John Wayne - Iconic status

In his own lifetime, John Wayne rose beyond the typical recognition for a famous actor to that of an enduring icon that symbolized and communicated a particular image of American values and ideals. By his mid-career, Wayne developed a larger-than-life image based on a composition of many of the fictional characters he portrayed in movies. To maintain this image, Wayne selected roles that would not compromise his off-screen image. In his last film The Shootist (1976), Wayne refused to allow his character to shoot a man in the back as was originally scripted with the justification that John Wayne had never shot anyone in the back.[2] While some actors can become stereotyped as they get strongly associated with their more popular roles, these actors rarely become off-screen icons as Wayne had become through the managing of his public image to communicate a set of values and ideals and even shape public opinion.

Wayne's rise to a quintessential icon of a patriotic war hero began to take shape five years after World War II when Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) was released and for which Wayne got a Best Actor nomination. His footprints at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood were laid in cement that contained sand from Iwo Jima ^{[citation needed]}. His status grew so large and legendary that when Japanese Emperor Hirohito visited the United States in 1975 he asked to meet John Wayne.

Wayne used his iconic status of a patriotic war hero to support right-wing US government causes, including rallying support during the Vietnam War where he contributed his acting and co-direction to the box-office hit The Green Berets (1968) (although the film was critically panned for its highly idealized, fictionalized depiction of war. [3]). While the general public and many in the military have maintained a positive view of the John Wayne image, there are many who found this image to be misleading if not despised especially after personally experiencing war firsthand. In an interview, Oliver Stone credited his own gung-ho patriotic enlistment to fight in the Vietnam War to being inspired by the "John Wayne image of America", although he came home a decorated veteran, he also had become an embittered anarchist, eventually creating Platoon, a movie that starkly counters the heroic and patriotic images idealized by the John Wayne icon and the The Green Berets. [4]. In an article, William Manchester, recounted when John Wayne came dressed up as cowboy to visit him and other World War II soldiers recuperating at a naval hospital in Hawaii. Wayne was greeted with silence and then subsequently booed off the stage for he had become "a symbol of a fake machismo [they] had come to hate". ^[9][5] Nonetheless, Wayne was a popular visitor to the war zones in both World War II and the Vietnam War. By the 1950s, perhaps in large part due to the film Sands of Iwo Jima, Wayne had become an icon to the U.S. Marine Corps, despite his actual lack of military service. His name is attached to various pieces of gear (such as the P-38 "John Wayne" can-opener, so named because "it can do anything"), and C-Ration crackers are called "John Wayne crackers" because presumably only someone as tough as Wayne could eat them. Wayne's iconic status to the military, as in the civilian world, supersedes the facts of his actual life.

Since John Wayne never served in the military, nor was a war hero, it is left as a matter of opinion as to whether it was appropriate for John Wayne to project such an image of himself to support various government causes. However, it is beyond opinion that there are many people enamored by the fictional composite character called John Wayne, and that this image of John Wayne remains an enduring icon of the rugged, patriotic hero.