Ti West's MaXXXine Is a Metaphor for Fame

In a new Queer Cinema Catchup video essay, Allison describes how each character in MaXXXine, the third film of Ti West's X trilogy starring Mia Goth, contributes to a conception of fame as a powerful yet ultimately meaningless force.

1:04: Ti West wants you to see fame as both powerful and shallow.

1:40: Maxine's best friend Leon (Moses Sumney) underscores how fame obliterates history, bests criticism, and exploits the marginalized.

2:42: Halsey and Lily Collins show us that fame is neither the way out of nor a barrier to bad circumstances, in spite of its promises.

3:57: The movie magic of Sophie Thatcher's make-up artistry can't hide the traumatic truth fame and Tinseltown try to exploit.

4:53: Fame attracts attention so directors like Elizabeth Debicki (or Ti West) better have something to say.

5:47: The job of an agent like Giancarlo Esposito is to protect fame at all costs.

6:10: This sometimes means crushing a bad past - exactly what Giancarlo Esposito does to the private eye played by Kevin Bacon who knows exactly what Maxine was up to in the film X

6:42 Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale are our examples of what Hollywood thinks of the law, which, in the end, has no power over fame

7:44: The real God is fame and not whomever Maxine's father/the film's villain thinks his murdering spree is serving.

8:39: Except, in the end, even Maxine, a metaphor for fame itself, has to face her own death.