John Wayne as Hero: Mass Media and the Masculine Ideal

Introduction

What is a hero? And what does heroism have to do with the movies? The answer to that question — which is really the question of how the mass media influence popular perceptions of the heroic — is a complex one, as are any significant questions that examine the relationship between mass media and the culture that produces, absorbs, reflects, and reifies them.

This paper examines one person who, as much as anyone, became the emblem of a hero in the 20th century because of the image he portrayed on the big screen: John Wayne, or "The Duke." To say that he was a hero because of the roles he played is not to imply that he was not himself a good person. But we remember him today, and remember him as a heroic figure, not because of his actions as an individual but because of the characters he took on.

It says something important about our culture that today, nearly a quarter of a century after Wayne's death, we still remember his roles, whereas few of us can probably name a single one of the paramedics, firefighters, or private citizens killed in the attempt to save others during the attack on the World Trade Center. Even though most of us would acknowledge that these people are the true heroes — for what, after all, could be more heroic than risking and losing one's life to save the life of a stranger? — and that actors merely represent heroes, it is the actors that we remember.

This paper examines first the life and work of John Wayne, looking at some of the films on which his reputation as a virile hero is based, before turning to a more general consideration of the role that the mass media play in shaping our notions of the heroic.

Marion Michael Morrison: The Making of John Wayne

John Wayne, born in 1907 in the nation's heartland, died in Los Angeles in 1979 after a career in which he made over 150 feature films. Born Marion Michael Morrison — although there is some confusion over his original middle name — he is now known by millions by his screen name of John Wayne (for what actor could ever hope to be seen as truly manly with an androgynous name like Marion?) or by his nickname "The Duke." In most of his roles he was either a cowboy or a soldier: a man short on words but long on courage.

Wayne began working at Fox Films while still a student in Los Angeles, where he also played football. While working in the prop room at Fox, Wayne met director John Ford, who befriended him and by 1928 was giving him small roles in his films. Wayne's first leading role, however, was not in a Ford film but rather in the 1930 Raoul Walsh picture The Big Trail. This was the first of a series of low-budget movies he would star in, averaging ten B-movies a year for the next decade.

Among the more than 150 films he appeared in were a number directed by John Ford and others, including:

Fort Apache (1948), Red River (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957), Rio Bravo (1959), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and The Shootist (1976).

Wayne's reputation as a hero depended not only on feats of strength in his movies but also on his depiction of the potential strength of friendship among men. One particularly good example of this is Rio Bravo, which can be seen in many ways as the quintessential buddy Western.

Wayne's Heroic Screen Persona

Although the film was designed in many ways by director Howard Hawks as a "John Wayne movie," Wayne himself gracefully ceded much of the film's core to Dean Martin and Ward Bond. The heart of the movie is the way in which these characters trust and depend on one another, and this aspect — present in so many of his films — is no doubt one of the primary reasons that Wayne's reputation as an intelligent hero is so enduring. Unlike so many brave characters seen in contemporary cinema who are willing to risk death alone, Wayne's movie characters understood that heroism is not only the ability to be brave but also the courage to put one's fate in the hands of one's companions. Despite his reputation for virility and strength, Wayne often played a character who was not afraid to admit when he needed help.

We see this ability to blend the image of the lone hero facing down death with that of the man not afraid to ask for help in movies that Wayne directed as well as starred in, such as The Alamo. In many ways, soldier roles were a better match for the particular ethos of courage and heroism associated with Wayne, because the soldier both faces death alone and acts as an integral part of a unit, while a cowboy is much more of a true loner. It was Wayne's ability to convey this soldierly sense of courage — a combination of independence and dependence — that was no doubt largely responsible for his popularity among the generation of viewers whose lives had been defined by their experiences in World War II.

Film scholar Syd Field summarizes this image of Wayne, especially in The Searchers but also in his other films:

"My image of John Wayne has always been as the classic western hero, strong, rugged, silent, following a code of honor and moral behavior that represents all the best virtues of the old West. Wayne's screen image is a mythic, heroic figure determinedly following his path to achieve what is right, noble and just, while still remaining true to his beliefs. The Searchers starts out this way, and it's pretty clear that the search is what defines his life and gives it meaning."

An essential part of Wayne's image as a hero also relies on the fact that he presents a face to the world that is uncompromising. This is an essential aspect of heroes in much of the Western tradition: the idea that a hero does not change with circumstance but is always essentially himself (or, sometimes, herself).

As Field continues: "The first thing I noticed is that John Wayne's character doesn't change. There is no transformation in his character; he's exactly the same at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning. Wayne's image, as a man of action, is heroic precisely because he does not change; he refuses to give up, bend, or alter his ways until his mission is accomplished — to find and rescue the kidnapped girl. And when he does find her, we don't know whether he's going to kill or embrace her. Finally, in a dramatic scene, he relents and embraces her. At the end, when the family enters the house to celebrate their return, Wayne remains outside the doorway, a desolate, homeless drifter doomed to wander 'between the winds.'"

We see this consistency of character not only within a single film but also across Wayne's entire body of work when we look at The Shootist, his last film. In this movie, Wayne plays an aging gunfighter who is trying to find some peace at the end of his life even as he struggles to accept that he is dying of cancer. And yet, even as he seeks solitude and quiet, a gang of killers stalks him for a final fight. Throughout the film, Wayne shows us a character who is immutable — one for whom even death makes no essential difference.

Certainly one of the reasons we consider Wayne to be a hero is that he played heroic parts and never did anything unforgivably unheroic off-screen. But we also consider him a hero for reasons distinct from the specific roles he played and his own persona — reasons that have more to do with the ways in which the mass media, including film, television, radio, and print, shape our definitions and understandings of the heroic.

Conclusion

John Wayne, in his over 150 feature films, became the uncontested symbol of the masculine hero. He was strong and tough, but not afraid to rely on other strong, tough men. He kept his word and did not sway with circumstances. He shaped an image of himself that was in part his own doing, but in even larger measure reflects the ways in which mass media in 20th-century America came to serve as the arena in which many people's attitudes about important values were shaped.