Cult TV Blog

The introduction to this series of posts on the American dream as it appears in The X-Files may be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 2x07 3 (Monster of the Week) No apparent reference to the American dream (unless it's a dream about being a vampire). 2x08 One Breath (Core Mythology) There is a suggestion that different groups (who may or may not be involved in a government conspiracy to keep information from the populace) in the form of the stealing of Scully's blood, the intervention of X, and Cancer Man's statement that he does know what's going on. 2x09 Firewalker (Monster of the Week) No apparent reference to the American dream. 2x10 Red Museum (Core Mythology) There are repeated references to food which could lead back to the 'freedom from want' element of the American dream, and to freedom of religion as well as the negative side of how religions perceived to be outside the mainstream can be treated....

The introduction to this series of posts on the American dream as it appears in The X-Files may be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 2x04 Sleepless (Monster of the Week) As always The X-Files puts some seriously weird stuff in the foreground of the episode, which can tend to distract us from the many references it also includes to the American dream of the rule of law, equal opportunity, equal justice, hope for the oppressed and human rights. In this case the foreground is the experimentation conducted on Cole and the other members of his Marine unit in the Vietnam war. As so often in The X-Files the weird stuff has a background in reality to give it an air of verisimilitude, and the show builds on previous references to the military by going straight to one of the US's more disastrous engagements: in this case the real background is actual medical treatment of soldiers in the Vietnam war. I have been unable to find anything ...

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The introduction to this series of posts about the American dream as depicted in The X-Files can be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 I was delighted to find the table which illustrates this post, as it refers to a 2014 survey of American citizens as to how they saw the American dream. Interestingly it is almost exactly opposite to how I first saw it myself as an outsider: I would have put affluence and basic needs first and personal freedom would only have appeared if I'd thought about it. Interestingly it is almost completely different from the things I, an outsider, am identifying as referring to the American dream in The X-Files, but then I've never claimed to be competent to do this in any way. Interestingly freedom as originally conceived as part of the American dream was very constrained indeed: 'They wanted freedom-any high school history textbook will tell you that. They themselves would tell you that. But th...

This is a pause in my series of posts about the American dream and The X-Files, not an ending, and is at least partly inspired by the way I have got rather side-tracked from the American dream as such, onto the particularly contrary ways the CIA attempted to defend the American dream, particularly Project MK-Ultra. The idea was that they couldn't believe that Americans could ever possibly want to defect to enemy states, such as Korea, and when they did, thought they must have been brain-washed by the enemy. So of course the only thing they could do was launch into a secret, decade-long programme of torture to find out why people would possibly want to leave the country. The complete absence of self-awareness is striking in retrospect, but it was driven by a genuine fear at the time. If nothing else comes out of my reading for the posts on the American dream, I have gained a renewed understanding of the background of the Cold War era TV I watch: the fear of the enemy; the fantasies ...

The introduction to this series of posts about the American dream as it appears in The X-Files can be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 1x21 Born Again (Monster of the Week) No overt reference to the American dream. 1x22 Roland (Monster of the Week) No overt reference to the American dream. 1x23 The Erlenmeyer Flask (Core Mythology) It may seem a strange decision because of the direct references to US government unethical experimentation and Deep Throat, Mulder's contact in the government, I am not going to treat this episode as significantly referencing the American dream. Although the setting is clearly The X-Files' dystopian depiction of the reality of the dream, the episode makes all of the real references refer to the series's alien core mythology. You can read some absolutely barmy attempts to assassinate Castro that are definitely real, but this episode is definitely about things which are not real, just with s...

The introduction to this series of posts about the American dream as it appears in The X-Files can be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 1x17 Miracle Man (Monster of the Week) Once again we have the reference to religion, which in the context of the American dream is predicated on freedom of religion; as I said about Gender Bender, this is, of course, one of Roosevelt's four freedoms. Here, however, we have a particularly American form of religion (I'm writing this in Europe, remember, so am quite prepared to be reading this wrong): one where religion meets other aspects of the American dream, capitalism and self-advancement. As is usually the case with the American dream in the X-Files it is in the background, but we see the large car and house which the Hartleys make from their healing ministry. The dream where anyone can set up a church and live in prosperity (I'm not even necessarily thinking of the prosperity gosp...

The introduction to this series of posts about the American dream as it appears in The X-Files can be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 1x13 Gender Bender (Monster of the Week) It's been a bit tricky to know what to do with this one, because on the face of it, this episode is The X-Files' first contact with religion. As we know this is definitely part of the American dream, being one of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms. We also have a religious group designed to put us in mind of the Anabaptists who went to the USA to flee persecution in Europe, which seems to have the American dream written all over it. We also have the most dysfunctional meal with a religious group in world history, in which at least one person ends up dead. We even have a clash between the religion and the agents' guns, and some people think the Second Amendment means anyone can have whatever gun they like, although Mulder and Scully have more need th...

The introduction to this series of posts about the American dream as it appears in The X-Files, can be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1 There has been a pause in these posts, because I have been trying to get my head round three books which I thought would help in this pursuit. I think it will, although they have brought into focus how little I know of the subject. The first, and an absolute lodestone as far as I am concerned, is Jim Cullen's The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation (Oxford University Press, New York, 2003). It is a wide-ranging history but for the purposes of these posts, he perfectly brings out some of the contradictions within the American dream, which The X-Files takes hold of and runs with, with added aliens. The book is a procession of arguments and conflicts among people who wanted: freedom but only the right sort and only under authority; individualism but conformity; equal...