Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s ‘American Horror Story’ franchise has seen the intensity of insanity, merciless and senseless violence, and a harsh version of reality presented through the supernatural. Viewers weren’t consistently keeping up with the show for its relatability; it was mainly the entertainment factor that kept the ratings up.
But the new season, presented as ‘Cult’, attempts to highlight our reality as it is – and befittingly starts off the first episode with a chilling announcement from now president Donald Trump: “I am now officially running to be the President of the United States of America”. Unlike its previous seasons, the show gets highly political.
It’s election night, 8 November 2016. Kai Anderson (played by ‘AHS’ regular Evan Peters) is watching the elections from his apartment. His anticipation for the results mirrors the sentiments of the world at the time. As Donald Trump is announced as the new president of the USA, Allyson Mayfair-Richards (played by Sarah Paulson) – a character who is near obsessed with the state of the world – bursts into tears. Her character draws on the fears of a world who watched a billionaire become president, and there was a realisation that perhaps a crumbling socio-political society would highlight the US’s instability, which is being experienced today through protests, police brutality, confederates and members of the KKK coming out of their shells (with the support of the president). “Is this really happening?” Winter Anderson (played by Billie Lourd) cries out to a friend on the phone. But this is only the beginning of the chaos to come.
One of the themes of the show is far from ambiguous: Fear. We’re talking about the ‘in your face’ kind here. And Kai, an avid Trump supporter, makes it known to a local council that “people want to be scared”, and therefore justifies his actions by instilling fear in them as that is how they are supposed to be controlled. His plan is to let chaos reign so that people rely on the government to do something – the government under Trump’s administration. This in turn will give them ‘unlimited’ power. Makes for an interesting theory, doesn’t it?
Is this the goal of the current regime in power? And if so, is the show highlighting just how mad the US is becoming? Maybe.
Other aspects you pick up from the show include a look at anxiety and mental illness by drawing attention to triggers and phobias.
One of them being clowns. It’s an interesting fear to focus on – seeing as clowns were terrorising residents all over the US in the ‘creepy clown craze’ last year.
The stories were terrifying: Young children reporting sightings to their parents and no one believing them… This is shown through the eyes of the young Ozymandias ‘Oz’ Mayfair-Richards who is fascinated by Twisty (an evil clown from ‘AHS: Freak Show’), until he witnesses a horrifying slaughter by masked clowns.
Unbothered by the fact that he has two moms, seeing as he was told how special families exist, but it seems that other characters are. Particularly those who are in favour of Trump. Seeing that the US president has shown a homophobic side of himself – his supporters in the series are much worse and would go to great lengths to demonstrate their dislike for the LGBTI community. Sadly, the Mayfair-Richards family become victims.
An interesting thing to point out is Oz’s name – which is a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley about “the inevitable decline of leaders of empires and their pretensions to greatness”. We wouldn’t be surprised if it was an indirect hit at Trump.
Loyal fans of the franchise will probably struggle to stick it out to the end. The world is already chaotic – being reminded of that on your favourite show won’t make things any better.
Skip it if politics do not interest you in the slightest.
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