After 9/11, George Bush encouraged members of the film industry to depict subjects that might deal with how Americans might respond to internal threats. The Alamo, directed by Texasphile John Lee Hancock, appears to be one such project, a contemporary remake of the 1960 John Wayne movie of the same title that was intended to stiffen American resolve during the Cold War. (There were four subsequent films based on the Alamo before 2004.) Indeed, the movie is a propaganda piece that attempts to present history from a particular point of view, even rewriting what scholars now know about the events of the 1830s in what the Mexicans called the state of Tejas. The film begins with titles informing filmviewers that the site of what later became known as the Alamo was founded in 1718 within the settlement of San Antonio as a Catholic mission, similar to the various missions in California. The mission, according to the film, later fell into disuse (in 1793 the mission ended, Spain established the Alamo as a fort a decade later, and a militia of Texians and Tejanos ousted a Mexican military contingent in December 1835). After a brief glimpse of the massacre at the Alamo in 1836, the scene shift back to 1835 in order to provide context. General Sam Houston (played by Dennis Quaid) is extolling the virtues of what he calls Texas, even offering Tennessee Congressional candidate David Crockett (played by Billy Bob Thornton) 600 acres of land if he were to join up with his army in Texas. Meanwhile, the army of General Antonio López de Santa Anna (played by Emilio Echevarría), México's president, has a mission to expel Americans from the sovereign state of México. Expecting him to attack the Alamo and later Houston's army and militias in spring 1836, Houston in the film replaces the Alamo's commander with younger Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis (played by Patrick Wilson). (In actuality, Travis's January 1836 orders came from Provisional Governor Henry Smith.) On arriving at the Alamo, Travis discovers that Houston's contingent as well as an Americanized Mexican militia are happier with their commander, Colonel Jim Bowie (played by Jason Patric), though Bowie is dying of tuberculosis. The legendary Crockett, having taken up Houston's offer after losing the election the previous fall, is at the Alamo, providing his services as a sharpshooter to Travis (who, contrary to the film, refuses Houston's order to withdraw). When Santa Anna's army arrives in San Antonio on February 23, the American settlers and their Mexican friends retreat to the safety of the Alamo. As the Mexican army greatly outnumbers the military force inside the Alamo, Travis dispatches an urgent request for reinforcements to Houston in San Felipe and to a few militias elsewhere in Texas, but only thirty-two members of an American militia at González, Texas, answer the call and arrive at the Alamo during the thirteen-day siege, so he dispatches Juan Seguín (played by Jordi Mollà), the leader of the pro-American Mexicans, on the promise that he will return with a message from the General Houston. The general, however, refuses to allow Seguín to return, having decided that even his entire army cannot prevent the inevitable massacre at the Alamo; instead, he knows that the massacre of the 189 volunteers will serve to galvanize resolve within his army and associated militias to defeat Santa Anna at a time and place of Houston's choosing. After the massacre occurs, including the film's fictional depiction of Crockett's execution on the direct orders of Santa Anna, the latter pursues Houston's army. Houston retreats, hoping to draw Santa Anna into a Waterloo, based on his understanding of how Napoleon was ultimately defeated. After Santa Anna divides his troops into three segments, to surround Houston, the latter takes advantage of the opportunity, and he defeats the contingent commanded by Santa Anna within only eighteen minutes during April 21 in the Battle of San Jacinto, which he leads with the charge "Remember the Alamo," and then presides over the slaughter of more than six hundred Mexicans. Rather than massacring those surrendering, Houston succeeds in having Santa Anna sign a document ceding Tejas in exchange for his life. Titles at the end indicate that Seguín then returned to Alamo to bury the dead and that Texas was admitted as the twenty-eighth state in 1845. Presumably, Americans leaving a screening of The Alamo are supposed to feel proud that the defeat at the Alamo was redeemed by subsequent events. But there is another story, not revealed in the slanted version of history. First, Spain explored and settled Tejas in the sixteenth century, and established effective control in 1715, though France also claimed the territory, a claim that was relinquished in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, though in 1819 the United States returned sovereignty to Spain in exchange for Florida. Meanwhile, some Americans moved into Tejas before the 1819 reversion. In 1821, México won independence from Spain, whereupon American colonists declared independence from México. Thus, Santa Anna's assignment was to command an army recently victorious over Spain in order to preserve Mexican sovereignty, consistent with international law, and there was no legal authority to offer land to Crockett or anyone else. Some of The Alamo, to discredit Santa Anna, focuses on his pomposity, his cruelty, his ineptitude, and even his sexual conquest of an unwilling San Antonio señorita, though he offers safe conduct out of the Alamo to all Mexicans before his attack. Thus, the film seeks to legitimate the use of military force to avenge a massacre without regard to principles of international law. But there is yet another subtext. Those who grow up in many parts of the United States have different political subcultures, and Texas is no exception. Texans who are favorably reminded about the Alamo and Houston's version of manifest destiny may have a special vision about how to deal with foreign countries. That presidents from Texas have felt justified in committing forces to military adventures in Vietnam and Iraq thus may be no coincidence. As such, The Alamo may serve to shape American public opinion outside Texas to solve problems around the world by force of arms. MH
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