JP "Red River"

In the 1948 film Red River, staring John Wayne, the audience watches the characters of the alpha male cowboy, Tom Dunson (Wayne) and his adopted son Matthew voyage across hundreds of miles West to Missouri to sell Tom’s accumulated cattle. Tom has chosen to live the life of a cowboy; he aspires to be one of the greatest ranchers of the South. To sell his vast amount of cattle at the best price he can, he must travel hundreds of miles to Missouri from Texas, through the desert and through Indian ran territories. As Tom leads his group of men and cattle through the land, he makes himself more and more isolated from the group, causing a great deal of conflict and rebellion, and inevitably shifts the responsibilities of the alpha male cowboy to Matthew.

No surprise here, John Wayne portrays the alpha male cowboy physically and emotionally to the tee. He has the tough, hard personality and look to him. He is absolutely committed to accomplishing whichever task is set before him no matter what the cost of it will or can be; he simply gets the job done. His character is bull-headed but bound by his morals and his codes of duty and honor. As Matheson suggests in her article, “The West-Hardboiled: Adaptations of Film Noir Elements, Existentialism, and Ethics in John Wayne’s Westerns”, in the “Wayne canon, it becomes obvious that the Duke specialized in playing distablized alienated figures, socially marginalized men caught in double binds in short the modern existential antihero,"(Matheson 897). Wayne’s character of Tom gets increasingly intense over the voyage they are on and becomes ‘socially marginalized’. This is portrayed through Tom’s act of killing the men who want to give up on the voyage out of despair; his obsession and determination to get to Missouri disables his thinking and takes complete control of his mind.

In the beginning, Matthew plays the role of Wayne’s sidekick. He looks up to Wayne and tries to learn as much as possible from him. His character however is the opposite of Wayne’s, Matthew plays a softer role; he is more sensitive and gives the people more of a voice than Tom does. Matthew starts to disagree with Tom when Tom starts killing the men that are giving up on the group and want out. Matthew ends up taking over the role as the leader of the group and cattle. This is where the alpha male cowboy is shown through Matthew’s character. Tom loses all respect from the men, causing the shift of faith from the men in Matthew’s hands. The men support Matthew and that bothers Tom. Tom mentions how he wants to kill Matthew for taking over his cattle and essentially replacing him. As stated in Jane Tompkins novel, West of Everything, “Death brings dignity and meaning as well as horror, and its terrifying presence in the long run comforts and reassures,” (Tompkins 27) Matthew doesn’t want to fight Tom but if that is how it has to go down, he will do what he has to do with his head held high, knowing what he has done has been for the good of the people around him. Luckily, when they arrive at the end of the movie, both parties realize the love for each other and no one gets hurt. However as the alpha male cowboy, Matt had shown up ready to face death if it had to come to that result, he shows no weakness.

Being a cowboy is a way of thinking, living and feeling about others, moral values and good old fashioned American principles that are keen to a romantic and independent era. In the film, Red River, Tom and Matthew both exhibit what a true alpha male cowboy goes through day to day. They choose action over words because in agreement with Tompkins, “It is precisely words that cannot express the truth about things,” (Tompkins 53). They confront death when it is inevitable, and they make decisions based on the people around them, especially when the people around them are the ones being affected the most. Lastly, they are the men the audience and supporting characters look to for guidance through the West. They are the ones who bite the bullet and get the job done whether they agree with it or not.