-FILES FOR SKEPTICS.
Arthur Chappell. The Skeptic Vol. 11 #1. 1997
WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION of Tractor Parts
Monthly, it is difficult to find a magazine or newspaper that isn't swept
up in the X-Files phenomenon. While much of the hype concerns the sex
symbol status of the programme's stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovney,
there is a growing trend in questionable reports tying the X-Files to
actual supposed occult/supernatural events. Programmes like Strange But
True? fully deserve to be trashed for their credulous one-sided
non-skeptical presentation, The But the X-Files is not working to promote the
same agenda. Far from it.
The X-Files is first and foremost a fictional programme, in the tradition of
Doomwatch and The Invaders. It concerns a small team of FBI
agents investigating unsolved, and unexplained cases involving possible
paranormal/ supernatural activity. The team comprises of Agent Fox (Spooky)
Muldar (Duchovney) who is keen to see mysteries in even conventional cases, and
Agent Scully (Anderson) a very skeptical medic, who is there primarily to stop
Muldar going off the rails too often. The programme does have some pro-occult
pretensions, but these are mere plot devices. We see vampires, ghosts and UFOs
once in a while, but the programme is just as likely to be cynical. In the
episode called 'Quagmire', a Nessie-like lake-dwelling monster called Big Blue
is the chief suspect in a series of brutal killings. The culprit turns out to
be an ordinary alligator. Big Blue is only seen in the distance as the
disappointed investigators drive off and the credits roll, completely missing
the phenomena they've dreamed of.
Neither of the stars of the show believe in the occult in real life, as they
confirm in recent Starburst magazine interviews. Gillian Anderson even
admits that she has been briefed not to laugh or smile if she can avoid it,
while in character. The programme aims quite simply to push its most ludicrous
story lines towards us with a straight, deadpan humour. It takes established
occult stories and drives them to the point of absurdity. In Fearful Symmetry,
the standard cliched reports of alien UFO abduction are given a unique twist.
The abductees are pregnant zoo animals, including an elephant.
The X-Files production team have of late tried to broaden the appeal of
their show, and to shake loose of the pro-occult lobby which tries hard to get
them to peddle its own new age philosophy. The stories written by Darin Morgan
for the third season have been particularly criticised for the open levity they
give to the show. The definitive X-File for skeptics has to be Morgan's 'Jose
Chung's From Outer Space'. Questioned by researcher, Chung, on their role in a
celebrated UFO case, the various witnesses give him totally contrary accounts.
One even remembers seeing the ET smoking a cigarette. The X-Files
19
investigators prove little more Co-operative. Muldar wants to stop him
writing a skeptical book altogether, and Chung dismisses him as a lunatic.
Scully seems confused on various essential details. It transpires that the
abductees were being set up for a hoax by government officials working to a
covert plan, but were then captured by real aliens or a separate group of
hoaxers along with the people conspiring against them. The various witnesses
are then badgered by sinister, enigmatic men in black, who may be from the
government or from another world, (men in black are a popular UFO myth). The
sinister men in black insist that the witnesses start to believe that they only
ever saw the planet Venus and not a UFO. Enter a man who deeply wants to be
kidnapped by aliens, and regrets missing the potential abduction that has
occurred. When he sees the X-Files team, he actually believes that they are men
in Black, and argues that Scully is a man in black trying unconvincingly to
dress up as a woman (a delightful joke at the expense of Gillian Anderson's sex
appeal).
The X-Files carries a note of scorn that is quite healthy. The
producers almost gave the part of the leading Man in Black to the country
singer, Johnny Cash (it has been his nickname for years), but they chickened
out at the last minute. With such obvious humour, can anyone seriously take the
X-Files as pro-occult propaganda? The X-Files is science fiction
hokum at its best. It asks what kind of world this would be if every old
wives-tale, urban myth and phantom hitchhiker legend was true. This simple
premise is taken to its extreme limits.
There is a wider issue at stake here. If we
dismissed all creative talk in fictional literature and film of occultism, we
would have no Dracula, Frankenstein or Hans Christian Anderson. It is fun to
imagine the absurd. The X-Files turns reality inside out in the same way
that Lewis Carroll did. They take oft-told genre stories and stand them on
their heads. In 'Squeeze', the classic whodunit detective story cliché is
explored. The murder victim is found alone in a room which is locked from the
inside. Many detective story writers have come up with elaborate escape plans
for the villain, and why not? After all, he couldn't Just crawl through the
letter box could he? In Squeeze, the contortionist liquid rubber-boned villain
Eugene Tooms crawls in through just such inaccessible spaces. Just for once, can't
we have a programme that lets us play with such delightfully gruesome
impossibilities? let’s leave the X-Files alone and stick to criticising
real claims about the paranormal.
THE X-FILES- FIGHT THE FUTURE
Exclusive to net readers is this
supplement to the above article reviewing the film as to whether or not it is
worthy to be regarded as skeptical. The answer in short is yes.
The film maintains a dark, straight
faced sense of humour throughout. When Muldar takes a leak in an alley behind a
bar, he urinates under a poster of the Independence Day movie. Scully
continues to stand as a sceptic, until the end when we are left deliberately
uncertain as to how much she remembers and sees during her abduction and
containment in an alien breeding centre. Does she even see the Close Encounters
Of The Third Kind style space ship at the end
Gillian Anderson plays Scully
somewhat lighter in mood than usual. Muldar jokes with her early on about a
locked door in a building that they are searching for a possible bomb, and
teases her with the idea that they are trapped on the roof. When he genuinely
gets locked in with the bomb she doesn't believe him at first. Later, when they
are surrounded by aliens and he is trying desperately to carry her to safety,
she seems to have died and to require resuscitation, but she may actually be
getting her own back for his earlier cruel joke. It is she, rather than he, who
presents the FBI with the slender evidence that serves to get the X-Files
themselves reopened. That suggests a hint of belief beneath the scepticism.
The film pays homage to many other films, from North By Northwest, (The chase by helicopter through corn fields and the mount Rushmore like descent to the mysterious domes that contain the bees), Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, (The alien ship, and that Mount Rushmore thing again, as Close Encounters borrowed that from North By Northwest), 2001: A space Oddessy (the caveman's fall through the ice in 35,000 BC melts into the scene of the doomed child falling through the hole in the ground in Kansas (present day), The Thing From Another World (and The Thing, it's remake) in which an alien ship is found in the polar regions, Conspiracy theory (the crackpot who gives the heroes the clues they need seems right out of the plot of the Mel Gibson film, and Independence Day, (exploding away whole buildings, and that poster). Coma is also included in here, with Scully's ambulance crew kidnapping her away for questionable research practices). Such tongue in cheek homage means no pro-occultist could really claim this film, or the series that spawned it, to be their own. It belongs to the doubters, skeptics and Humanists far more.
© Copyright. Arthur Chappell
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