John Wayne functioned as a political icon tying militant masculinity to conservatism.

Evidence

If an evangelical could be defined as anyone who liked Billy Graham, by the 1970s a conservative might well be defined as anyone who loved John Wayne. Wayne was more than just a movie star. As far back as the 1940s, Wayne’s masculinity had been intertwined with his conservative activism. In 1944, he’d helped create the anticommunist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), and in 1949 he became its president. He was a vocal supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and in 1952 he made and starred in Big Jim McLain, a propaganda piece in which he played a HUAC investigator. In 1960 he supported Nixon and took jabs at Kennedy, and in 1964 he voiced a campaign ad for Goldwater deriding appeasement and celebrating the “high morals” of a “free America.” In 1968 he gave a rousing, patriotic address at the Republican National Convention. When Nixon wanted to explain his own views on “law and order,” he pointed to Wayne’s Chisum as a model, a bloody tale of frontier justice in which Wayne achieved order—and revenge—through violence. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 127

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how commercial/consumer culture transmitted political identity — parallels the Milgrom institution work and the midwife book’s attention to popular artifacts.