John Wayne has been a hero at the University of Southern California for decades. But some students at the private Los Angeles school, the late movie star’s alma mater, now view him as a villain.

A group of USC students are demanding the removal of a long-time Wayne memorabilia exhibit at the university’s acclaimed film school. The reason the activists give, reports the student newspaper: the actor’s “legacy of endorsing white supremacy and the removal of indigenous people.”

This harsh interpretation of the iconic star chiefly comes from a 1971 interview Wayne gave to Playboy magazine. Quotes from the article, some of them chopped of their context, made the rounds on social media earlier this year, prompting articles in the Washington Post and other news outlets.

“Since the reemergence of [the Playboy interview] I have felt viscerally uncomfortable [with the exhibit] because of the promotion and glorification of a noted white supremacist and racist,” film student Reanna Cruz told the Daily Trojan.

Wayne, 63 years old in 1971 and a dedicated anti-communist who backed the Vietnam War, expressed views that were relatively common at the time, when the U.S. was in the midst of unprecedented cultural upheaval.

He dismissed student anti-war protesters as naïve, saying they were engaging in “kind of dissension by rote.” And he railed against the critically-lauded counterculture movies of the era, like “Easy Rider” and “Midnight Cowboy,” calling them “perverted films.”

This mostly comes across today as little more than cranky, “Get off my lawn”-type talk. But Wayne also expressed skepticism of Black Power advocates and African-American political leaders of the time, leading to the recent claims he was racist.

“With a lot of blacks, there's quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so,” Wayne said when asked about “black militants.” “But we can't all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. 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.”

The actor who had starred in dozens of Westerns, including classics such as “Stagecoach” and “The Searchers,” also embraced the version of American history that was commonly taught in school when he was growing up: namely, that the “winning of the West” by white settlers in the 19th century -- heralded as the U.S.’s Manifest Destiny -- was morally just and necessary.

“I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [Native Americans], if that's what you're asking,” Wayne said at one point in the wide-ranging interview. “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 pressed on this attitude, he added:

“If those inequalities are presently affecting any of the Indians now alive, they have a right to a court hearing.”

John Wayne has been a Hollywood legend for more than half a century. A national poll in 2007 ranked him as America’s third most-popular film star -- not in history but at that moment. He had been dead for 28 years when the poll was conducted.

He first became the country’s top box-office performer in 1950. He won a best-actor Academy Award 20 years later. He died in 1979 at 72.

Wayne attended USC in the late 1920s -- he was then still known by his birth name, Marion Morrison -- and played football for legendary coach Howard Jones, who helped him get work at Twentieth Century Fox as a set builder and extra.

The Daily Trojan found that student views on Wayne are mixed these days, with some calling for his name’s scrubbing from the campus and others saying he still should be a beloved star. “I think there are many positive elements of John Wayne,” one student said.

USC’s administration appears to be coming down on the side of the student protesters. Film school assistant dean Evan Hughes said Wednesday at a campus discussion that the school would decide by the end of the year whether to take down the Wayne exhibit.

“This has been an issue that [USC’s Council for Diversity and Inclusion] has debated over a long period of time,” Hughes said. “At the end of last semester, we were trying to figure out different options for paths to move forward with this particular exhibit because not only students, but faculty that have walked by the exhibit, said that we don’t think this accurately represents film history as it should probably be represented.”

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

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