so this is going to be a short post I don't really have the time to devote to it like I should but i want to get the ideas out there because they are important even if they are not new.
Last weekend I watched "X-Files: I Want to Believe," followed by the "Revelations" (yeah wrong order I know.) But I discovered this theme which I am sure was the intent about where T/truth/s lie (pun intended.) Since I never watched several episodes in a row of the show when it was on prime time and now it's on a bit late and scary for me to watch it too often watching them like this gave me a much different impression of the show.
As most people probably knew but I had never really caught on to, Dana Scully is the scientific skeptic of the whole operation-although I do remember her being fairly convinced during some episodes that paranormal phenomenon could exist. Scully, who especially in earlier episodes is reminiscent of the dearly beloved,Clarice Starling. While attractive, her clothing and hair leave a lot open for ways to have her body be read. She is a professional, wearing less mkeup, with androgynous hair except for the fluffy bangs which seemed more a way to hide her sex appeal then flatter it. Yet she is constantly (hetero)sexualized by the predators, psychics, killers, and even by Mulder, who questions her abilities at first because of her gender performance. What Scully really does for the show however, is provide the skeptic, the "I want to believe" but character, In her line of work she believes everything must posess a scientific empirical reason for its occurrence. Thus, even when faced with a situation with no possible scientific explanation, she is still reluctant to buy Mulder's belief that the explanation comes from the realm of the paranormal.
Enter Fox Mulder, the guy who believes anything and everything is possible and many things are unexplained. He is the man who offers up the possibility that not only do things happen out of the ordinary all the time but he believes them based on data which is primarily interview and narrative. He listens to the teller of the anomalous tale and asks Scully to listen and try to believe because the people doing the telling believe it to be true. This is really quite deep.
Onto talking about my favorite episode seen thus far, "Modern Day Prometheus." Talk about camp. Cher, queer characters, black and white, and the modern day Frankenstein. What could be better. More to come on this. However, this has been a lot of what I think about.
I also feel this ties in quite nicely to shifting identities of queerness and illness...more to come there too.
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