John Wayne wearing a facemask? Impossible, so the ferocious pandemic will advance toward him and he, gun in hand, will continue to shoot Indians, Mexicans and any viral load that gets in his way. There is no other country where reality and fiction come together in such an astounding way as in the United States.
As John Ford, the master of the Western, said, "The important thing is not to film reality, but to film the legend.” When the legend is being seriously questioned, there is no better time to use it. Reagan did so in the 80s with his Strategic Defense Initiative, called Star Wars, alluding to George Lucas' film. “If I may steal a phrase from the film," he said emphatically, “May the Force is with us.”
The film's sequel would serve the current President well in addressing the issue of defense, very timely in an election campaign spot in which he appears as the master Yoda facing the most-likely Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. An act of extreme violence ensues as he takes the opportunity to chop off the heads of two representative guards from CNN and MSNBC, before ending up smiling at the camera, while a distinctive phrase from the saga is displayed on screen: "May the Force be with you."
Various components are combined in the "tough guy" profile, so dear to Hollywood, most emblematically established with the first Westerns shot in the first part of the last century. The law of the gun imposed in real life during the conquest of the West was exalted on the big screen in a gallery of males with hair on their chests and lots of willpower, who would jump over to other genres, and the so-called entertainment industry, becoming the perennial "Americanization of the hero" that today invades us with its symbolic cargo.
Supermen who don't necessarily need to fly or exhibit bulky biceps, and who have gradually taken up pragmatic behaviors and philosophies associated with supposed ethnic superiority, gender, intelligence, and economic power - everything that allows them to stand out above the average.
The legend’s path from fiction to real life can be disconcerting and has given rise to beings, supposedly chosen, who are determined to live their entire lives without ever revealing a single weakness, or hesitation in the face of danger - especially if it is a question of public image.
What is important is not to stray from the cliché of those who chew water and inflate their chests, while turning a deaf ear and using language only to boast, regardless of the fact that their arrogant, not very exemplary behavior is pushing tens of thousands into the ravine.
They are the ones who think that John Wayne would never have used a facemask.
