The American Dream in The X-Files: The Field Where I Died and Sanguinarium

The introduction to this series of posts on 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

4x05 The Field Where I Died (Monster of the Week)

The Field Where I Died is reminding me of why I like to blog about things which interest me or I think I know about, because there is just so much in this one that I'm almost certain to make several howlers. In fact, watching the episode with more attention, it's apparent why it's usually had rather lukewarm reviews, because frankly it's a bit of a mess. It's also got plot holes you could drive a Cadillac Series 62 through, because obviously nobody in their right mind would have questioned Melissa in the mental state she was in and Scully clearly has a professional duty to go to Skinner and tell him Mulder has finally lost it.

As always there is a foreground to the episode: the dissociative personality vs past lives and past life regression, but also so much in the background that references important stuff to the history of the US:

1. The Civil War (1861 to 1865). It's only used as the setting for Mulder and Melissa's past lives in the episode, but there is a relevance to the American dream. I will maintain that to live the American dream you have to be in the USA, and reading about the Civil War made me realise why people get antsy when southern states talk about seceding from the union, because I hadn't realised that the Confederacy states had actually seceded from the US and that was what the war was about. This is here just to prove that this episode has given me endless trouble and I've really had to work on it, not because it's wildly relevant to the plot.

2. The Jonestown Massacre (1978) which although it took place in Guyana, was a mass suicide/massacre by a religious group founded in the US by Jim Jones. I think the group described in the episode is intended to make the viewer think of the Jonestown group, The People's Temple, founded in 1954, was partly marked by Jones's liking of communism and opinion that communists were unfairly persecuted in the US.  And we all know how significant the fight againt Communism (and frequently 'Communism') is to the American dream, don't we? 

3. Melissa's alter ego mentions the McCarthy hearings (1954) to investigate the army's accusations about Senator Joseph McCarthy, which he said were motivated in retaliation for his recent agressive investigation of suspected Communists in the army.

4. The Waco Siege (1993) is the closest reference in time to the broadcast of the episode, and was a raid of a ranch belonging to a religious group called Branch Davidians (led by David Koresh), which wound up being a lengthy siege and resulted in dozens of deaths and highly conflicting reports of what actually happened. Waco is referenced directly by Skinner but we are more intended to be reminded of Jonestown by the Temple of the Seven Stars.

I am going to discount the Civil War aspect as relating to the American dream, because its use in the episode is to provide a setting for the past lives, which are the foreground the episode. Although it has a very important role as a sort of bogeyman for the American dream I am also going to ignore the references to Communism because they are purely incidental and distant. 

I think the religious aspect is more what is related to the American dream in this aspect: in fact when I think about the depictions of religion in The X-Files, I can count on one hand the depiction of peacful, mainstream religions, just getting on with their lives and doing good as inspired by their divinity. I have not seen any evidence that this is a conscious criticism of religion by the show and perhaps it is simply that you can't expect a show whose subject is weird shit to depict religion as a normal thing.

The relevance of the show's depiction of religion as a fearsome thing to the American dream, is the same tension that keep appearing the dream. Here, that if you are 'free' in religion, of course some people will take the opportunity to make dangerous cults, and of course other people will happily sign up and give generously. In this the show is indicating a weakness in the dream (in the background of the episode) about what happens when you just let people get on with it religiously. You could even say that there is an implicit warning about the separation of church and state because obviously gods don't tend to like not having their way in the public sphere. I will not be including the episode in my list of ones with significant content about the dream because the references are all solely in the setting.

4x06 Sanguinarium (Monster of the Week)

The implicit criticism of the religious freedom in the American dream continues in this episode, because if you incorporate it pretty much anything can be a religion, whether witchcraft, satanism, etc.

There is also a reference to the dream's capitalism when Scully talks about how a new cosmetic surgery set-up can support a whole hospital (and make lots of profit for shareholders).

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: 22 (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: 57 (9 with significant content relating to the American dream: Eve, Beyond the Sea, Young at Heart, Miracle Man, Shapes, Blood, Sleepless, Fresh Bones, Syzygy, Home, and Teliko.)

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