Scully and Me: Or, The X-Files, Revisited

Rita Malenczyk

While it's been off the air for some time, The X-Files nevertheless remains part of the popular imagination (generally) and my imagination (specifically). While the dominant male character and his quest were ostensibly the focus of the show, I was drawn to his female partner and the complexity of her character. Yet nobody seems to have fully acknowledged that complexity or the extent to which she was manipulated and--I don't think this is putting it too strongly--abused over the course of nine seasons. This essay is an attempt to figure out what's been bugging me all these years.

You’ve got to wonder why some things hang on. My son Sam, who has just turned 16[1], has started watching old episodes of The X-Files (thanks, Netflix!) after school and on weekends. He comes by this interest honestly: Every Friday (and then Sundays too) for about six years, my husband and I would settle in for a long hour’s confrontation with monsters, aliens, government conspiracies, and other difficult-to-explain phenomena. While, unfortunately, The X-Files--a series about two FBI agents who investigate cases of possible paranormal activity--jumped the shark at some point[2], it remains one of my most satisfying TV viewing experiences. I would imagine many others would agree, if the popularity of the show and the movie that came out in 2008--six years after the show had been off the air--is any indication. Even now, there still exist X-Files websites and X-Files fanblogs. What’s the appeal? Why has this show, like some others, not only gained cult status but stayed around? Why aren't there websites and fanblogs devoted to, say, The FBI starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr.?[3]

I suspect, though I have never asked him, that for Sam--as for many other viewers--it’s the primary male character, Fox Mulder. The X-Files is primarily a quest narrative, with Mulder the character who follows the most recognizable mythic pattern: that of the hero, nearly always male, who searches for knowledge or tries to conquer a beast. In this case the hero, a rebel against the hierarchy and secrecy of a government agency, searches for the truth about the childhood disappearance of his sister (which is out there!), the existence of which is denied by those in charge at the FBI (the beasts). Thwarted in his quest at every turn, Mulder nevertheless persists, risking his career, comfort, and life in the process. What could appeal more to someone who is, though intelligent, a boy at the age a friend of mine calls “the most vigilant”--i.e., the most critical of authority? If narrative makes its arguments through identification, as Walter Fisher would claim[4], Sam’s identification with Mulder--and, the character’s appeal to a lot of other folks--makes perfect sense. And indeed, the handsome, pouty-mouthed actor David Duchovny[5] lends the character a compelling combination of earnestness and cool.

Unfortunately, he’s also sort of an asshole. The juxtaposition of the teenage boy watching now and the mother who watched then--and still remembers the show, and thinks about it, and is therefore writing this essay--is, well, interesting, because my own identification is another matter. During the show’s run, informal polls of other X-Philes suggested that I was perhaps the only person in existence who preferred the other main character, Dana Scully, to Mulder. Every time I mentioned this preference to people at, say, a dinner party, I was met with polite stares and some guy saying “But she’s a cold fish!” Much of my sympathy for Scully’s character is probably due to the fact that I, like she, was raised Catholic. Though I sort of revile the Catholic Church and haven't been to Mass in thirty years--with the exception of my father's funeral--I was drawn to the show's portrayal of Scully's Catholicism and its contrast with her scientific training. But it’s more than that, really: I’d argue that through that portrayal, the show subtly critiques Mulder’s obsession with his quest and its own privileging of him as the main character with whom viewers should identify. Scully, one might argue, is the one who grows and changes throughout the show, in spite of--not thanks to--her partnership with Mulder, through which she is brutalized in any number of ways. Through her character one might--if one were not obsessed with Mulder--experience an exploration of patriarchy and victimhood, created by a juxtaposition of belief systems, apocryphal texts, stereotypes of motherhood, and a disdainful (and rational in spite of himself) male partner. And so, by the end of the show, or during and after it, one might ask oneself: well, who the hell is the patriarchy here, anyway?[6] The government that oppresses Mulder or Mulder himself?

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Notes

[1]Well, 17, now. It's been a while.

[2]I think once the two main characters, the sexual tension between whom was always palpable, actually became lovers--how many shows (think Friends and Moonlighting) lasted on the promise of unfulfilled desire?

[3]Perhaps because, during the J. Edgar Hoover era, you had to submit to a background check if you were playing an FBI agent on TV. And verisimilitude was apparently important:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efrem_Zimbalist,_Jr.#The_F.B.I._television_series

[4]In "Narration as Human Communication Paradigm," Fisher articulates a theory that argument--specifically, "public moral argument"--works not only through logic but rather through identification; therefore, narratives can persuade. They do so through what he calls "narrative fidelity" (e.g., a character is introduced with whom someone identifies) and/or "narrative probability" (a story proceeds in a way that makes sense to the reader, based on that reader's experience. This is a greatly oversimplified description of his work--those interested in further exploring Fisher should consult the Works Cited.

[5]I don’t know if Sam has seen any of the episodes in which Mulder’s obsession with pornography is referred to; thankfully, I know he missed the whole media brouhaha over Duchovny’s treatment for sex addiction and is too young to have seen The Red Shoe Diaries. Probably.

[6]I never really bought the arguments of the fanbloggers (see Wills) that Scully’s existence as the supposedly rational member of the team--with Mulder the intuitive one, the “wannabeliever”--successfully inverted gender paradigms.