The fact that Asa Watts not only possesses long hair in the film but is actually nicknamed "Long Hair" (and identified that way in the closing credits) is very telling. In that era (the early seventies), long hair constituted a cultural symbol that tended to be either embraced or scorned. The Cowboys is clearly scorning it and suggesting that it represents deviance and immorality, a stance that squared with the political perspective that Wayne broadly represented.
Now, according to his infamous Playboy interview published in May 1971 (around the time when Wayne would have been shooting The Cowboys with director-producer Mark Rydell), the Duke professed to being unbothered by long hair on a male, saying that back in his days as a young adult—before becoming a movie star—he had once sported longish hair himself. But from a broader perspective, The Cowboys arguably serves as a metaphor for Wayne's political paradigm: amid a changing America where old values such as loyalty, commitment, honesty, and trust are supposedly fading and people are deserting the mission, he embodies traditional bedrocks against the "Long Hair" that disregards morality and propriety.
Of course, making "Long Hair" a racist allows the film to avoid simplistic political dogma and dichotomies.
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