Legendary cowboy actor and all-American tough guy John Wayne has posthumously infuriated social justice types, after a 1971 interview resurfaced in which the ‘True Grit’ actor criticized racial equality and homosexuality.
Speaking to Playboy magazine almost 50 years ago, Wayne unleashed a series of statements that would have him fired, sued, tarred and feathered if he uttered them in 2019. Wayne referred to “healthy, lusty sex” between a man and a woman as “wonderful,” but called homosexuality “perverted,” dismissing the Oscar-winning ‘Midnight Cowboy’ as “a love story about two f*gs.”
‘The Duke’ then slammed calls for reparations for Native Americans, saying “they should pay as much for Alcatraz as we paid them Manhattan.” Wayne blasted Hollywood for its “tokenism” and told Playboy that “we can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks.”
“I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to the point of responsibility,” Wayne stated. “I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgement to irresponsible people.”
Predictably, Wayne’s most definitely un-woke worldview ruffled some feathers on Twitter.
However, as more pointed out, Wayne’s opinions were typical of the time. “Who would have thought an interview from a 1971 edition of Playboy would contain outdated views,” wrote comedian Jonathan Pie. “Is there any way we can dig up his corpse and make it apologise?”
Wayne died in 1979, eight years after the interview. In the years since, parts of the interview have popped up to cause controversy. When Republican state Assemblyman Matthew Harper tried to have the actor’s birthday (May 26) commemorated in California as ‘John Wayne Day’ in 2016, a Democratic assemblyman argued against it, reading Wayne’s ‘white supremacy’ quote to the assembly floor.
The interview did the rounds again that same year, when Wayne’s daughter Aissa endorsed then-candidate Donald Trump for president.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!