john wayne

The characters in the film represent the mischievous ways queer people have been part of pop culture historically. The focus is on the ideas they symbolize rather than the characters themselves. The paper "John Wayne and the Queer Frontier" argues that John Wayne's strong masculinity has been mocked in pop culture to the point where he is seen as gay. If we consider a formalist approach to the referential nature of the characters, we see that these two men are more of an amalgamation of the mischievous ways queer people have been inserting themselves into pop culture throughout history. So the characters themselves don't particularly matter, rather the ideals they represent are more important to the context of the film. In the paper, John Wayne and the Queer Frontier, authors Zoe and Coney present the idea that John Wayne's overt and undying masculinity has been made fun of so consistently in pop culture that it has actually made the persona of John Wayne seem, well, gay.