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Mixed cast includes Kid Cudi as a black male porn actor and Jenna Ortega as a Latina crew member in major supporting roles. The story does not sell their race or identity as the point of the plot. It feels like a normal ensemble for a film set in 1979, not a quota-first lineup.

Characters talk a lot about sex, work, and ambition. Bobby-Lynne’s short line treats queer and interracial sex as normal and free. Preacher radio sets a strict-religion mood. There is little modern activist lecture talk about systems, voting, or current identity politics.

The main engine is fear of aging, envy of youth, beauty, and sexual freedom. Women often control their own sex work choices. A brief inclusive sex line and Pearl’s same-sex advance on Maxine count as small LGBTQ-linked moments, so the score is nudged up, but the film is not built as a race/gender identity politics story.

Rural religious Texas and Maxine’s preacher-dad backstory put free sex against strict old morals. The killers are the repressed hosts; the young crew is freer. Some viewers read that as a jab at puritan or conservative sex rules. It stays inside the horror plot more than a long modern sermon on today’s institutions.

Ti West and most listed producers and casting leads have low stored activist scores. The team is mainly horror and commercial film people. Kid Cudi is a mild progressive outlier, not a title-defining DEI campaign record.