The American Dream in The X-Files: F Emasculata, Soft Light, Our Town, Anasazi

The introduction to this series of posts on how the American dream is depicted and criticised in The X-Files can be found here: https://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-american-dream-in-x-files.html?m=1

2x22 F Emasculata (Monster of the Week)

The deeply-flawed F. Emasculata introduces a new aspect of the American dream which hasn't appeared before. Remember how a part of the dream is that capitalism should be pretty much uncontrolled to allow the opportunities that people need to better themselves? Here we see this principle attached to healthcare, and as we know the US healthcare system is therefore driven by profit for companies rather than promoting the health of the population. Specifically in this episode 'Big Pharma' comes under criticism - the criticism is that in a capitalist system, Big Pharma wants to find remedies for purposes of profit and either isn't bothered by the damage it does or covers up the damage when it happens.

This fear of Big Pharma makes no sense to me at all (remember I'm a former health professional), ironically because while we do know that there have been disasters through inadequate testing, in a competitive capitalist economy if you make drugs for profit you have to make sure your customers come back to you. The aspects of the American dream which make medication commercial, are the same ones which make it competitive and mean that a company which keeps on killing people will run out of business. The show is making a popular criticism of an aspect of the dream, but the same aspects would prevent the fear happening.

Additionally we have all the double-dealing by various government agencies (including by Skinner), which ensures that the show is criticising the nature of the world's most exceptional country with liberty and justice for all.

2x23 Soft Light (Monster of the Week)

More double-dealing by, presumably, the government, in the shape of X.

2x24 Our Town (Monster of the Week)

Another reference to what happens when you allow the market to be pretty much free, with minimal controls, as it is in the capitalism which is part of the American dream. This time to what happens when you don't impose strict controls on food manufacturers and they start doing things like they do here. It's the freedom to improve yourself which is the problem: it makes you cut corners.

2x25 Anasazi (Core Mythology)

It's a bit daunting even to know where to start with the references to the American dystopia which the show has so far delineated.

For a start it is partly set on an Indian reservation, so makes the unsubtle point that the immigrant nation of persecuted religious people seeking freedom, treated the indigenous population incredibly badly to colonise the land. The entire underpinning of the American dream is in other people's suffering.

Despite that the fact that native nations also have made a significant contribution to the life of the US is made, by the use of the code talkers, who were the people responsible for using native American languages as a form of encryption.

The poisoning of Mulder's water with LSD or some other chemical which has made him psychotic may be intended to make us think, yet again, of the activities of the CIA in its unethical MK-Ultra experiments to find out how people could be persuaded to want to move to Communist countries, and specifically the leader of the project, folk dance enthusiast Sidney Gottlieb. The poisoning here is actually very reminscent of the sort of things he did, in terms of being irresponsible verging on the psychopathic. Despite MK-Ultra being presented as science it was far from the controlled, recorded, resproducible experiments characteristic of proper science: at times CIA agents wouldn't even drink coffee around Gottlieb in case he had felt like putting LSD in it as was his wont. Most reminiscent of this episode was the plan which never came to fruition, of distributing LSD in aerosol form through San Francisco (in fact the experiment was done with a substance thought to be harmless but which ended up killing several people). The point, as always, is that rather than being the country of justice and what have you, the government will screw you over and keep silent about it.

This secrecy, reaching over well into duplicity, corruption, crime, you name it, is of course the main substance of the episode. Of course it complicates it that we don't know who is and who isn't representing the government here.

Cancer Man was originally presented as if he was a CIA fixer, and certainly has access (but not unconditionally) to AD Skinner's office. However here he is more than suggested to be a goevrnment agent by the use of military. I think elsewhere his role is probably more ambiguous but here it is very clear that the government is in on the conspiracy.

The tests on 'merchandise' once again refer to multiple unethical experiments carried out under government aegis, only manoeuvred to fit the series mythology to be with aliens rather than humans.

The act of setting fire to the alien remains in the buried boxcar is reminiscent to many a US veteran of the burn pits they were required to preside over or be near, and which have left many with ongoing health problems. 

I wasn't expecting to, but because of all this I am going to include Anasazi among the episodes which make significant reference to, or criticism of, the American dream.

As I go through these posts I am going to keep a tally of how many episodes of Core Mythology and Monster of the Week types have significant content making the American dream in effect part of the plot rather than the omnipresent setting, and so far we have 

Core Mythology: 14 (5 with signifcant content relating to the American dream: Deep Throat, Fallen Angel, E.B.E., Little Green Men and Anasazi.)

Monster of the Week: 35 (8 with significant content relating to the American dream: Eve, Beyond the Sea, Young at Heart, Miracle Man, Shapes, Blood, Sleepless and Fresh Bones.)

As always, I'm totally unequipped to do this so if I've missed anything corrections are very welcome in the comments.