Dylan Moran post

Dylan Moran

Tara McPherson

CTCS 412

9 February 2015

Reading Response #2

           When American’s were asked who their favorite star was in a 1995 poll, the number one favorite was John Wayne. John Wayne was one of the most prominent actors in the history of cinema. He often starred in films of the western genre and became a symbol for American masculinity. Even though he never served the military or fought in any war, general Douglas MacArthur thought he was the model of an American soldier. In a lot of ways he represented the nostalgic idea of the American man, a reminiscent image of what being a man used to be. Wayne was a very big and strong man, the camera would always capture him as a larger than life figure. He was famous for his walk and gave true purpose to all of the movements he did. The walk became so well known and famous that numerous people took credit for the invention of it. The female gaze is often studied in classical cinema, where a female character in a film is objectified sexually. One can wonder if John Wayne was an object of sexual voyeurism in the roles that he played. Recall the first time we see John Wayne’s character in the film Stagecoach (Ford, 1939), when the camera paints him as a handsome hero. He became the myth of the American frontier and patriotism. His characters represented the conservative ideologies of an American man. Wayne held a lot of political importance, presidents would often try to model their personas after the Duke to gain acceptance. Moviegoers who watched his films were more likely to vote for the conservative icons before the liberal ones. John Wayne will always go down in cinema history as the quintessential image of the American cowboy and will always be labeled as the stereotype of American masculinity.