JOHN WAYNE?!?!?!?! OK, This Has Gone Too Far!!!

[guacamole]

I don't see anything there particularly alarming or retrograde about his comments on communism. They were (and still are) mainstream opinions on Communists. Plus, if his stories are true, which should have been easily verifiable or not, then a good number of the people blacklisted deserved what they got.

[Sparko]

I don't see anything there particularly alarming or retrograde about his comments on communism. They were (and still are) mainstream opinions on Communists. Plus, if his stories are true, which should have been easily verifiable or not, then a good number of the people blacklisted deserved what they got.

One thing you need to remember about that interview. Playboy always was a liberal magazine politically. You can tell by the leading questions of the interviewer.

But yeah I was surprised by reading it how much things have not changed in the last 50 years with regards to socialism and their agenda.

PLAYBOY: You blame all this on liberals?

WAYNE: Well, the liberals seem to be quite willing to have Communists teach their kids in school. The Communists realized that they couldn't start a workers' revolution in the United States, since the workers were too affluent and too progressive. So the Commies decided on the next-best thing, and that's to start on the schools, start on the kids. And they've managed to do it. They're already in colleges; now they're getting into high schools. I wouldn't mind if they taught my children the basic philosophy of communism, in theory and how it works in actuality. But I don't want somebody like Angela Davis inculcating an enemy doctrine in my kids' minds.

[guacamole]

One thing you need to remember about that interview. Playboy always was a liberal magazine politically. You can tell by the leading questions of the interviewer.

Politically liberal and morally nihilistic, but yeah.

But yeah I was surprised by reading it how much things have not changed in the last 50 years with regards to socialism and their agenda.

PLAYBOY: You blame all this on liberals?

WAYNE: Well, the liberals seem to be quite willing to have Communists teach their kids in school. The Communists realized that they couldn't start a workers' revolution in the United States, since the workers were too affluent and too progressive. So the Commies decided on the next-best thing, and that's to start on the schools, start on the kids. And they've managed to do it. They're already in colleges; now they're getting into high schools. I wouldn't mind if they taught my children the basic philosophy of communism, in theory and how it works in actuality. But I don't want somebody like Angela Davis inculcating an enemy doctrine in my kids' minds.

This is a dense and difficult document for me to read because I have to keep looking people up:

Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, academic, and author. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960s working with the Communist Party USA, of which she was a member until 1991, and was briefly involved in the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights Movement.

I need an annotated copy of this.

[Sparko]

Politically liberal and morally nihilistic, but yeah.



This is a dense and difficult document for me to read because I have to keep looking people up:



I need an annotated copy of this.

Just remember, this was 1970, during the whole antiwar, hippie, black panther, communist movements. It was a time where liberal and socialists were all over the place, especially in teens, and young adults, and in hollywood. In fact, that time parallels pretty well with the last few years of the present time, with the antifas, BLM, and socialists.

History repeats itself in a way.

[Cow Poke]

This is a dense and difficult document for me to read because I have to keep looking people up:

Youngsters!

[guacamole]

Here are, as far as I can tell, his comments on homosexuality. These comments are in the context of a conversation on various sorts of vulgarity (swearing, nudity, and graphic violence) in the movies. I've hyperlinked certain names and titles that I had to look up:

PLAYBOY: How do you feel about the state of the motion-picture business today?

WAYNE: I'm glad I won't be around much longer to see what they do with it. The men
who control the big studios today are stock manipulators and bankers. They know
nothing about our business. They're in it for the buck. The only thing they can do is say,
"Jeez, that picture with what's-her-name running around the park naked made money, so
let's make another one. If that's what they want, let's give it to them." Some of these guys
remind me of high-class whores. Look at 20th Century-Fox, where they're making
movies like Myra Breckinridge. Why doesn't that son of a [female dog] Darryl ZanuckHarry CohnEasy Rider, Midnight CowboyErnst Lubitsch

On homosexuality: Other than a comment dripping with sarcasm and using the common slur for homosexual, I don't see what Wayne says here that was out of step for his time. Again, this idea probably was (and is) mainstream in American moral thought. It is worth pointing out that while "Playboy" challenges John Wayne on issues in Vietnam, it does not challenge his use of the slur and his attitude here.

On Jews: He expresses nothing but admiration for the Jewish filmmakers mentioned here.

I had never heard of the movie "Myra Breckenridge." The article on the wiki notes that even the author of the novel from which it was adapted, Gore Vidal, hated the movie--though perhaps for different reasons than John Wayne.

My only issue with Wayne here is that I think he gives the 'moguls' too much moral credit about stopping the gangster films--I think they knew that the films were simply played out.

[guacamole]

Youngsters!

I no doubt flatter myself too much to think that I am worldly and well read...

[rogue06]

I no doubt flatter myself too much to think that I am worldly and well read...

Some of us simply have the advantage of having lived through those times.

[Cow Poke]

On homosexuality: Other than a comment dripping with sarcasm and using the common slur for homosexual, I don't see what Wayne says here that was out of step for his time. Again, this idea probably was (and is) mainstream in American moral thought.

This was back when social scientists acknowledged that homosexuality was a DSM-1 (In 1952, the APA listed homosexuality in the DSM as a sociopathic personality disturbance. Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals).

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

...The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the DSM-I in 1952, but almost immediately that classification came under scrutiny in research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. That research and subsequent studies consistently failed to produce any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality as anything other than a natural and normal sexual orientation that is a healthy and positive expression of human sexuality. As a result of this scientific research, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM-II in 1973.

[guacamole]

This was back when social scientists acknowledged that homosexuality was a DSM-1 (In 1952, the APA listed homosexuality in the DSM as a sociopathic personality disturbance. Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals).

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

...The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality in the DSM-I in 1952, but almost immediately that classification came under scrutiny in research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. That research and subsequent studies consistently failed to produce any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality as anything other than a natural and normal sexual orientation that is a healthy and positive expression of human sexuality. As a result of this scientific research, the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the DSM-II in 1973.

That's a really useful note here.

[Cow Poke]

That's a really useful note here.

For his time, he was saying (on homosexuality) what pretty much everybody else was saying - even the "scientists". So, yeah, to slam him on that - you'd have to condemn pretty much all of America.

[Sparko]

H

On homosexuality: Other than a comment dripping with sarcasm and using the common slur for homosexual, I don't see what Wayne says here that was out of step for his time. Again, this idea probably was (and is) mainstream in American moral thought. It is worth pointing out that while "Playboy" challenges John Wayne on issues in Vietnam, it does not challenge his use of the slur and his attitude here.

Playboy's audience was what we call cis-gender toxic males today. Being homosexual was considered to be a "sissy" in that time and culture.

[rogue06]

Playboy's audience was what we call cis-gender toxic males today. Being homosexual was considered to be a "sissy" in that time and culture.

kept a big ol' pile of them under a loose floorboard in the closet -- but he only had them for the articles

[Cow Poke]

kept a big ol' pile of them under a loose floorboard in the closet -- but he only had them for the articles

And I don't need glasses.

[guacamole]

Playboy's audience was what we call cis-gender toxic males today. Being homosexual was considered to be a "sissy" in that time and culture.

Of relevance:

WAYNE: I don't have to assert my virility. I think my career has shown that I'm not
exactly a pantywaist.

Maybe that was the quote that triggered them?