was consent, But like John Wyn won't 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.400 even do that, right because because Jim Bond is more 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.720 advanced in his attitudes towards female liberation than John Wayne, 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.840 characters tend to be you know, um, she can carry 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.120 a gun that yeah yeah, um, yeah, yeah, I know that. 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:14.560 That is really um, it's it explains so much. And 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:19.040 also to recruit use your film to recruit young American 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.399 men into a war which is already going to give 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.119 him PTSD and then come home and like the the 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:29.400 manly thing to do. Don't talk about it, don't address it, 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.280 bottle it up. Stoicism. Like, I think there's a stoicism 0:20:33.720 --> 0:20:39.879 that John Wayne really instilled in about American masculinity. Yes, um, 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.320 And and it's like it's also kind of, I think, 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.800 an impotent stoicism. It's not the kind of there's a 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.200 good stoicism where you're not, you know, letting yourself getting 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.239 beaten down by the world. You're not like showing you know, 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.840 your weakness and situations where that's bad. But John Wayne 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.200 stoicism is like, don't show vulnerability and situations where that 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.880 might make you st younger. Uh. But anyway, that's we're 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:04.880 getting into a little bit of a deeper topic. But so, 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:09.040 you know, Vietnam nineteen has become like a thing. You know, 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.119 it's clear that it's a real problem, and Americans really 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.600 don't seem to be liking this, this thing that we're doing. 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.439 And so John Wayne decides, I gotta do whatever I 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.960 can to confence more young boys to throw themselves into 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:22.680 this meat grinder. And he decides the best way to 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:25.520 do this is by making a movie about the special forces. 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.240 Now at this point, that's a pretty new concept. The 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.600 very first kind of modern special forces teams were in 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:34.800 World War Two. Some people will say that like the 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:39.000 German um uh Falstrom Yeager, some of which were like 0:21:39.040 --> 0:21:42.199 their their their paratroopers. They had some units that were 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.560 kind of the first modern spec ops units. UM, and 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:48.040 you have you know, some some British and some American 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:50.160 units that are kind of experimenting with some of this ship. 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:55.040 Vietnam is really where the modern special forces kind of 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.320 comes together as a distinct thing for the first time 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:00.960 in a modern way. Um, where we get the first 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.400 Green Beret teams. Right, that's kind of the first popular 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.040 concept of special forces comes from these these teams, which 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.760 are initially called A teams, which is why the A 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.440 Team was called the A team that President Kennedy sends 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.240 into Vietnam in nineteen sixty one, and they gradually like, 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.920 that's what becomes the idea of Green Berets, is these 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.440 these A teams become the Green Berets. When's the Mr 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:24.639 T episode? Huh. Mr T has never done anything wrong, 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:27.760 so we're not going to be doing that episode. Look, 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:33.000 he gave up his chains after Hurricane Katrina. Okay what Yeah. 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:35.040 Mr T gave up because he went to help in 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:37.840 the relief efforts and he was he was horrified by 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.359 the privation and poverty he saw on the side. It 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.600 would be obscene for him to continue wearing gold. Damn. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:48.399 This is a story where we yeah, I got nothing 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:51.040 to say bad about Mr T. Yeah, and the serial 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:56.320 was good one. He's also super vocal about like vaccinations. 0:22:56.440 --> 0:22:59.439 He thinks it's good to be vaccinated. Yes, damn it. 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.560 We need strong men likeness. I pity the fool who 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:08.560 cannot appreciate Mr T. Like legitimately pity the fool. Um. 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.800 So this idea of like specially trained super soldiers that 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:14.879 you drop behind enemy lines and they fight under incredible odds, 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.679 this is like Hollywood fodder. Like as soon as we 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:22.200 start having these Special Forces guys in Vietnam, Hollywood's like, oh, ship, 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:24.920 this is all We're gonna make movies about for forever, right, 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:27.320 Like this is this is the only thing we want 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:32.760 to turn into a movie now. Inter Robin Moore Robin 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:36.080