In America, John Wayne Has Taken His Last Ride
What ever happened to the American dream, when young people yearned to mimic the independent, enterprising image of the cowboy on the prairie, and struck out on their own, free of the constraints of parental guidance? According to this op-ed article from Italy's La Stampa, the days of John Wayne and James Dean are long gone, as Western children tie themselves ever more tightly to their mother's apron strings.
April 2, 2006
By Claudia Ferrero
Translated By Enrico Del Sero
Italy - La Stampa - Original
Article (Italian) 
Has the John Wayne Ethos Been Lost?
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Let us sing
a requiem for the myth of James Dean; for those lost youths who, on the wave of
the motto live fast, die young, showed their eagerness and willingness
to burn bridges and forge ahead. A requiem for the figure of the prairie cowboy,
no momma's boy hero, which has been put to a severe test by this year's gay
love story, Brokeback Mountain 
. Could anyone possibly imagine John Wayne
living by scrounging from his aged parents on their Southern California ranch?
Let's sing a double requiem for those non-conformist angry young people, on
the road and eager for freedom, with Jack Kerouac's book in their hands.
According
to statistics, today's young people return home every now and then for their
mothers to launder and iron their shirts. Actually, there is nothing that can
compare with a breakfast in one's dear old bedroom. It is, after all, a
matter of practicality, and of savings, too.
And let's
sing another requiem for the American teenager, looking forward to leaving his
typical American family, follow the American dream and make his own American
family. They call them adult-agers, the boomerang generation, and
the aborted-takeoff generation. Here's what Matthew McConaughey says
about his character [Tripp] in the film Failure to Launch: Tripp's
theory is that 'if it's not broken, don't fix it.'
James Dean: He Was No 'Mamma's Boy.'
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His
argument cannot be faulted. Adult-agers who for different reasons still live at
home are also of Italian heritage. Some time ago, the phenomena started worrying
the French (as shown by Tanguy, Étienne Chatiliez's 2001 film), and they [adult-agers] are invading everywhere in the West, all tied
tightly to their mothers' apron strings. But are they Peter Pans due to
immaturity or merely convenience?
Tripp-McConaughey
would have no doubt: I'm enjoying it; everything is free and is better than
in a first-class hotel! But what are parents to do?
The time
may have come for them to find a loophole.
