Ti West’s X Trilogy is a brilliant commentary on the relationship between media consumption and society, investigating on many levels how the culture clash between the American dream and structural limitations in different times cause the distortion of the dream itself, affecting the sense of identity and the ambitions of women, especially of the two protagonists Pearl and Maxine, both beautifully interpreted by Mia Goth.

Be careful, spoilers and horror ahead.

This three act story depicts the process of media overwriting reality for its own nourishment, in a continuous exchange of codes, roles, standards and expectations in which the adherence to a specific female role – the puritan, the good wife, the all-American-girl, the vamp diva – overlap with the individuals’ value and desirability.

These themes are conveyed also by West’s choices of meta storytelling, through a specific genre aesthetic for each film, so the way they are directed and edited - including fonts, audio and acting style - are an additional layer of simulacrum that talks about itself.

Maxine and Pearl’s stories have a lot in common yet they are specular, starting from how they engage and manage the concept of projection.
Pearl is totally held by the fascination for old Hollywood and the supposed lifestyle of movie stars, when the projectionist let her sneak peek a porn movie she recognizes the power of those who watch and desire and deeply wants to be object of that desire, leaving in fact with a “thank you for seeing me tonight”.

Maxine, growing up and feeding her ambition in a different time, has of course more tools to understand how she can manage her desire for success and how she is perceived by those who watch – beside dyeing her hair blond and becoming the American dream girl Pearl is told she’s not.

Projection and power not only involve the way films are displayed to an audience but are mechanisms rooted in every dynamic in the story.
Both the women are conditioned by the projection put onto them by their families and peers, feeling the pressure of judgement and expectations regarding the role they should perform to be desirable in their specific timeframe and context. The objective is to be different from other girls, but in the right amount, in a collectively accepted way, especially the way confirmed and conveyed by media.

The only way they can gain power and get closer to the camera-objective to fulfil their sense of self and feel loved is death.

However, they differ in how they chose to get rid of limitations: for Pearl is penetration of men and annihilation of motherhood; Maxine is already beyond sexual repression and motherhood expectations, so she plays on the next level, actively reclaiming tools which are usually men’s status symbols of power like sex, cars and guns.

They both like to crush things tho.

Violence, religion, sex and fiction are entwined in the storylines and also the symbolic choices of the director, like the use of the red color, commonly associated with sin and death.

In “Pearl” we see this color chosen for her dress and lipstick when she gets ready for her debut on the audition stage, but also for her farm’s walls and the church’s door, where she is getting judged not only for her sins but also for her performance as a woman. Her audition is a desperate call for recognition, but she will find out she’s not perceived as she thought she would be.

X – 1979

In the first chapter of the trilogy, we can recognize the codes of the classic slashers and the exploitation movies of the 70’s - screenplays in which sex, body horror, violence and taboos were exploited for shock value, often shown in dedicated venues known as grindhouses.

While this underground carnival of flesh was going on the New Hollywood was at its peak, shaping the dreams of many.

“X” itself exploits not only the perverse themes but also the fascination for this genre itself, layering its typical tropes with self-aware dialogues about it.

Indeed, the real horror here is caused by the strongest thing capable of keeping the protagonists away from their American dream of never ending glory and desirability, especially for a woman: aging.

The decaying bodies are not scary per se but serve as a reminder of death waiting for us at the bottom of the camera lens, as a constant ticking that sneaks between our blankets and takes advantage of our bodies even when we don’t realize it, just like time that passes relentlessly. Lines, baldness, scars and loose skin have the fundamental intention of body horror’s pursue: the unwanted transformation, the unknown in the metamorphosis, which are the scariest thing we can experience.

As the Brittany Snow and Kid Cudi’s characters say while playing the Fleetwood Mack’s song “Landslide” in the amazing split screen sequence:

“Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I've been 'fraid of changin’
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm gettin' older, too”

PEARL - 1918

Pearl’s story is narrated in this prequel through the lens of the first films at the very dawn of the roaring 20’s, when the pursuit of public success and the promise of a new life was rising in the hearts and hopes of many young people.

Cinema in those years represents for Pearl and her peers a way to escape from a difficult reality, forcing them to deal with WW1’s consequences.

In the opening scene, as the farm’s doors open to this hyper-real world, the spectator is overwhelmed by the bright and saturated color correction that suggest a Technicolor fantasy in which the young protagonist forces herself, despite all the horrors.

The only thing Pearl wants is to get away from that farm - like an ante-yet-post-litteram Dorothy Gale - and find her worth beyond the rainbow created by the spotlight’s reflections, trying to hide her erotic and violent inclinations which are constantly judged and making her feel rejected.

In the previous chapter Pearl recognizes in Maxine the same sparkle and talent she used to have in her twenties, while being forced to acknowledge that her 70’s version can take agency, be free and be loved.

Young Pearl instead has no choice than surrender to her destiny, depicted in the final sequence where rotten food and corpses decomposing at the table symbolize her condemnation: to die as an individual and to rot as a body, both with no recognized purpose.

After putting up a twisted set for the perfect family portrait, she returns to acting and performing the only role society offers her, and convincing herself that, as Judy Garland overacts as well in the ending scene of The Wizard of Oz, there’s no place like home.

MAXXXINE 1985

In the closing chapter we are in the golden age of scream queens and VHS market. While Maxine tries to reach success in this type of role also on screen her life keeps switching channel to a detective thriller movie, of course another iconic genre in the 70’s and 80’s, as a persistent reminder of what she’s running from, which is not just what happened in the first movie.

Pearl’s presence overlaps with her father’s voice, reverberating in every street she walks in, vibrating on the flip side of every coin put in the peep show cage to activate her performance of desire.

Maxine is not passive in this journey though, she’s hungry and brutal, aware that the only way she can save herself from judgement is to attain the status of the accepted desirability and feed this simulation with everything media can exploit.

In this sense, she will be able to get free using the tools of her curse to reshape her identity and direct the trajectory of the gaze she wants to receive, becoming the final final-girl and reclaiming in her way again the words: “I will not accept a life I will not deserve”.

Overall cinema is for both Pearl and Maxine a way to melt and mold themselves into a new media scripted identity, allowing them to escape from the other one in which they feel trapped and rescript their role of “monsters” given by their parents. A deathly strive to get through the unacceptable and make it loveable.

director TI WEST
year 2022 - 2024
director of photography ELIOT ROCKETT
cast MIA GOTH, JENNA ORTEGA, KID KUDI, ELIZABETH DEBICKI, BOBBY CANNAVALE, KEVIN BACON, GIANCARLO ESPOSITO

stills and words LAYLLA ABUGHARBIEH

@sonolaylla