The American Dream in The X-Files: Fresh Bones, Colony, End Game, Fearful Symmetry

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

2x15 Fresh Bones (Monster of the Week)

It's hard to know where to start with the amount of stuff about the dream in this episode. Once again, it is of course in the background of the immediate subject of the episode which is 'voodoo'.

But first, of course, we have the subject of the military which keeps coming up here. Obviously the connection to the dream is that if your country is a dream democracy of hope and freedom, then you want to be able to defend it because everyone else will want to enter it. However I have to say I'm not convinced that it is actually necessary to spend $800 billion dollars on protecting your dream, especially when any other prospective combatants aren't spending that much.

But this isn't simply a reference to the military-industrial complex: the soldiers in this episode aren't doing anything that you would think would be a soldier's primary role: they're policing a transit camp for immigrants from Haiti. So the show is pointing us towards the dream, indicating that people will want in, and then pointing out how the body intended to protect the dream is actually abusing people who want in. There is of course the additional problem that the marines aren't happy about what's going on, but nobody has blown the whistle on it: this doesn't present a very good picture of the dream.

Then of course we have the whole question of immigration. It has been surprisingly difficult to find the over-simplified factoid on ethnicity for the whole country that I was looking at but apparently something like 5,000,000 (about 1.5%) of the US population of about 333,000,000 are Native American. This means that at some point in the past few centuries the US residents themselves or their families have immigrated, and I'm going to have to say this episode doesn't make these people's attitudes towards immigrants look very good. In fact it makes it look very much like people are getting into the dream and are then quite eager to ensure that whoever else gets in is strictly limited. I am particularly perplexed by the attitude that I have come across while reading up on this episode, that if you are in the US you should speak English, despite the state not having an official language and English not being the language of the indigenous population. But then I've also come across people who think that British people shouldn't speak English because it's an American and not a European language. Actually these posts are turning out to be rather more stressful than I thought they would.

It is also not for nothing that the specific immigrants here are from Haiti. Haiti was a wildly successful slave colony for its French colonists, until a slave revolt. SInce then relations with the USA have been difficult and the US rather wavered over what side to take between the revolt and the French. The significance for the dream, of course is that the USA also had multiple slave colonies and so the US's indecision was largley prompted by whether or not the President of the time was a slave owner and the freedom which runs through the dream was certainly not freedom for slaves:

'The Founding Fathers typically defined freedom in terms of its opposite: slavery. When they used the term "slavery," however, they weren't referring to the peculiar institution whereby many of the Founding Fathers themselves bought and sold African Americans as property; they referred to what they felt Great Britain was doing to their lives and livelihoods. '"Remember officers and soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty-that Slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men," George Washington told his troops on Long Island in July 1776.' (Jim Cullen: The American Dream - A Short History of an Idea that Shaped a Nation. Oxford University Press, New York, p. 47)

Haiti was even occupied by the USA from 1915 to 1934. This occupation was prompted by growing US business interests in Haiti and I think I can truthfully say (remember that I'm British as I say this) it may not have been a very good idea. Shorn of the understatement, identifying these abused immigrants coming to the USA for as being from Haiti is like a slap in the face of the USA.

The reference to 'voodoo' ia actually a further indication of colonialism degrades and derides the colonised. I'm slightly surprised at the Hollywood-style depiction of the religion of Vodou, however to anyone who knows what it really is, the religion of Haitian Vodou is a syncretic religion created by the joining of several West African religious traditions to Roman Catholicism in the circumstances to slavery. The simple fact is that the terrifying 'voodoo' depicted here is the result of slaves having to disguise their religion  - as above the reality of slavery is another problem in US history.

The show is therefore indicating how a dream nation of immigrants, built on slavery, fears the unsophisticated people who want to get in, but whose 'superstition' nonetheless trumps the sophisticated white people.

Phew. This one's a nightmare. It is also a really hard slap for the dream of self improvement, freedom, dignity, freedom from fear, and all of these things are going on in the background of this episode as always.

Because of its signifcant references to the cracks in the facade of the American dream I will include this episode among the ones with significant content about it.

2x16 Colony (Core Mythology)

No apparent reference to the American dream.

2x17 End Game (Core Mythology)

No apparent reference to the American dream.

2x19 Fearful Symmetry (Monster of the Week)

No apparent reference to 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: 13 (4 with signifcant content relating to the American dream: Deep Throat, Fallen Angel, E.B.E., and Little Green Men.)

Monster of the Week: 28 (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.