White picket fences. Magical bootstraps. The Nobody turned Somebody. These icons of prosperity and success hold an intense power over the American psyche. For much of our nation’s history, people from all walks of life have fought and bled in the pursuit of their American Dream — and the youth in Ti West’s X (2022) are no different.
The film follows a troop of amateur filmmakers whose individual ambitions have banded them together to make The Farmer’s Daughters, a pornographic picture that many of them believe will make their wildest dreams come true. Among the group are Maxine (Mia Goth), a twenty-something-year-old runaway who hopes the film will propel her into a life of stardom and glamor, RJ (Owen Campbell), a Jean-Luc Godard aspirant who dreams of creating his own avant-garde masterpiece, and Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), an adult actress and ecdysiast who reveals her modest desires for life during the film’s first act — “My American Dream is not unreasonable. I just want a paid-for house with a big ‘ol pool so I can float with my knees in the breeze and tan these titties.” Strip away the humor and lightheartedness in Bobby-Lynne’s statement and we find that, at its core, her American Dream boils down to wanting security, stability, and agency over her body. The Dreams and aspirations of Bobby-Lynne and her fellow cast and crew mates are violently ripped away when X comes to a climax and the filmmakers — with the exception of Maxine, who we will talk about later — are massacred by a deranged elderly couple.
When the film begins, we watch the budding movie-makers jump into a van and trade their industrial Houston setting for a more rural gulf coast region of Texas. While driving away from the familiar gas and oil refineries that surround Wayne’s (Martin Henderson) Bayou Burlesque, Maxine flips through stations on the car radio. Amidst the static and noise is a station broadcasting an evangelist sermon. “America needs Jesus,” a voice commands. Maxine shuffles through more stations, cutting off the voice, until she finally settles for one playing Jerry Reed’s 1970 hit, “I Shoulda Stayed Home.” Their first warning. As the group gets further away from Houston and closer to the farm where they plan to shoot The Farmer’s Daughters, the religious preaching follows and becomes harder to escape. Their second encounter with the sermon comes during a pit stop at a rundown gas station. Juxtaposed against the dirt and grittiness of late 1970s Texas is a piercing ice blue image and that same commanding voice. Here, we see the televangelist warn against the threats of an “increasingly secular society,” urging those listening to repent before it is too late. The idea that those who deviate from the path of God will be met with divine fury becomes increasingly more real the deeper the starry-eyed players get within the country. When they witness the gorey aftermath of a wreck involving a cow and a semi-truck, the group receives their second warning. This time, it is one that alerts them to the reality of their newfound, rural surroundings: step out of line, abandon the herd, or make your own path and you will end up with your guts splattered across the Texas countryside. Alas, for characters of a horror show, hindsight is 20/20.
As the film continues, this theme of punishment and damnation becomes intertwined with the idea of the American Dream to create a bleak image of the nation. The filmmakers are sentenced to death because they have sinned in the religious sense — they curse, fuck, and tempt others — but are also guilty of trying to achieve their American Dream through means that challenge other great American myths — meritocracy, traditional family values, the protestant work ethic. These conservative myths become warped and homicidal when they take human form in killers Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (Mia Goth again). White, old, and Southern, the Texas farm owners believe themselves to be the epitome of all-American values. By day, they keep to themselves on their land and when evening comes, they fill the quietness of their rustic home with the televised evangelical sermon. Pearl even makes a point to mention that Howard fought in not one, but two wars for his country. Even with a bruised and abused nude body rotting away in their basement, the duo is completely incognizant to their sanctimonious ways. It’s the kind of self-righteousness that allows Pearl to slut-shame Maxine minutes after getting into bed naked with her. Whether their religious posturing is done deliberately or unconsciously, it results in a false sense of power and authority that leads to wickedness and inhumanity. Additionally, the decision to have these characters be played by non-senior-aged actors in heavy makeup and elaborate prosthetic pieces adds a touch of fantasy in a story that otherwise fits tidily within the Slasher subgenre. Between Howard’s unnaturally sunken eyes and Pearl’s decaying, skeletal body, the pair become monster-like, teetering between human and something out of the Uncanny Valley. They are not entirely people, rather an unruly manifestation of conservative hypocrisy — so who better than them to enforce the unspoken rules of the American Dream.
In accordance with these rules, Bobby-Lynne can work towards her white-picket Dream, but she needs to earn it by going to college or taking orders at her local diner. Not by having sex on camera. When she commits this sin against the American Dream, Pearl pushes her into a swamp where her body is torn apart and used to fill the stomach of an alligator. Her once beautiful, blonde hair and pageant-worthy smile cease to exist completely. The same directives apply to Wayne “I don’t want to have to wear a hard hat to make a living” Gilroy. He is free to dip his toes in entrepreneurship by managing a topless bar, but infiltrating American homes with X-rated skin flicks crosses the line. He also faces a symbolic death when, as the mastermind and producer of The Farmer’s Daughters who broke his marriage vows to run off with the much younger Maxine, he has his eyes gouged out by a pitchfork. A punishment fitting of the crime.
This notion of a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to achieve the American Dream is most clear when examining the life and death of Kid Cudi’s Jackson Hole. Jackson is a veteran turned adult film star who meets his end while attempting to help Howard find his wife. Before Howard shoots Hole, he expresses his disgust and disapproval for the adult actor, “Last bohemian who stayed here was the same. Traipsing around in barely any clothes. Enticing my wife.” In this world, the lust Jackson and his body ignite in the white farm owners is enough reason to subject him to a cruel and sudden death. The message is clear: using our bodies for war or production makes us worthy of upward mobility and praise, but using our bodies for pleasure or sex makes us deserving of punishment. Furthermore, the casting of Kid Cudi adds another layer in connection to race, violence, and the American Dream myth. As a Black man, Hole was free to pursue the American Dream the ‘acceptable’ way (giving his body wholly to American imperial efforts), but his position as a veteran was not enough to save him from becoming a threat to white purity and conservative traditions. For Black and other non-white Americans, the barriers of systemic and interpersonal racism stand so mighty that the dream of upward mobility, or even bodily safety, is not promised regardless of how ‘good’ a citizen one is.
X raises the idea of the American Dream and slowly begins to peel away layers of the myth until it completely unravels by the film’s third act. As I sat and watched the murders of Bobby-Lynne, Jackson Hole, and their peers, I could not ignore the allegorical parallels of our two worlds. Premiering in early 2022, the film was unleashed upon an almost equally chaotic socio-political landscape as Americans were — and still are — left navigating the ongoing pandemic, daily mass shootings, rising inflation, and constant threats to our rights. Like Bobby-Lynne, I, too, have a reasonable American Dream. I want agency over my body and life. And like the young characters in X, religion, conservatism and double-dealing traditional values threaten that Dream. What immediately comes to mind when watching the film in July 2022 is the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, a decision that overruled the 1973 precedent on the basis that the Constitution does not grant the right to an abortion. The 5-4 decision fell neatly upon political lines as the five justices who voted to overturn Roe were Republican-appointed. What’s more is that these five conservative justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote — and two of those justices also happen to have very credible sexual assault accusations against them. All this to say that millions of Americans, myself included, have had their access to fundamental healthcare entirely stripped, highly restricted, or threatened by outdated governmental systems, holier-than-thou political leaders, and a conservative minority that does not reflect the values or needs of current day Americans.
While the constitution does not grant reproductive rights, it does protect our rights to purchase and own military-grade firearms; a protection that threatens my Dream for agency over my life and body every time I step foot in a grocery store, classroom, or cinema. Where X’s exploration of body and reproductive politics is predominantly metaphorical, its commentary on gun laws is more direct. After shooting and murdering Lorraine (Jenna Ortega) in cold blood, Howard promptly asks Pearl for help bringing the dead body inside, “if she’s in the house, that’s self defense. That’s the law.” Though Howard’s statement is made in passing, it highlights the perversion and cruelty of Texas gun laws as they blatantly prioritize the rights of guns and gun owners over the lives of innocent Texans. This is an exceptionally cruel reminder in a time after the Uvalde mass shooting, an incident where a teenage shooter was able to legally obtain AR rifles from a federally licensed gun store in Texas just days after his 18th birthday.
The horror the filmmakers face when pursuing their American Dream bares eerie similarities to our own reality, but the film does offer a glimmer of hope in its final minutes — and perhaps even a suggestion for how the American youth can proceed in the face of violence and oppression. Finally, this brings us to Maxine. At the end of the film, Maxine Minx takes her place alongside Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and all the other Final Girls who have come before her. Only, Maxine is not a Final Girl as originally characterized by Carol J. Clover’s Men, Women, and Chainsaws; she does not gleam with virginity nor boast a life free of vices. In fact, we watch her make her final escape wearing a scantily overall one-piece as she mocks religion and sniffs cocaine off the back of her hand. So, why does Maxine live when the film has already established a precedent for punishing people like her?
Throughout the film, Maxine is equally subjected to the conservative beliefs that harm her friends and crewmates. This is illustrated in a focal scene where she finds herself trapped under a bed that Howard and Pearl have sex upon. Laying flat on her stomach, we watch Maxine’s body and movement become heavily constrained under the weight and restriction of the elderly couple’s hypocrisy and perversions. The imagery of the bed scene perfectly encapsulates this larger discussion on the clashing of the young and the old and the war between conservative and progressive values. When the actress finds herself in this predicament, she takes a moment to gather herself and then makes an escape for the main house. In the house, she takes advantage of a moment of weakness to confront the killers and get Pearl to reveal the location of their car keys. With a gun pointed at the frail woman and the righteous sermon of the televangelist playing on a screen in the next room over, Maxine screams, “I’m a fucking star! The whole world is gonna know my name.” Then, her mantra, “I will not accept a life I do not deserve,” before attempting to shoot Pearl in the face. Her determination is fully on display moments later when she callously walks past the weak old woman who lays pleading for help. Unlike Bobby-Lynne and Jackson, who are murdered trying to help the senior couple in some manner, Maxine does the socially immoral thing when she chooses not to extend forgiveness to her tormentor. Instead, when Pearl’s pleas turn into a fury of verbal abuses directed at the young Texan, Maxine silences her with the back tires of a pick-up truck. A violent action that sends the old woman’s brain matter flying through the dark summer night.
Maxine survives because she is adamant in her refusal to accept the forces that threaten her and her rags-to-riches American Dream. She comes face to face with the human embodiment of hypocrisy and evil and, instead of submitting to or cowering from it, chooses to blow off its head. In a time where political leaders are asking for votes and peaceful protest in the face of right-wing violence that imposes on our Dreams, it is an interesting sentiment to ponder.
