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Contrast [[Bring My Red Jacket]], [[Plot Armor]].
Note that this has nothing to do with [[wikipedia:Redshirt (college sports)|the Real Life definition of "redshirt"]], which is a varsity sports term for somebody sitting out participating on a team in order to extend their eligibility.
{{deathtrope}}
{{examples|page=Red Shirts}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* In honor of the new ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' movie, a company has released a [http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Red-Shirt-Cologne/dp/B002E1EAU4 Red Shirt cologne]. The slogan? "Because Tomorrow May Never Come." The packaging features a red-shirted officer in a set of crosshairs, and a Starfleet security badge with a bullet hole next to it.
* [http://www.redshirttreatment.com/ You Deserve The Redshirt Treatment]. An ad campaign by insurance company Independent Health sends the unintentional message of "You deserve to die horribly so [[William Shatner]] can emote over your dead body".
** [[Did Not Do the Research|One Google search]] would have prevented the epic irony of that health care company's slogan.
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', the mass-produced federation [[Mooks]] were called RGM-79 GMs, which exploded by the dozens any time they were shown in a fight. [[Bonus Points]] because their standard armor was colored like a [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/msgundam/rgm-79.jpg red T-shirt].
* Occurs in ''[[Gundam Seed]]'', in which Athurn's buddy Rusty (who never shows his face or has any dialog) is killed. He's wearing red, which ironically is supposed to be the uniform of ZAFT's elite.
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* [[FUNimation]] voice actor [[Vic Mignogna]] wrote a ([[Ear Worm|horribly catchy]]) song about the Red Shirt [[Anime]] equivalents, called [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TA-QJ2d3kk "Soldier A"]:
{{quote|''Soldier A, Soldier A
''The unsung hero of anime
''Hip hooray for Soldier A
''He only has one line but saves the day
''He's called upon to grunt or yell or scream
''Even if his mouth is never seen
''Through the fray with ne'er to say
''He'll lead the way, he's Soldier A'' }}
* Yano in ''[[Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]]''.
* Oh, Matt of ''[[Death Note]]''. 10 panels. {{spoiler|He gets gunned down.}} Notable in a manga where [[Anyone Can Die]] because he wears a red striped shirt in the anime, and often gets fan-colored with red hair.
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* Absolutely any military vehicle that is not an Evangelion in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. Their job is shoot ineffectually at the Angels so we can see just how invincible they are as they lazily annihilate the forces in their path.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
== Comics ==▼
* Parodied in a ''[[FoxTrot]]'' [http://www.foxtrot.com/2010/12/12192010/ strip]:▼
{{quote|'''Jason:''' I decorated my gingerbread men in little ''[[Star Trek]]'' uniforms.▼
'''Paige:''' Good lord, could you be a bigger geek? ''(Jason eats a cookie)'' Why are they all wearing red shirts? }}▼
* ''[[Green Lantern]]'' comics consistently depict unnamed (and occasionally, named) Green Lanterns getting slaughtered whenever a new bad guy shows up. Even though every one of them wields "the most powerful weapon in the universe," they inevitably suffer gruesome, meaningless deaths. This also highlights the completely arbitrary nature of combat between ring-wielders.
* Mr. Immortal from ''[[Great Lakes Avengers]]'' got a red shirt for his X-Mas present since, you know, [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?|he's a Redshirt Army by himself...]]
* In an IDW company ''[[Star Trek]]'' comic, a Red Shirt security officer named Boyd outright complains about this to Chekov, Bones, and two other security officers. His words: "You're not redshirts, you two are fine. Security doesn't always make it home as much as you guys."
* Phil Foglio's [https://web.archive.org/web/20080510111733/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buck.html Buck Godot] series has the evil "X-Tel" corporation, whose security forces' uniform consists of grey shirts... [https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090403/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20070308 and red PANTS.]
* In one issue of Toyfare's ''[[Twisted
* The ''[[X Wing Series]]'' comics started to display this later on. There were complaints after the first several arcs that, while people quit or transferred out, no-one ever died. Promptly someone who'd been there since the beginning and one who'd been around for an arc got killed in ''Requiem for a Rogue'', and in the arc after ''that'' four new pilots were introduced. One instantly immersed himself in a subplot, another took equally little time to establish her status as part of a rather pragmatic [[Proud Warrior Race]]. The other two failed to do anything but sort of hang around in the background, and by the end of the book those two had been shot down and killed within two pages of each other.
* ''[[Empowered]]'', being a superhero comic (albeit a parody) also has [[Mooks]], but one supervillain ThugBoy once worked for really took the cake when he made his Witless Minions wear shirts with an emblem looking like a bullseye. Wow. Now that is...
* ''Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers'': The whole mini-series is
* In a recent{{when}} ''[[Taskmaster]]'' mini-series, the main
* Agents of [[SHIELD]] who are not major characters could just as easily be called Blue Shirts with the number of times SHIELD agents are killed en masse.
** The same goes for former Marvel supervillain prison, The Vault which was not only a [[Cardboard Prison]] but was staffed by an army of men wearing armor based on [[Iron Man]] suits called The Guardsmen. Every time there was a breakout, several of them would be killed. In fact, [[Venom (Comic Book)|Venom]] once killed a group of Guardsmen during one of his many escapes and the guards' friends and family became an armored [[Super Team]] intent on killing him.
* For nine issues, [[Amazing Stories (magazine)|''Amazing Stories'']] ran a comic strip written and drawn by [[John Kovalic]] about the perils of being a red shirt. The strip was called ''Redshirts'', and it has been collected in its entirety [http://www.dorktower.com/2016/09/26/redshirts/ here].
* In a ''[[Nodwick]]'' comic that parodies ''[[Queen of the Demonweb Pits]]'' with ample references to ''[[Star Trek]]'', this Trope is lampooned. The heroes barge onto the control center of Lolth's Spidership, and the Spider Queen's succubus minions prepare to fight them, but Artax convinces them to surrender, telling them they can't win, as they made the "tactical error of wearing red." (One of them laments that "If only I'd gone into medicine, I'd be wearing blue!") Even funnier, Nodwick - [[Chew Toy|who tends to die a lot]] [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist|due to his employers' shenanigans]] - realizes right now that ''he'' has always worn a red shirt himself.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* [http://images.stupidvideos.com/2.0.2/swf/video.swf?sa=1&sk=7&si=2&i=35586 "Those Poor Guys In Red"]{{Dead link}} by Vlad G. Pohnert is an excellent compilation set to "Another One Bites The Dust" by [[Queen]] providing an impressive number of examples of why those guys in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' were the [[Trope Namer]].
* The Finnish ''[[Star Trek]]''/''[[Babylon 5]]'' spoof ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20050901042111/http://www.starwreck.com/ Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning]'' puts the ''Trek'' redshirts against the B5 security forces. The carnage was horrible. The redshirts throughout the ''Star Wreck'' series are also given [[Meaningful Name|names that reflect their expendable nature]], such as "Lt. Suicide", "Sgt. Manshield", and "Lt. Cannonfodder".
* Cleverly spoofed in a short ''Star Trek'' parody film, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y39gHihP74 ''Steam Trek: The Moving Picture''] (premise: ''Trek'' as it would be done 100 years ago by George Melies), where the expendable member of the away team wears a shirt with a target on the back. Also, this character is listed in the opening credits as "Ensign Expendable". For some reason, the opening credits were cut out of the [[YouTube]] version, but the full parody film can be seen [http://www.sisterson.co.uk/ here], under "Films."
* Notorious ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' fanfic author Stephen Ratliff unironically(?) gave us [[Better Than a Bare Bulb|Ensign Throwaway]] in his ''[[Marissa Picard]]'' stories.
* This is frequently played with in ''Trek'' fanfics. A typical example is [https://web.archive.org/web/20091127105133/http://liquidfic.net/mesir.html here].
* Played deliberately straight by the crew of the ''Enterprise'' in the ''Star Trek'' [[Deviant ART]] web comic, ''[http://comicalclare.deviantart.com/art/Ensign-Sue-Must-Die-23-175328458 Ensign Sue Must Die!]'' The crew quickly find out that Ensign [[Mary Sue]] is ''extremely'' annoying. Virtually all attempts to get rid of her fail. {{spoiler|Including shooting her! She's [[The Princess Bride (film)|spent the past few years building up an immunity]] to phaser blasts.}} So the crew turn to the one guaranteed way of killing off a crew member. They give her a promotion which changes her shirt colour from blue to red. They waste no time and go on an away mission, where she is killed almost immediately.
* "[http://www.khaosworks.org/filk/redshirt.html Redshirt]" is a [[Filk Song]] by Terence Chua that honors all of the nameless victims who died so that the main characters could survive.
==
* If you're a 00-agent early in a ''[[James Bond]]'' film, kiss your ass goodbye. Subverted in ''[[GoldenEye]]'', when {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] turns out to be the "[[Faking the Dead|dead]]" 00-agent.}}
* In the ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' movies the random B.P.R.D. agents who accompany the big red guy on his missions all but define redshirt.
* Hilariously lampshaded in the [[Austin Powers]] movie ''Goldmember''.
{{quote|'''Nigel Powers:''' Have you got any idea how many anonymous henchmen I've killed over the years? I mean, look at you. You don't even have a name tag. You've got no chance. Why don't you just fall down?}}
* This trope was parodied very effectively in ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'' in the character of Guy Fleegman, "Crewman Number Six"—who is the only cast member
* A film that seriously plays with the concept is ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]''. Who can forget Hudson's "[[Retirony|Four more weeks and out]]" tirade? The movie does kinda play it straight with Crowe and Wierzbowski; one line from Crowe (said when he's offscreen), and no lines from poor Ski except a scream.
* A discreet spoof in the movie ''[[The Running Man (film)|The Running Man]]'': Two contestants wore yellow jumpsuits while two wore red. Guess who died?
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** The ''[[Up to Eleven|whole Jedi Order]]''<ref>[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Order_66#Known_survivors except the ones who survived]</ref> become redshirts for the clones to kill in ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]''. [[Dropped a Bridge on Him]] on a literally ''[[Exaggerated Trope|galactic]]'' scale.
** While going to confront Darth Sidious, [[Samuel L. Jackson|Mace Windu]] brings three nameless (to those unfamiliar with the [[Expanded Universe]], anyway) Jedi who are easily carved up by the [[Big Bad|Dark Lord]].
* The countless native African servants and carriers in the ''[[Allan
* During the opening of ''[[Indiana Jones and The Raiders of The Lost Ark]]'', Indy is accompanied by two random native guides. They don't make it.
* In the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' movie, Kirk (in blue) and Sulu (in gold) are accompanied on a drop mission to take out a planetary drill with a character wearing red armor (to guard against the heat of reentry). Guess which one of the trio dies? At first it seems to be a subversion, as he survives {{spoiler|what seems to be the obvious fate of missing the platform and falling to his death from the upper atmosphere of a planet}}. Unfortunately for the poor guy, it's a [[Double Subversion]]; his final fate actually manages to be fairly spectacular. {{spoiler|His parachute catches on the platform, and he gets vaporized by the drill.}}
** This was completely intentional, according to the commentary—Abrams and the writers called this their "red shirt moment".▼
▲This was completely intentional, according to the commentary—Abrams and the writers called this their "red shirt moment".
* ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture]]'': Two crew members die in a teleporter accident, although they aren't seen to be wearing red shirts (in fact, no-one is).
** This is an odd case, in that one of the victims of the transporter was Lt. Sonak, who would have been a main character in the aborted ''Star Trek: Phase II''. [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|Mr. Sonak]] was to replace Cdr. Spock, as [[Leonard Nimoy]] would not reprise his role for the series. When Nimoy agreed to return for the feature, which was based on elements of ''Phase II'', Xon was killed so that there would be a vacancy for Spock to fill.
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** Ensign Lynch. Apparently, Picard attended his wedding. Something of a subversion, in that Captain Picard actually [[What the Hell, Hero?|gets called out]] for how callously he dismisses Ensign Lynch's murder.
** There's also another guy named Hawke.
*
* In ''[[Planet of the Dinosaurs]]'', the cast wears various colored uniforms, but those killed die in no particular order.
* There are literal redshirts in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]''.
* Subverted in ''[[Smokin' Aces]]''. Though many nameless cops bite it in the various shootouts, our hero is so distressed by the mass carnage that it sends him into a [[Heroic BSOD]]. He laments "So many people are dead!" even as his superiors try to get him to callously brush it off and do his job.
* The [[X-Men (film)|''X-Men'' film franchise]] averts this a few times:
** A Red Shirt security guard eventually drove Nightcrawler away when he attacked the President. Granted, this was after a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] from the mutant.
** A [[Redshirt Army]] captured many mutant students in the same film. They drive the named X-Men away from the school in the process.
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** {{spoiler|Also Richard. He wasn't even in the novel.}}
* Beth Emhoff in ''[[Contagion]]'' is both this and a dead [[Living MacGuffin]] at the same time, being killed off within the first few minutes. Her recent interactions are then investigated throughout the rest of the film, and then the cause is revealed to be {{spoiler|an infected pig being touched by a chef who then held her hand for a photograph}}.
== Gamebooks ==
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* Played straight in the ''[[Lone Wolf]]'' series where the titular character has the Aura of Death about him. Any companion or ally Lone Wolf picks up along his travels is *extremely* likely to die in horrible circumstances before the end of the current book. Any boat Lone Wolf is on will be attacked by pirates, sink, or both. And for god's sake man don't try to rescue a person in distress, of ''course'' it's a [[Shape Shifter|Helghast]] who murdered some random person and took their place just to have a shot at killing Lone Wolf.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* Subverted in the ''[[Star Trek]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] novel ''The Eyes of the Beholders'', by A.C. Crispin. The apparent red shirt for a mission not only survives but saves the rest of the away team.
* Played with in the ''Day of Honor'' TOS novel. A redshirt got himself good and toasted... but it was in an honorable way to the Klingons. They decided to give this guy an annual holiday.
* Also brilliantly skewered in the James Alan Gardner novel ''[[The League of Peoples Verse|Expendable]]''.
* "Chapter 3: Lucky Red Shirt", from
* The African porters of ''[[Congo]]'', the movie or the Crichton novel, seemed to regenerate like clones. "Oh, look, there are three left. Oh, wait, the apes just killed them all. Hey, where did those other two porters come from?"
* In the [[Christopher Moore]] novel ''[[The Stupidest Angel]]'', one character decides to wear a Starfleet command shirt because it's a festive, Christmas-y red colour. Another character even comments on how the redshirts always died in that series. {{spoiler|Guess who gets shot in the head when the lead zombie walk's through the door? Here's a hint. He's wearing a red shirt, and it ain't the guy in the Santa suit.}}
* [[David Weber]] hands out "Redshirt Awards" to fans who spot errors in his books. In the next book, [[Tuckerization|he names a character after the fan]], and kills him. Some of the later ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' books have had entire ships crewed by Redshirts, which then get blown up.
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* ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' spends some time justifying this. The training received by German soldiers at the time didn't even remotely prepare them for combat, and a hefty percentage of the [[New Meat]] died horribly through not knowing something a veteran would know. A few survived by blind luck, learned what would kill them through seeing what killed everyone else, and became the [[Fire-Forged Friends]] the story centers around. They're not very effective at communicating their newfound survival strategies, so the waves of [[New Meat]] that supplement their ranks continue to get mowed down (and [[We Have Reserves|continue to get replaced]].)
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[The Red Tape War]]'': "Under no circumstances are you to jeopardize your life or your ship. The life of your companion, however, is absolutely and thoroughly expendable."
* Utterly spindled, folded and mutilated by ''[[Night of the Living Trekkies]]'', where the hero encounters a terrified man in a red shirt at a Star Trek convention attacked by the living dead. Turns out that "Ensign Willy Makit" has lost the rest of his group, several trekkies who claim to be from the U.S.S.
* Averted in ''[[The Name of the Wind]]'', where the Adem, a warrior race whose mercenaries wear all red outfits, and are pretty unlikely to even be wounded.
* Parodied by [[John Scalzi]] in his book ''Redshirts
{{quote|The worms were in a frenzy. Somebody now was likely to die.
It was likely to be Ensign Davis. }}
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==▼
▲== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Star Trek]]'':
** The first broadcast episode of the original series ("The Man Trap") has a body count of four minor crewmen, most of whom of course become monster chow shortly after beaming down to the planet. Ironically, the casualties are two blues, a gold and one unknown wearing a hazmat suit.
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** This is either averted or subverted in "A Taste of Armageddon". Kirk, Spock, and three redshirts beam down to Eminiar VII whereupon landing, are sent to be killed. ''All'' of them survive.
** An interesting case also occurs in "By Any Other Name". Two redshirts are [[And I Must Scream|turned into crystals]], one of whom is a [[Good-Looking Privates|hot female yeoman]], who would usually survive. The other is a more typical [[Men Are the Expendable Gender|male]] security officer and is also [[The Black Dude Dies First|black]]. It's the former that gets crushed into powder, however.
** There is in fact an even more unfortunate color to be wearing, but it's more obscure: The [https://web.archive.org/web/20131005221214/http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Hansen_(Commander) two] [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Harold characters] who wore the same beigey-yellow shirt both died in attacks on outposts, along with everyone with them.
** Even the engineers (non-security redshirts during ''TOS'') aren't safe, as shown in "The Ultimate Computer".
* Later incarnations of ''Trek'' (''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'') invert the term by switching uniform colors. Command staff in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' wore yellowish uniforms and operations staff (such as security) red; from ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' on this was swapped, making gold shirts the new target of preference while red shirts were usually safe and secure on bridge duty if not for the [[Explosive Instrumentation|usual exploding console]].
** Not always, though, as the helm officer on the ''Enterprise''-D was generally a redshirted ensign whose main function was to underscore how great the danger to the ship was by being the person on the bridge to die because of exploding consoles/suddenly materialising aliens/subspace phenomenon of the week/sentient voids in space/etc.
** In the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Valiant", the title ship is crewed by cadet group called "Red Squad". [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|Guess what happens...]]
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** A notable subversion occurs in "Latent Image" {{spoiler|where the Doctor is guilt-ridden over his choice to save Harry Kim as opposed to the expendable ensign.}}
** And Harry Kim seems to have been intended as a subversion, as an Ensign without much of a real job on the ship, yet he's a major character. Who never, ever makes it past Ensign (except in alternate futures). And to be fair, Harry Kim does die an awful lot (he gets better).
** The aversion is justified because of Voyager's premise. They are on the opposite side of the galaxy from Earth and 75,000 lightyears away from the closest starbase, so they don't have a practically infinite number of Starfleet recruits to replace them and they only have about 150 crew members, 100 being stated as the minimum to run the ship (though proven false on
* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]''. The crew never suffered any fatal casualties in the first two seasons (despite incidents like a Romulan stealth mine blowing away a section of the hull), no doubt so as to avoid the "phaser fodder" cliché. All this changed in the third season Xindi war arc, with eighteen killed in "Azati Prime" alone. The trope is lampshaded in "The Forgotten", when Trip has to write a letter to the parents of a dead crewmember but [[What Measure Is a Mook?|can't remember much about her]], so he keeps getting her mixed up with his [[Dead Little Sister]]. There's also two classic redshirt incidents: in "The Council" an away team takes along a MACO when entering one of the mysterious Spheres, and in Season 4 "Daedalus" Reed goes searching through a dark room for a [[Negative Space Wedgie]] with an unnamed crewmember—no guessing who gets killed on both occasions. Deliberately parodied in [[Mirror Universe|"In a Mirror, Darkly"]] where Mirror Reed puts on an [[Star Trek: The Original Series|Original Series]] redshirt with fatal consequences.
** Starfleet Security's motto, according to one forum, was "''Taking one for the team since 2151''"
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* ''[[24]]''. Any CTU field agent who isn't Jack Bauer or the season's [[Colonel Makepeace]] is a red shirt. In season 4 and part of season 5, CTU HQ's security officers actually wore red shirts—that is, until ''they were all killed at once in a nerve gas attack''.
* In ''[[Combat]]!'' they aren't so much red shirts as [[Redemption Equals Death]] shirts. In fact, a good way to tell if someone will die is if they are given a name.
* ''[[Blake's 7
* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'' the chief of security is Michael Garibaldi, who is named for the 19th century Italian revolutionary whose men were called The Red Shirts, making it possibly one of the best nods to this trope in history.
* The ''[[Supernatural]]'' Season 5 episode "Good God, Y'All" has a whole ''town'' full of Red Shirts {{spoiler|divided into thinking that the other side are demons so that Sam and Dean can figure it out and meet War, the Apocalyptic Horseman}}.
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* ''[[Lost Tapes]]'' from [[Animal Planet]] has [[Occult Detective|Noel Connor and Elise Mooney]] of the Enigma Corporation. Or specifically, anyone who is unfortunate enough to help them. {{spoiler|Three appearances, five allies, no survivors}}.
* [[Professional Wrestling]] has Armageddon 2000, Hell in a Cell. Undertaker vs. The Rock vs. Kurt Angle vs. Steve Austin vs. Triple H vs... [[The Last of These Is Not Like the Others|Rikishi.]] Guess who gets chucked off the cell into a flatbed truck?
* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' any character who makes a premier appearance just as something is discovered is destined to meet a quick demise. The Red shirt du jour is introduced that episode, often by name. As the series' regulars investigate new technology or a recent discovery the newly introduced Red shirts keeping watch get toasted/Wraith-ed/introduced to the [[Monster of the Week]].
* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', several other SG teams were this.
** This was lampshaded in an episode where a couple of [[Mauve Shirt]]s are trying to rescue SG-1, and one of them says they might as well be wearing red shirts.
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲== Music ==
* Parodied many times over in [[Filk Song|filk]], from Leslie Fish's "Landing Party Blues" to "Redshirt's Lament":
{{quote|''{{'}}Tis a gift to wear a gold shirt or a blue, you see
''But look, my dear, what they have done to me
''Even Engineering would a blessing be
''But no, they've made me Security
''Whe-en the landing party's gone
''I'll be there with my red shirt on
''I'll make sure my estate's all orderly
''Because that is the last that you'll see of me'' }}
* [[Jonathan Coulton]] wrote the song "Red Shirt" as a theme to ''Redshirts
{{quote|''They said this air would be breathable
''Get in, get out again and no one gets hurt
''Something is dragging me up a hill
''I look down in my red shirt
''I look down in my red shirt'' }}
▲* Parodied in a ''[[FoxTrot]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20130930105533/http://www.foxtrot.com/2010/12/12192010/ strip]:
▲{{quote|'''Jason:''' I decorated my gingerbread men in little ''[[Star Trek]]'' uniforms.
▲'''Paige:''' Good lord, could you be a bigger geek? ''(Jason eats a cookie)'' Why are they all wearing red shirts? }}
== [[Professional Sports]] ==
* Ever notice how in snooker it's the ''red'' balls that have the lowest value and don't get put back on the table after they've been potted?
* In a way, American football averts this. When practicing, quarterbacks will wear red shirts so defenders will know not to hit them and thus not risk injuring them. This is because quarterbacks are the most important player on the offense and at the pro level, they're worth the most amount of money, so the quarterback is actually in the least amount of danger. However, it's played straight with college freshmen and rookie pros, who traditionally go through a "redshirt" year where they only play during practice.
== [[Recorded and Stand Up Comedy]] ==
* [[Eddie Izzard]] has a routine poking fun at this, in which Steve from the accounts department beams down alongside Captain Kirk.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Paranoia]]'' has the players taking the roles of Troubleshooters tasked with the job of [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|shooting trouble]] wherever it should arise in Alpha Complex. The starting rank is "Red". As each character is part of a six-pack of clones, the body count can rack up astronomically quickly....
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131005070300/http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target68.html This] RPG motivational poster explains it all...
* ''[[Brikwars]]'' gives Hero units the explicit ability to make other units [[Heroic Sacrifice|Redshirt]].
* A minor setting in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' is Kill Team, where a squad of highly trained specialists go up against countless enemies, and they can purchase upgrades. The most useful: Red Shirt, a minor character who, according to the other Kill Team members, is probably going to get killed in a variety of gory ways. Can be averted in that if the Red Shirt survives, [[Mauve Shirt|he becomes a member of the Team]], and upgraded accordingly.
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* ''Spirit of the Century'' has minions. In a bit of a switch these are mostly for the villains, but they go down right quick, and, if they are attached to a character, must quite literally die before the character can even be hurt.
* Given that there was [[Trading Card Lame|inevitably]] a [[Collectible Card Game]] based on ''[[Star Trek]]'', and given [[CCG Importance Dissonance]], there were inevitably actual Red Shirt characters you could deploy. Having said that, once players hit on the idea of sending in a single character to [[Schmuck Bait|set off all the opponent's traps]], that tactic was inevitably called "Redshirting" as well.
* ''Planet Mercenary'', according to [https://web.archive.org/web/20170429034338/http://schlocktroops.com/2015/04/16/taking-one-for-the-team-or-the-ablative-meat-shield-rule/ game mechanics preview], has “The Ablative Meat Shield” rule, providing a stream of Red shirts; they also can be promoted to Mauve shirts and used as spare Player Characters.
* In mainstream ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the [[City Guards]] are usually decent fighters, often to the point that [[Helping Would Be Killstealing]]. The 5th Edition ''Monster Manual'', however, gives the typical Guard a CR of 1/8. That's less than a goblins or riding horse. Obviously, it seems such generic town watch are there only to act as fodder for mooks in town-based adventures.
== [[Theater]] ==
* Parodied with the [[Tortuga Twins]] live show
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' licensed game (SNES/Genesis) has over a dozen Ensigns who can accompany you on away missions, despite there being no advantage in doing so; series regulars like Data and Worf have more health, while Dr. Crusher has healing packs. On the plus side, you can kill off as many Ensigns as you want, whereas losing two officers will abort the mission. Even the game doesn't care if they die.
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager
** The "[[Wide Open Sandbox|Virtual Voyager]]" Mode of the expansion plays with this in the death message, (Like drilling a hole through Neelix, or arming the ships self-destruct causing crew members to whip out phasers on you) saying "What color shirt are you wearing?".
* In ''[[Gears of War]]'':
** Carmine (whose name is a shade of red) is a rookie
** Repeated in part two, when Carmine's brother (who joins your team) dies even more horribly. The first Carmine's Red Shirt status was [[Lampshaded]] before that by a dialogue between the brother and Dom.
*** Parodied in the ''[[VG Cats]]''
** Oddly, Benjamin Carmine (one of the original's three brothers, and the one in ''Gears 2'') manages to last a lot longer, nearly to the end of the game. He also is a pretty damn good sniper.
** Also in ''Gears of War'', the member of Alpha Squad who runs off and is instantly killed by the berserker is listed in the credits as Redshirt Gyules. ([[Genius Bonus]]: "Gules" is heraldic language for "red".)
* Almost every friendly NPC in the first-person shooter ''[[Half-Life]]'' is a redshirt. The security guards tag along and give support, but their low hit points and wimpy pistols mean they never last long. And the scientists, oh those poor scientists. Almost all of them only exist to die in scripted set-pieces to remind you of how insanely dangerous everything is. (One of the guards, however, got his own spin-off. You don't mess with Barney.)
* Fairly frequent in ''[[L.A. Noire]]'''s street crime submissions. Valiant police officers are usually picked off in beginning cut-scene for the mission, and you'll never see or hear of him again. They're never even mentioned when you report back for a coroner at the end of the mission. No "officer down" or "notify this nameless cop's family he's been shot," just get a coroner for, most likely, the guys you shot.
* Parodied in ''[[Space Quest
{{quote|'''Droole:''' This may be dangerous, lets split up so we can cover more territory.
'''Roger:''' Don't you think we should stick together?
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* The amateur PC [[Adventure Game]] ''Adventures in the Galaxy of Fantabulous Wonderment'', which is pretty much what it sounds like, takes the trope to its logical extreme by making redshirts into a commodity cloned and sold in 5-packs. They die in a great number of interesting ways. In fact it's actually impossible for an away mission to end any way ''but'' the death of the redshirt.
* Jean Jack Gibson, from ''[[Snatcher]]''. His outfit is more of a burgundy-orange, but it doesn't change the fact that his only purpose in-story is [http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/9143/gibsongs5.jpg to be brutally murdered half an hour into the game.]
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', the introductory mission on Eden Prime begins with a
* Introversion Software, creators of ''[[Uplink]]'', included a bunch of bonus materials with the game. The catch? They (weakly) encrypted them via a encryption called "Red Shirt". Guess how long they expected it to take the fans to break the encryption? They also encrypted some game data (most notably, saved games) with the method, and replaced it with an update, called Red Shirt 2, in later versions. Their next game, ''Darwinia'', also use a modified version of Red Shirt 2 for its saved games.
* In ''[[Uplink]]'' itself, the LAN admins give their co-workers surprisingly obvious passwords, as if they want their friends' machines to get hacked into.
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* The oarsmen on the ship to Tolbi in ''[[Golden Sun]]'' exist only to be slain by sea monsters, thus giving the player a chance to veer the ship off its course—and they're all wearing red bandanas.
* In ''[[Fire Emblem]]'', since the games are known for having [[Loads and Loads of Characters]], you would think that there would not be many red shirts. However, on numerous occasions green colored "Other" units will be found either as generic guards or NPC reinforcements. They are usually of the class "Soldier", which no characters that you recruit will ever have (though they are also sometimes seen as enemy units). Worse still, they have some of the lowest stats in the game. Soldiers are given better stats and made into a playable class in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'', but they still seem to be the go-to class for neutral units.
* ''[[Quest for Glory
* Parodied and lampshaded in the fourth movie based off of ''[[Mastermind World Conqueror]]''.
{{quote|'''Male Patsy:''' I'm not dying to prove the situation is ''critical''! I won't go down like a goddamned redshirt!
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* ''[[Final Fantasy]]'':
** In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', the blue-clad Shinra Army can often be cut down by the weakest of hits. It's worse in ''[[Crisis Core]]'', where 1000 Shinra infantryman are unable to defeat Zack in an optional mission. In [[Dirge of Cerberus]], the white-shirted WRO serves this purpose.
** ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'' has the Galbaldian soldiers, who in a funny way look like Shinra Army, who are also easily cut down. This really shines bright in the SeeD final exam part of the game when the anxious Galbaldians who attempt to ambush your party try to fight at obviously unwinnable odds. Their are even soldiers in Red uniforms as well as the blue.
* During a surprise attack on a supply depot in ''Growlanser 2'', the mildly [[Genre Savvy]] enemy commander has the following exchange with a guard:
{{quote|'''Byron:''' You... token guard that's gonna die anyway... try and slow them down!
'''Burnstein Soldier 6:''' [[Too Dumb to Live|Uh... okay...]] }}
* In the ''Cataclysm'' expansion of ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', there's a quest named "Madness" in which you are to accompany a Horde Negotiator to speak with the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of Orcs. You're informed that two have already been sent and not returned, but the quest giver feels assured that if you accompany the negotiator, the clan leader will respect your strength. Along the way, the developers attempt a trope overload, as the Negotiator lampshades [[Retirony]], informs you that "After these negotiations, I am looking forward to a long and prosperous life." If talked to, he questions you "Hey, does this red shirt make me look expendable?" Once you begin negotiations, as one might predict from the quest name, the following conversation eventually takes place: [[
** [[Leeroy Jenkins|One particular player]] we all know about happens to have been in a party all wearing red shirts when his name became immortalized. Maybe that's why Leeroy...[[Leeroy Jenkins|Leeroyed.]]
* Subverted in a trailer for ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom]] 3'': When Chun Li's helicopter is brought down by Super Skrull, both she and Captain America actually take care to save and protect the nameless pilot.
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* ''[[Touhou]]'' has both the fairy maids of Koumakan and the rabbits of Eientei, alternating between Red Shirts and Mooks depending on perspective, whose sole purpose is to get slaughtered by vastly more powerful characters, with ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' in particular not being kind to them. Fortunately for them, in Gensoukyou [[Non-Lethal KO|Non Lethal KOs]] are the law.
* In ''[[Fallout 3]]'', the power armored soldier in Operation Anchorage who runs into the pulse field and dies is labeled a Red Shirt in the GECK.
* In the ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'' "Meet The Videos" this trope is inverted with the RED team mercenaries regularly defeating BLU mercenaries.
* The Gallian army in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]''. If the raw deal a Red Shirt normally gets is a sushi platter, the one these guys get is still flopping on the deck with its eyes bugging out. For starters, their only representative is an asshole and none of them have faces, defining traits, or redeeming value (when their enemy counterparts get two cutscenes to show how human they are). Then the vast majority gets burnt alive in an explosion, which is par for the Red Shirt course, except the explosion was a [[The Woobie|''woobiefying'']] moment for the person who blew them up, and [[A Million Is a Statistic|no one cares that they're all dead afterward.]] And as if that wasn't enough, if the player somehow manages to kill off all the distinct personalities of Squad 7, they'll start filling slots in the militia, and still have no faces or final words, fully prepared to die in thankless, anonymous droves (and if the player didn't care about Squad 7, they probably won't mind killing off what amounts to ordinary, faceless [[Player
* When you go to {{spoiler|trap the dragon Odahviing}} in ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'', the people on the Dragonsreach balcony are you, the Jarl of Whiterun, his adjutant, and some nameless guard. No points for guessing which one gets snapped up and flung into the distance on {{spoiler|Odahviing's}} first pass.
▲== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Coffin Comics]]'': [https://web.archive.org/web/20130927061318/http://coffin-comics.jesterbrand.com/2007/02/27/red-shirt/ The first comic] uses this as an example of a Warcraft dungeon party gone wrong.▼
▲== Web Comics ==
▲* ''[[Coffin Comics]]'': [http://coffin-comics.jesterbrand.com/2007/02/27/red-shirt/ The first comic] uses this as an example of a Warcraft dungeon party gone wrong.
* Completely subverted in ''[[Starslip Crisis]]'' with the introduction of Quine, a "Protocol Officer" who's in charge of building relationships with new species. While he has a tendency to die on every "away mission", upon death, a clone is awakened on ship with all of his memories up to the time of death intact. The trope is outright inverted by the fact that he's the only member on the ship with this privilege (due to the rarity and importance of the protocol officer).
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'':
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* Officers Getskilled and Oneshot in ''[[Girly]]''. Amusingly, neither of them die, and Getskilled goes on to become a minor part of the ensemble until at last he [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence|meets his eventual fate]]. It's pretty cool.
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' has been around long enough to have hit this [[Trope]] dozens of times. Without even bringing in the number of disposable elves who die in the formerly annual Christmas messes, there's:
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607081550/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060806 This] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20130607064732/http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060813 this] strip from the ''"Stick Figures in Spaaaaace"'' series of stick-figure [[Filler Strips]] have characters with red shirts getting killed by random gunfire.
** During "Oceans Unmoving", Quartermaster Flipp complains about not getting any characterization... and is knocked overboard to certain death in the very next strip. Of course, it's subverted when, after the whole plot and the deaths of many major and minor characters, it's revealed that he didn't die, but instead is sent through time.
** [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=971011 "We'll be sending some expendable crewmembers to investigate..."]
** [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=971014 "Wow! It knows to go after the extras first!"]
* ''[[I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space]]'' features at least two strips [[Lampshading]] this [[Trope]], as seen [https://web.archive.org/web/20111005193020/http://rosalarian.com/lesbianpirates/?p=196 here].
* ''[[What's New with Phil and Dixie]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428205728/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20081228 strip] on "[[Magic: The Gathering|Weatherlight]]" Saga has "Snapper" McFipt:
{{quote|Shipman. You know when a monster or ninja or something sneaks on board and attacks a crewman to show how evil it is? Well, the person it attacks is McFipt, and he's getting pretty tired of it. }}
* Parodied in ''[[Legostar Galactica]]'' where one of the main characters is Ensign Red Shirt and is continually being killed yet is always brought back to life. It's to the point that a laser shot ''in the opposite direction'' will actually ''bend'' just to hit him. It is subverted later, however, when a series of accidents fall on another character while sparing Ensign Red Shirt, who's the first surprised.
* Played with in [http://metroid.bobandgeorge.com/index.php?comic=480&num=1 Strip 480]{{Dead link}} of ''Metroid: Third Derivative'' in which Joey asks for {{color|red|red}} paint so he can paint a Red Shirt on all the other degenerates.
* Heavily subverted and parodied in
* Referenced in [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1800/fc01775.htm this] ''[[Freefall]]'' strip.
* And in [http://www.unshelved.com/archive.aspx?strip=20030821 this] ''[[Unshelved]]'' strip.
* In ''[[The KAMics]]'' we see the [https://web.archive.org/web/20130522170252/http://www.drunkduck.com/The_KAMics/5360519/ Redshirt Bearer Brigade] & in the author's notes [[User:KAM]] brags none will survive.
* The clone troopers in ''[[Darths and Droids]]''. Amusingly, [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0520.html in some cases] they're ''eager'' to die.
{{quote|'''Cdr. Cody:''' Although, we could go in first to see if it's a trap.
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* In ''[[Goodbye Kitty (webcomic)|Goodbye Kitty]]'' the Kitty [http://gbk-sayonara.thecomicseries.com/comics/22 wears Star Trek red shirt uniform]. Right between baiting some reptile that can remove her in one gulp without chewing with a tiny chicken leg and riding a skeet on a shooting range.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* Finding creative ways to kill off redshirts was part of the fun for some of the writers of the ''[[League of Intergalactic Cosmic Champions]]'' (other writers thought they were sick).
* [http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/9722/ This shirt.]
* [
* The French Web writer ASP Explorer, in the 9th story in his work ''Les Fantastiques Aventures de Morgoth l'Empaleur'' (not related to ''[[The Lord of the Rings|this]]'' Morgoth), plays with this hilariously: the adventuring party meet in jail a young and idealistic
** And his death is later retconned away when he gains another bunch of levels and {{spoiler|more-or-less ascend to godhood}}.
* All D-class personnel of the ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' are this. Class D is the designation given to those who handle the more dangerous SCP items, and they tend to be brutally killed en masse. Being demoted to Class D is considered a [[Fate Worse Than Death]].
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** It's also played with in the episode ''Star Trekkin'' just about everyone but Kirkstone, Sprock, and RcKoy dies, though Sprock is transformed into one of the creepy jellyfish (his head on their tentacles).
* Lampshaded in ''[[Worms Trek]] Rhapsody''. One gets hit by a Klingon missile (Scotty's line "Hit by Klingon missiles, no!"), another gets fired out of a torpedo bay ("Photon torpedooooooos!").
* Parodied [http://chzsetphaserstolol.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/sci-fi-fantasy-untitled8.jpg in this image caption]{{Dead link}}.
* The [[College Humor]] short ''Jurassic Park Character's Awful Realization'' is explicitly about this, wherein the main cast are arguing over who should distract the T-rex with a flare. Gennaro is elected for this, and accuses the others, "I'm only here to die, aren't I?" The other characters fail to reassure him ("[[Blatant Lies|You're a very important character!]]") and an argument ensues wherein [[Genre Savvy]] Gennaro insists it's unfair to ask the most obviously doomed character to go out there, saying Grant and Ellie are both needed experts, Malcolm is the tension-relieving comic relief, and Tim and Lex [[Infant Immortality|are kids]], and he's simply "[[Acceptable Targets|the lawyer]]." The others try and convince him maybe he's a [[Mauve Shirt]] instead. {{spoiler|Malcolm ultimately [[Kick the Dog|tosses him out of the Explorer]] and after a failed attempt to persuade the T-rex he's plot relevant by saying [[Blatant Lies|he's Tim and Lex's real father]], he gets nommed.}}
* On ''[[Smosh]]'', in this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL9lQ-DiL80&feature=relmfu video].
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
* ''[[Captain Simian & the
▲== Western Animation ==
▲* ''[[Captain Simian & the Space Monkeys|Captain Simian and The Space Monkeys]]'': The holo-boons, [[Hard Light]] baboons in red jumpsuits.
* Perfectly parodied in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever". The school bus is trapped teetering on the edge of a cliff and the bus driver leaves to find help, ordering the kids to remain on the bus or else a big black monster will eat them. After a long time of waiting, the children grow nervous and antsy. One of the kids—a child wearing an actual ''[[Star Trek]]'' Red Shirt outfit—can't take the waiting and leaves the bus to find help. No black monster appears and the kid even waves back to the other kids, causing remarks from the main characters about how the bus driver must have lied... only for the big black monster to immediately appear and eat the red-shirted kid.
* ''[[Futurama]]'':
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** Any clone that bears completely white armor would be dead by the end of the episode.
** Any clone that doesn't have a name in any episode.
** Many clones who
* Lampshaded endlessly in an episode of ''[[The Venture Brothers]]'', where [[Mauve Shirt]] Henchmen #21 and #24 repeatedly taunt the previously unseen Henchman #1 for his red shirt status. By the end of the episode, {{spoiler|#1 is beaten to death by Brock Samson, as the [[Genre Savvy]] #21 and #24 miraculously escape harm.}} Although, bizarrely enough, {{spoiler|it later turned out that #1 [[Not Quite Dead|Wasn't Quite Dead]] after all...}}
* The Red Shirt gets his revenge in ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' with a ''[[Star Trek]]'' sketch. When the crew teleported down to a planet to survive the ''Enterprise'' exploding, the crew reasons that to survive one of them must be sacrificed as food. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130604100303/http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/no-power.html Obviously they choose the Red Shirt first], but the Red Shirt tells them off by saying "On behalf of all the redshirts that fell before me, it makes me very very proud to speak the following sentence... I'm the only one that brought a gun." He proceeds to kill and eat them all.
{{quote|"Mmm... that's good [[Large Ham|ham]]."}}
* Spoofed mercilessly in ''Sev Trek: Puss in Boots'' (
* The Klokateers in ''[[Metalocalypse]]''
{{quote|'''Facebones:''' And most important, remember -- death is an everyday part of the workplace! So, when you see a dead body, don't freak out!
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* Lampshaded in the ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' episode "Duck Trek"
{{quote|'''Plucky''': Spork, Doctor, you're with me. ''(To the Red Shirts)'' You extras wander off that way and disappear. ''(And they do)''}}
* Amazingly enough, this trope is not lampooned, poked at, or even played straight in ''[[Star Trek: Lower Decks]]'', a series that focuses mostly on crewmembers that would normally fit the trope. Despite already having one transporter accident and one holodeck accident in the first season alone (plus your typical accidents involving alien viruses, a few hostile aliens, and a visit from Q), by the end of that season, the ''only'' casualty among the ''Cerritos''{{'}}s crew is {{spoiler|Lieutenant Shaxs, the chief of security! (As in, Scotty's job in the original series.){{verify}} Even ''then'', it's a [[Heroic Sarcifice]], Shaxs dying as the [[Boisterous Bruiser]] he's always been.}}
== [[Real Life]] ==▼
* The Thai
▲== Real Life ==
▲* The Thai [[Red Shirts]] have begun to display this [[Trope]], as they seem to be regularly defeated, or forced into retreat, by the Thai army. Probably because they are mainly civilians up against the Thai army, but one still can't deny that the placement of the name makes it [[Harsher in Hindsight|somehow appropriate]].
* Some think that the British Redcoats in the Revolutionary war embodied this [[Trope]]. [[Your Mileage May Vary]].
** Arguably, the Battle of New Orleans at the end of the War of 1812 might fit this.
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* Ordinance (the guys that load bombs on planes) on US carriers wears red shirts. This is a bit of a subversion as, despite the nasty stuff they work with, they are not more likely to get killed then anyone else, or rather if anything does go off despite all precaution, a lot of people who aren't wearing red shirts are going to die in the crowded ship and the split-second difference from being the red shirt closest to the explosion will be meaningless.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Death Tropes]]
[[Category:Characters As Device]]
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[[Category:This Index Is Expendable]]
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