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As a child, screen time for this old baby boomer was sparse. Play time was usually outdoor time. Other than Howdy Doody, I have no memories of TV shows. TV was mostly black and white Hollywood fare from the '40s or earlier. I thought the Three Stooges were comic geniuses.
I learned valuable lessons from Hollywood. Clark Gable taught me the importance of respecting the Walls of Jericho. Jimmy Stewart taught me to stand up for the truth even if you are all alone. Henry Fonda showed me how to lead by being the quietest, least angry man in the room. Humphrey Bogart taught me that you have to avenge your partner even if you didn’t like him very much. I watched John Wayne turn boys into men and then lead them into battle. And Gary Cooper taught me that heroes never run from a fight. Collectively, Hollywood taught me that a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Then the sixties happened. Suddenly, all movie heroes had to have flaws. Movies featured “anti-heroes.” Robert Redford and Paul Newman tried to convince me that real men robbed trains and won fights by sucker kicks to the groin. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were praised for making low-life murderers glamorous.
Sometime in the sixties my family got a color TV, and all the black-and-white movies stopped getting airtime. Frankly, if all a young boy had to watch were color movies and TV shows, he might hear the line that a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, but it would have been said sarcastically.
My black and white heroes did not have superpowers. Neither stunt men nor CGI was needed to tell their stories. They were ordinary men who did things most ordinary men could do, but didn’t. That is what made them heroes.
My Hollywood heroes were part of the greatest generation, and they were an important part of the greatness. As that generation grew old, they honored old Hollywood by naming a major airport after the hero who first said the words about what a man’s gotta do — John Wayne.
Senators Chris Murphy and Adam Schiff are younger than me. They grew up with color TV, and it shows. Donald Trump is a few years older than me. I don’t know who his boyhood heroes were, but I bet if someone told him, “The leader of the free world has gotta do what the leader of the free world has gotta do,” he would understand completely.
G-Pub
Footnote for the youngsters, in order of appearance: It Happened One Night; Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; 12 Angry Men; The Maltese Falcon; Sands of Iwo Jima; High Noon; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Bonnie and Clyde.
Discussion (9)
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“Yep.” - Gary Cooper
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I'm a little older and didn't have television until into the 1950s. 1940s B western movies and war movies was my fare in the five years after WWII. Red Ryder, Sunset Carson, Lash Larue, and the Durango Kid were some I liked and I delivered flyers announcing the week's features for the local community theater that played these and others as double features on Saturdays, mostly for the kids. I would get two adult passes for that work which I then traded to my grandmother for a quarter which would get me into the Saturday show and cover popcorn and drink. The main characters, typically the lead actor and a sidekick, were the good guys and the outlaws were gangs of bad guys. They all had guns and there was something to be learned from those scenarios.
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Almost half of today's Congress show no understanding or acknowledgement of what it means to be free or American. Elected Democrats, instead of joining an effort supporting American principles, are spending their time planning an effort to impeach our elected President who is doing precisely the things he was elected to do and that are in accord with American principles and heritage.
Come to think of it, maybe it is more than half since we have some Republicans who refuse to do the right thing.
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Shall be sure to steer well clear of your lawn.
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Finally! I have always said these 2 movies were a turning point. I remember liking them when they first came out, but I was young and stupid. As I grew older, that's when I thought about them in the light of reality. There were always likeable anti-heroes, but they weren't cold-blooded killers portrayed as genuine heroes . . .
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