Core Post - Chimezie Metu

For me, the readings this week presented a good opportunity to make some connections between the writings of Andrew Britton, who wrote the "Stars and Genres" section in SID, and Gary Willis, who wrote the "Prologue and Introduction" to John Wayne's America. In the opening parts of Britton's writing he describes the roles that star "vehicles" play in helping stars achieve a certain rank of notoriety within the film industry, whether it be a star who we often see in the same types of character roles, or seeing a particular star in familiar settings and situations in different movies. In comparison to Willis' portrayal and description of John Wayne in his writing, where he labels Wayne as someone "the whole of America wanted to be like.." Personally, I think that in order for an entire country to want to be like one man then they must have seen him in the right light any and every time that they laid eyes on him, and that is exactly what John Wayne's character roles did for him. The roles that he adopted in films over the span of his acting career always made him out to be the ideal American man in a sense and that is why American people not only loved and adored him but also wanted to be him.