Other "Red Shirt" Roles?

[MikeH92467]

I debated whether to put this in a different category, but I thought it might fit best here, since we all seem to use the term "Redshirt" as shorthand for a character with a very short life expectancy. (mods feel free to move this if you feel its a better fit elsewhere)

I think if we look for it in other series we'll find the same kind of cliche at work: I'll start off by pointing out that in the James Bond movies that the foreign agents he gets teamed up with usually bites the dust. Felix Leiter might be the exception although he does survive getting eaten by a shark in one movie.

Any others?

 

[captcalhoun]

GI Joe has support troops in some continuities - particularly the DDP comics - who are known as 'greenshirts' since they A)wear greenshirts and B) tend to act as cannon fodder.

BBC's Merlin series has lots of expendable unnamed knights and soldiers in Camelot. the knights wear red cloaks so i call them 'red cloaks' in homage. (i dunno if it's deliberate but if not, it's a hell of a coinky-dink.

 

[MikeH92467]

GI Joe has support troops in some continuities - particularly the DDP comics - who are known as 'greenshirts' since they A)wear greenshirts and B) tend to act as cannon fodder.

BBC's Merlin series has lots of expendable unnamed knights and soldiers in Camelot. the knights wear red cloaks so i call them 'red cloaks' in homage. (i dunno if it's deliberate but if not, it's a hell of a coinky-dink.

Hard to believe that would be an accident...

 

[sbk1234]

I don't know if this counts, since it's not really a character, but whenever there is a car chase through the streets, it seems invariably they will run over and destroy a fruit stand of some sort. I guess if there is a guy running the stand, then it will count as a character...

 

[sojourner]

Sheriff Carter's Jeep on Eureka.

 

[MikeH92467]

I don't know if this counts, since it's not really a character, but whenever there is a car chase through the streets, it seems invariably they will run over and destroy a fruit stand of some sort. I guess if there is a guy running the stand, then it will count as a character...

If it's not a fruit stand, it's a newspaper stand....

 

[Timo]

Felix Leiter might be the exception although he does survive getting eaten by a shark in one movie.

Since he's a different guy in each movie, we might just as well think "Felix Leiter" is a codename, just like "James Bond" is - different agents adopt it at different times, eventually the codename accrues a mythos of its own, and Jack Wade was the first CIA agent not to put up with that "famous secret agent" nonsense...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The_Baroness]

I often wondered if Picard ever got nervous when Next Gen started and he was told by Starfleet he had to wear a red-shirt....

 

[Sector 7]

Sheriff Carter's Jeep on Eureka.

How many times has that poor Jeep bitten the dust now?

 

[Hofner]

Here's a real life version of "Redshirt", kinda.

On aircraft carriers, different types of tasks are performed by different crews. So that everybody knows who's who, each crew has a specific color shirt according to their jobs. For instance IIRC, the purple shirts, the 'grapes' handle fueling the planes.

So guess who has the dangerous job of handling the munitions for the planes? Yep, the Redshirts. They're the ones who handle the bombs and rockets and stuff. I was watching a documentary about aircraft carriers and I can't help chuckling when for example, the narrarator says "OK, the redshirts will now mount the 500 pound bomb onto the jet and arm it...".

Robert

 

[Alienesse]

How about Elaine's boyfriends or Jerry's girlfriends in Seinfeld? They didn't die per se, but they did have very short screen life expectancy.

 

[Cloud William]

How about Hans Moleman on The Simpsons?

 

[T'Girl]

Southpark.

"Oh my god, they killed Kenny."

"You bastards."

.

 

[skylark14]

The beloved family pet in any horror/thriller genre film. I cringe when I first see him or her because I know he's going to die horribly as the first warning everybody gets that something horrifyingly and thrillingly dangerous is afoot.

 

[Hofner]

In slasher movies, the only people who survive are the ones who don't have sex.

Continuing with the James Bond series, any vehicle JB gets ahold of ends up in the scrap heap. Also, in each movie Bond shags at least two women and the first one he screws always end up kicking the bucket.

Robert

 

[skylark14]

You're so right. I was trying to bring that to mind but it kept eluding me. Any unmarried female with a sex life in these films is going to bite the dust. And if she happens to be scantily clad when you first see her, it's going to happen as fast as for your average redshirt.

 

[MikeH92467]

You're so right. I was trying to bring that to mind but it kept eluding me. Any unmarried female with a sex life in these films is going to bite the dust. And if she happens to be scantily clad when you first see her, it's going to happen as fast as for your average redshirt.

Serves those floozies Right! Who says Hollywood film makers have no morals!

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The entirety of Red Squadron except for Luke and Wedge (both of whom were hit but survived).

The two protagonists wearing red suits died in The Running Man, while the two wearing gold survived.

Native guides and workers in archaeology movie series like The Mummy, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Allan Quartermain, etc.

Helmsmen on TNG-era ships, so a main character can take over piloting the ship at a crucial moment.

The entirety of Red Squad aboard the USS Valiant with the exception of Nog and one cadet.

Most of the Oceanic Flight 815 survivors from Lost who weren't in the main cast. They get mowed down one right after the other by flaming arrows, mercenary teams, and old dynamite.

CTU agents, tech support, and administrators who aren't Jack Bauer or Chloe O'Brien.

 

[skylark14]

Native guides and workers in archaeology movie series like The Mummy, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Allan Quartermain, etc.

Oh, gosh, yes. I had totally forgotten about the native "bearers" from the old jungle movies. They used to bring tears to my eyes. They were utterly expendable and disposed of with such gleeful abandon by the moviemaker, all the while carrying these enormous weights over their heads. They were always being run over by rogue elephants, run through with spears, torn limb from limb, boiled in pots. Uh-oh, I'm feeling the tears coming on as I write. Gotta go.

 

[sbk1234]

I guess that would be like all those guys who fell off the log in King Kong.