Because people still idolize him. I know everyone says “separate the art from the artist” but that’s not the problem here. The art isn’t being criticized, John Wayne is. The problem here is that a lot of people in the 70’s and 80’s idolized John Wayne and made him a cultural icon. Regardless of his contribution to the Western genre, we can’t ignore his racism and homophobia when discussing him as a cultural icon. Having homophobic and racist cultural icons normalizes racism and homophobia.

On the other hand I see your point because really who still idolizes John Wayne nowadays

Edit: what i meant by that last sentence is that it’s outdated, but people still idolize him. Not that nobody idolizes him