John Wayne is Americana personified. His name conjures up images of sunsets, cowboy hats and Marlboro Reds. But the legacy of the late film star is undergoing fresh interrogation after a controversial 1971 Playboy interview resurfaced online in which the actor made racist and homophobic comments. Now, there are growing calls to rename the John Wayne airport, located in Orange county, in response to the actor’s troubling political views.

“What was OK in 1978 when supervisors named JWA [John Wayne airport] is not necessarily OK in today’s world – and perhaps it never should have been acceptable,” wrote David Whiting of the Orange County Register on Monday morning in an opinion article. “When I drive by or fly out of John Wayne airport, a place most of us simply refer to as ‘John Wayne’, I don’t always think about the actor and his dark statements. But when I do, I am troubled.”

The idea of renaming an airport because of a namesake’s controversial political views might have seemed far-fetched a decade ago, but not anymore.

A host of public schools and colleges have renamed academic buildings and dorms that honor Confederate leaders. Efforts to rename DC’s Reagan airport, in response to Ronald Reagan’s war on crime, which disproportionately affected people of color, have been on-and-off since 2015. Barack Obama arguably cleared the way for major name-changes when he used his executive power to rename Mount McKinley to Denali, the mountain peak’s original name among the area’s indigenous population.

So names can change.

Up until now, John Wayne’s legacy has occupied a comfortable, permanent position in American history. Wayne starred in over 70 films, received a Congressional Gold Medal and a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.

There are a lot of places named after him. There’s an elementary school in Brooklyn, a marina in Washington state, a highway in central Arizona, a park in Newport Beach.

Wayne was disturbingly forthcoming and direct in the Playboy interview when it came to his racism. “I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility,” he told Playboy in 1971. “I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”

Is it possible to rewrite the legacy of the biggest movie star of all time?

“For many years, I have been troubled with the decision to name an airport after John Wayne because of his bigoted views on African Americans, the LGBT+ community and Native Americans,” Whiting says of his decision to write his divisive call for action. “Although most of the hundreds of online and email comments are passionately negative, there are also notes of support.”

• This article was amended on 1 October 2019 because John Wayne was a recipient of a Congressional Gold Medal, not a Congressional Medal of Honor as an earlier version said. This has been corrected.