Authentic Caricature

Authentic.  There's a real word.  I read it in a N.Y. Times book review of a new biography of John Wayne.  His character, it said, was "authentic."  So are Levis, I believe.  I think it says it somewhere on the sewn on leather tag over the right rear pocket.  To be authentic, does a thing need to be verifiable?  I guess not when one speaks of character.  The review of the book goes on to say that Wayne studied other characters closely to create his own, Harry Carry for one, and a stuntman whose name I can't remember for another.  Can something authentic be an amalgam of other things.  I would think that antonym for "authentic" might be the word "derivative." If so, here we can see Wayne through a Derridean lens where the thing and its opposite are innately conjoined.

I was not a Duke fan growing up.  He represented the old world to me.  His values were conservative in the Age of Aquarius.  He didn't have the cool of Paul Newman or Steve McQueen or even Lee Marvin, and he certainly wasn't anywhere near the cool of younger actors like Warren Beatty or Dustin Hoffman.  He was like Ronald Reagan of the "Twenty Mule Team Borax" t.v. show.  I couldn't watch him.

I've grown an appreciation for him since.  The trick is, I think, to watch the younger version.  But that is always the trick, no?  That is where true authenticity lies, that derivative, constructed cool, for as we age, as in so many cases, we become entrenched in the character we've created to the point of caricature.  Hemingway.  Huston.  Nicholson.  Madonna.

But I'll recant a bit.  John Wayne's last movie was one of his best, I think.  "The Shootist."  I'm going to see if it is on Netflix since I haven't viewed it for over twenty years, I'd guess.  I think, though, that he was authentic "again"in that.

The movie was released the same year as "Rocky," speaking of that awful road from authenticity to caricature.

The sun will rise in about half an hour.  Authentic.  Verifiable.  I think I'll go back to bed.