The American Dream in The X-Files: Hell Money, Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space', Avatar, Quagmire, Wetwired, Talitha Cumi

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

I am delighted to announce that Mitchell Hadley of itsabouttv.com describes this series of posts (or possibly me, I do hope so) as provocative, which is one of the nicest compliments I could have. To undershoot and merely be controversial would be such a waste. He also made me realise something in the comments he helpfully left on my last post which I'm going to have to try to weave in.

3x19 Hell Money (Monster of the Week)

The obvious connection to the American dream here is that of immigrants going to America so that they can improve themselves. However the episode also depicts Chinese immigrants in that exact position who are also at risk from the perceived danger of their home culture. I am a bit surprised that I haven't seen this in any of the commentary on this episode so I am actually getting this out of my own head but there is a problem with this episode that it is racist. The fact that it is specifically Chinese culture which is perceived to be dangerous draws on the idea of Yellow Peril (far from unique to the USA of course) which combines racist terror of alien cultures, sexual anxiety, and a fear that the West would be overpowered by East Asians. Specifically in this episode the show makes the fear of being burned, punished, etc, safer for the viewer by placing it in a culture which is perceived to be alien and keeping it within that culture. This 'othering' and subconscious racist ideology  is actually as American as apple pie (that's another thing I don't understand, we do have apples and even pie in Europe) and so I think the episode is reflecting a racist aspect of immigration to the American dream without meaning to. 

3x20 Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' (Monster of the Week)

No apparent reference to the American dream.

3x21 Avatar (Monster of the Week)

No apparent reference to the American dream.

3x22 Quagmire (Monster of the Week)

Probably nobody will agree with this but I think you could say that this episode does reference the American dream in terms of the nature of the country, and of course you have to be in the USA to have the American dream. By defintion a country with climate varying from tropical to subarctic, is bound to have a huge variety of natural terrors and some of the them in that country are very frightening. In classic X-Files style the fictional fear of this episode builds on the real fear of the real natural hazards of the country.

3x23 Wetwired (Monster of the Week)

We have more unethical stuff going on, although it's not clear who's doing it. The suggestion would be that it is some authority, and of course it contravenes the liberty and rights of the American dream. I am not aware of a real-life example of unethical medical experimentation sanctioned  by the US government which could be the direct inspiration for these devices.

3x24 Talitha Cumi (Core Mythology)

I badly wanted to connect the title, which is a quotation from the New Testament, and religious themes to the dream in this episode. But of course the real connection comes in the conversation between the Jeremiah and Cancer Man, which is the closest the show has come so far to explicitly expressing the terms of the dream. They're all there: Cancer Man describes giving people happiness and Smith counters that he is taking away their freedom under the guise of democracy. Cancer Man implies the aspect of the dream where 'success' has a moral element by saying that they will never be free because they are corrupt, weak and worthless. He then brings up a religious aspect by saying that their religion is science.

It's almost as if the American dream is part of the cover story (more of this in the next post).

SInce we are now at the end of Season 3 the next post will be some reflections prompted by the episodes up to here, then because I am finding these posts very difficult to do and am not sure how to continue I will probably pause for a bit.

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: 21 (7 with signifcant content relating to the American dream: Deep Throat, Fallen Angel, E.B.E., Little Green Men, Anasazi, The Blessing Way and Paperclip.)

Monster of the Week: 52 (9 with significant content relating to the American dream: Eve, Beyond the Sea, Young at Heart, Miracle Man, Shapes, Blood, Sleepless, Fresh Bones, and Syzygy.)

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