Actor and American icon John Wayne was a “racist and homophobe” whose name should not be associated with an Orange County airport, a Los Angeles Times columnist has said.
Michael Hiltzik lamented Wayne’s “strutting statue occupying a central niche in front of the concourse” of the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif.
He was writing after a wave of indignation following the re-emergence of a interview with Playboy that Wayne gave in 1971, eight years before he died at age 72.
In the interview, Wayne — star of around 140 movies between 1930 and 1976, including classics like “True Grit,” “The Longest Day,” “The Green Berets,” and “Stagecoach” — expressed sentiments that were jarring even then.
“With a lot of blacks, there’s quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so. But we can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks,” he said
“I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”
On Native Americans, he said: “I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them, if that’s what you’re asking. Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”
When asked which movies he considered “perverted,” he responded: “Oh, ‘Easy Rider,’ ‘Midnight Cowboy’ — that kind of thing. Wouldn’t you say that the wonderful love of those two men in ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ a story about two fags, qualifies?
“But don’t get me wrong. As far as a man and a woman is concerned, I’m awfully happy there’s a thing called sex. It’s an extra something God gave us. I see no reason why it shouldn’t be in pictures. Healthy, lusty sex is wonderful.”
Hiltzik wrote that Wayne’s comments from 48 years ago, when he was a celebrated part of the conservative Orange County scene, not longer reflected the political and social demographics of the area and was now more like its closest metropolis, Los Angeles.
“That Orange County no longer exists,” he argued. “That should be evident from the results of November’s election, in which voters turfed out the county’s last remaining GOP members of Congress — some of whom had embraced Donald Trump in a fruitless effort to save their careers–and elected an all-Democratic congressional delegation.”
“Orange County today is such an economically and ethnically diverse community that it’s hard to justify asking any member of that community to board planes at an airport named after an outspoken racist and homophobe, with his strutting statue occupying a central niche in front of the concourse.”
In 2008, residents debated the possibility of renaming the airport, in part to incorporate “Orange County” into the its moniker.
