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I watched a marathon of John Wayne movies on Sunday.

The way he objectified women in North to Alaska was disappointing. His reckless firearms use and willingness to promote violent themes by singing about "streets soon running with blood" in Riders of Destiny fired the opening salvo in a string of movies that featured Mr Wayne performing as a gruff misogynistic huckster. His openly racist treatment of 'Pompey' in The man Who Shot Liberty Valance made me sick to my stomach. Last of all, the way that John Wayne unfairly portrayed comancheros in his movie The Comanchero's was just another example of those on the bigoted right trying to demonize groups that are just trying to live their lives. By portraying the Commancheros as nothing but a large criminal gang that smuggles guns and whiskey just to make money and keep the frontier in a state of violence is unsatisfactory. Its just like the POTUS suggesting that undocumented persons are just illegal aliens from MS-13 involved in human trafficking, drug running, and gun smuggling for profit.

CBS clearly addressed this over the weekend with their special on the heroic nature of human coyotes helping migrants survive Central America's grueling Darien Gap jungle. The Commacheros were peaceful traders, helping the oppressed Comanche Indians feed their children and fight back against the oppressive land grabbing pale-faced Europeans that had came to America to force native Americans onto reservations.

...don't even get me started on that war movie John Wayne made about the CIA backed secret Army unit in Vietnam that ran around kidnapping innocent Vietnamese soldiers - and that lying thieving 'Peter-San' guy


I am boycotting all future movies starring John Wayne.