FX may have already revealed that season 7 of American Horror Story would be subtitled Cult, but from the look of the show's new promotional material, it might as well be called American Horror Story: Bees? Earlier this month, AHS creator Ryan Murphy shared a photo of a woman wearing a cozy sweater of buzzing bees to Instagram, and now, American Horror Story: Cult has released an official poster that also connects to the endangered insect. What the heck is going on here?
We're still just over a month away from season 7's September 5 premiere, and while we have tidbits of what to expect — like, say, an appearance by Lena Dunham and the most Evan Peters-heavy season yet — it's the new poster that is making us ask all the questions. How does the below poster connect to the 2016 election, as Murphy has long insisted the series would be about? More importantly, how are the creepy clowns that danced in the show's recent promo connected to bees? Apparently very, upon a close analysis of the new poster.
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Notice the makeup the woman is wearing? It's definitely clown-ish, which means that the show is continuing in the theme of clowns with affinity for bees. The most obvious way to interpret this is that the cult (of clowns?) has a "hive mentality," and that the bees aren't so literal as they are a symbol for groupthink.
Of course, that means we're ignoring the photo Murphy shared, which seemingly showed torture by bees. Unless, maybe, it's not torture but some form of worship? Maybe the clowns straight-up love bees. Maybe the cult is actually hoping to replace the United States government with a bunch of bees. (I'm not saying that they would get more done, but...)
Right now, any analysis of the poster of the bee symbolism is pure speculation. Since American Horror Story tends to use symbolic imagery to promote the new season (meaning, the actual actors or characters typically don't appear in the posters or trailers) we really won't know what to expect until the night of the premiere.
One thing's for sure, though: We should beeeee afraid.