John Wayne and the California Legislature

Recently the Democrats in the legislature of the state of California voted against a resolution honoring John Wayne, purportedly because they objected to some comments he made on questions of race (such as suggesting black people should earn parity with whites with behavior on par with that of whites).  The main reason for honoring Wayne would be his accomplishments as an actor, not as commentator on the political scene, and one can imagine the indignant howls and accusations of yahooism we’d have gotten if a bunch of Republicans had spiked a resolution to honor, say, Warren Beatty or Dustin Hoffman for his work in films because they didn’t like his politics. Of course questions of consistency rarely deter a group of politically correct hypocrites from displaying politically correct hypocrisy.

Still I’m not bothered that the resolution failed. Wayne was the most successful and popular movie actor of all time. He starred in some great films working for John Ford or Howard Hawks, several more good to very good ones for them and other  directors, and a number of other movies  which were okay.  He was often at or near the top of polls of most popular actors and has remained so years after his death. He and his legacy do not need praise or recognition from a group of people that  a satirical  and politically incorrect critic might say were  described rather closely by the list of types  Hedley Lamarr told Taggart to recruit for the big raid on Rock Ridge. I think Wayne would have been amused and perhaps pleased to be disparaged and rejected by such a crew.