I think there are some aspects of his life and behaviour that justify scrutiny (for example, his involvement in the McCarthyist communist witch-hunt business) but his films should be assessed on their own cinematic merits, not judged through a wokeferatu lens that fails to understand 1) that the Old West wasn't politically correct, and no attempts at pretending otherwise will make it so, and 2) that there is a difference between depicting something and endorsing something.

Many of John Wayne's films are good. Some are outstanding. Then there is The Searchers, which is quite simply one of the greatest films ever made. Wayne is outstanding in that role.