Red Dead Redemption, like other games in Rockstar’s catalog, presents a fictional realm based on a real-life counterpart. Redemption’s New Austin shares similarities with the state of Texas while across the border Nuevo Paraiso resembles Mexico. About a third of the way through the game, John Marston must travel into the Mexican territory in search of Bill Williamson and the rest of his old gang. John and the NPC ally, Irish use a makeshift raft to cross the river into Nuevo Paraiso. In a cutscene before the gameplay clip, Irish tells Marston the glories of Mexico and states the two of them, “shall be together in paradise.”[1] Of course, trouble always follows Irish and halfway across the river, Mexicans start to shoot at the two characters. Marston, like the majority of other gameplay missions, must shoot back in order to survive. In Red Dead Redemption’s “We Shall Be Together in Paradise” mission, Rockstar presents a parallel between the player forced to draw a firearm and attack the Mexicans and the real tension between the US-Mexican border in 1911 and in the current day.
During the “We Shall Be Together in Paradise” mission, John Marston must use the firearms at his disposal to mow down dozens of Mexicans who oppose him at the border. The mission plays like a classic showdown in spaghetti Western films. In American West: Competing Visions, Karen Jones and John Wills argue that the gun in Western film explains and mythologizes how the West was made in the US. The two authors write, “The majority of Hollywood Westerns forwarded the gun as a technological harbinger of victory on the frontier, the tool that facilitated the simultaneous conquest of savage natives, nature and lawless renegades. Guns fed into a distinctly violent myth, a Wild West imagining whereby out of conflict came civilisation.”[2] Rockstar does not shy away from what Jones and Hills call the image of the “gun-toting cowboy as a symbol of [the] Western,” and national qualities of “individualism, justice, freedom and self-reliance.”[3] Once the Mexicans start to shoot, Irish cuts the rope connecting New Austin and Nuevo Paraiso, causing the raft to float down the river sideways. Irish hunkers down and cowers away from the gunfire, leaving Marston to deal with the Mexicans by himself. Jones and Wills refer to William Raine’s assertion that a cowboy’s gun is his only friend in Western film: “The only protection he [a cowboy] had was his own character and the Colt revolver he carried on his hip.”[4] The gun in Marston’s case acts as the agent to secure a peaceful life away from injustice and violence. The tension of gun usage hovers over the entire game; although John Marston wants to separate himself from his old life as an outlaw, he must hunt down his gang using the tools of destruction from his past.
Red Dead Redemption glorifies the gun and defines John Marston through the use of it. A huge portion of Redemption’s content is devoted to buying new weaponry and upgrading Marston’s “Dead Eye” ability. I only used the repeater carbine to dispatch the Mexican foes in the gameplay clip, but there are over thirty different weapons for a player to choose from in the game. As the raft floats down the river, the mission resembles a shooting range as Marston methodically shoots Mexicans from across the river. The theatricality of the mission brings out Red Dead Redemption’s several allusions to spaghetti Western films. When the player uses Marston’s “Dead Eye” ability, the screen becomes engulfed in a sepia film tint. Many Western films of the early twentieth century used sepia film tinting because of its dusty tone paralleling the dirty nature of the Wild West setting. “Dead Eye” slows down time and lets the player target multiple enemies at once. The use of sepia and ability to take down many enemies in one fell swoop imply Rockstar’s perspective of Western film revolves around the use of violence to achieve an end goal. Jones and Wills say as much with their assertion, “The myth of ‘good’ violence, with the gun-toting cowboy as its minister, remade the conquest of the West in popular imagination. The lone gunfighter became an American hero overcoming Indians and the wilderness[…]Such a myth cemented positive ties between the West and firearms lore.”[5] Redemption also pays homage to the famous sound effect, the “Wilhelm Scream” which originated in 1951 and is still used in film today.[6] A faint sample can be heard at 8:13 in the gameplay video. Cinematic tropes like the pang of gunshots hitting rocks, the comical gesticulations of enemies getting shot and the conveniently placed dynamite crates all harken back to classic spaghetti Western films and add layers of immersion to Red Dead Redemption.[7]
For all the violence the “We Shall Be Together in Paradise” mission relishes in, this section of the game is steeped in historical accuracy and allusions. After successfully crossing into Nuevo Paraiso, ironically, the first mission available to the player is to help the leader of the Mexican army, Vincente de Santa, put down the rebels in his country. The senseless killing of Mexicans during the “Paradise” gameplay mission haunts the player’s time in Mexico, especially when Marston fights alongside the Mexican army and also the rebel factions. The choice of 1911 for Redemption’s time period allowed Rockstar to invoke the Mexican Revolution in the game’s plot, which is historically accurate officially starting in 1910. Throughout the “Paradise” mission, Marston remarks about the amount of Mexicans shooting at him and their unwavering intention to kill the two characters.[8] Jones and Hills note that cowboys were not the only ones who carried firearms around during the period: “National events, in particular the Civil War and Mexican War encouraged a boom in firearms sales from the 1850s onwards[…]Weapons served as agents of westward expansion, and gun ownership became widespread.”[9]
The prevalence of gun ownership across both nations allowed Rockstar to comment on the border tension between the US and Mexico. Camilla Fojas argues in Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier, “Hollywood has often exploited the trope of the southern border between the United States and Mexico to capture a range of “American” ideals and values,” like integrity, self-sufficiency, and survivalism, but the border also houses threatening ideas like globalization and terrorism, as well as, “undesirable or inassimilable people such as Mexicans.”[10] The player’s first foray into Mexico, evidenced by the “Paradise” mission, is an unwelcome introduction to the neighboring country. Rockstar uses John Marston and his gunmanship to express, what Fojas calls, “‘American’ anxieties, messianic prophecies, and fears about porous boundaries,”[11] of Mexico. The player must kill the Mexican foes during the “Paradise” mission to survive and ultimately advance Redemption’s storyline. Marston does what contemporary citizens of both sides wanted to do – cross the border and put an end to the neighborly tension. Manifest destiny dominated the expansion of the Western frontier but the southern border with Mexico stood as the contrast to the widespread American belief. Fojas claims, “the southern national boundary competes with the western frontier to delineate and define ‘America.’ Moreover, it is a boundary that must be protected and defended,”[12] from trespassers. At 5:56 in the gameplay clip, Marston says, “I haven’t stepped foot in this country, and they’re already trying to kill me,”[13] voicing his frustration over the US-Mexican border. Rockstar also alludes to the modern day troubles of illegal immigration along the southern border. On October 26, 2006, President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act approving the construction of a 700-mile wall along the US-Mexican border to halt illegal immigration into America.[14] Illegal immigration continues to be a point of contention between the US and Mexico, harkening back to the trouble during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Rockstar’s pivotal “We Shall Be Together in Paradise” mission transports the player into unfamiliar enemy territory. At first Marston’s goal seems to be shoot to survive, but Rockstar breaks conventional Hollywood stereotypes of Mexicans and shows the protagonist befriending Mexican NPCs in later missions. “Paradise” presents the real tension between the US and Mexico during 1911 and uses John Marston and his gun to comment on Hollywood cowboy tropes and the glorification of violence in the Wild West.
Bibliography:
Fojas, Camilla. Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier. Austin, TX: University of Austin, 2008.
Jones, Karen R., and John Wills. The American West: Competing Visions. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2009.
Lee, Steve. “Sound Effects – The Wilhelm Scream.” Last modified May 7, 2005. http://www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/wilhelm/
Red Dead Redemption. San Diego, CA: Rockstar San Diego, 2010.
[1] Red Dead Redemption, San Diego, CA: Rockstar San Diego, 2010.
[2] Karen R. Jones and John Wills, The American West: Competing Visions, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University, 2009), 61.
[3] Jones and Wills, 61.
[4] Jones and Wills, 62.
[5] Jones and Wills, 63.
[6] Steve Lee, “Sound Effects – The Wilhelm Scream,” last modified May 7, 2005, http://www.hollywoodlostandfound.net/wilhelm/
[7] Red Dead Redemption, San Diego, CA: Rockstar San Diego, 2010.
[8] Red Dead Redemption, San Diego, CA: Rockstar San Diego, 2010.
[9] Jones and Hills, 63.
[10] Camilla Fojas, Border Bandits: Hollywood on the Southern Frontier, (Austin, TX: University of Texas, 2008), 2.
[11] Fojas, 3.
[12] Fojas, 27.
[13] Red Dead Redemption, San Diego, CA: Rockstar San Diego, 2010.
[14] Fojas, vii.
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