A Grim Walk in the Woods and 25 Years of The X-Files Monster
The Greeks first tamed it in written form. Later, the Polynesians, Norsemen and Celts appropriated it orally. Centuries following, Europeans and Americans re-appropriated it in grander, literary and visual form.
Fear.
Seafarers like the Hawaiians, Vikings and Boston whalers spun wild tales to rationalize everything from squalls to squids. Fear of the unknown is a powerful pinch on the neck. Reducing it to mere myth not only explains it, but tames it, kind of. With rationalization comes control. If the giant squid tapping on your poopdeck has a name, you might take the upper hand. Call him Kraken, see what happens.
"I was out Squatchin' … Bigfoot hunting."
"Living in the city you forget a lot of things. It's not until you get back to nature you realize everything is out to get you."
Today, forests are still unnerving. Regardless, depending where Wanderlust summons, there's a friendly ranger or an app to guide you. Ancestral fear has been demoted to mere amusement. Still, mankind needs to maintain the primal fright, to keep us on our evolutionary toes. (What happens when the Google dogs rise?)
"Are you familiar with the so-called X-Files?"
"When convention and science offer us no answer, might we not finally turn to the fantastic as a plausibility?"
"When darkness falls, all we have left to guide us are questions. What am I looking for? Where am I going? What did I just step in?"
Fretting about rats in your broom closet and Jaguar engine? "Tesos Dos Bichos" (S3, e18) assures you rats do live there, and in your lavvy. Like Indy, do you hate snakes? Add fundamental religion, and "Signs and Wonders" (S7, e9) will help you see the light. Worried about organ thieves? (It's more real than you think.) "Hell Money" (S3, e19) and "Nothing Lasts Forever" (S11, e9) will keep you indoors, abusing your liver. Mine, mine, mine!
It's not just the paranormal and the critters. Mankind has deeper nightmares, disembodied of claws, feelers and fangs.
Keeping up with the Petries may seem vapid, but conformity keeps us from exile. (Remember the woods?) Of course, conformity can go too far. "Arcadia" (S6, e15) questions HOAs as necessary evils. Freaks and outsiders may unnerve us, but largely as projection. Who wants to be the freak banished to Portland, Oregon or North Florida? "Humbug" (S2, e20) declares, Ich bin Ausländer!
Though Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are quite something to gaze upon in S10 & S11, that doesn't mean Muggles aren't aging everywhere else.
A gratuitously gory episode, "Nothing Lasts Forever" (S11, e9) examines purloined transplants and perplexing beauty regimes. A poignant confrontation in "Plus One" (S11, e3), between Demon Judy and Scully, might leave you gazing in the mirror, thinking, Dammit. Face it, looks matter. "The Post Modern Prometheus" (S5, e5) squirms against society's guilty discomfort with the severely disfigured … and Cher.
Lest we forget … the children. Little is as evil as an evil little one. Like a Tiffany box with a spider in it, no one expects such vileness in such prettiness. "Born Again" (S1, e22) and "Eve" (S1, e11) argue against Eugenics, ponder reincarnation and advise against accepting soda from creepy twins.
If there is an evil doll, bet Stephen King is behind the bisque. Co-written by the King of Horror and Chris Carter, "Chinga" (S5, e10) confronts the common, irrational fear of dolls: pediophobia.
Lessons Learned From The X-Files' "Chinga"
- If you find a doll in a lobster trap off the New England coast, throw it back.
- If your kid (or wife) has a favourite doll, do not microwave said-doll.
- When Polly wants to do something, do it.
- When you hear "Hokey Pokey", run.
Does camping, or a walk in the woods, especially with your little dog, bullyrag your comfort zone? Is a sleeping bag just filo dough for whatever will eat you? "Jersey Devil" (S1, e5), "Detour" (S5, e4), "Darkness Falls" (S1, e20) and "Quagmire" (S3, e22) will ensure you outrun your friend … although, that won't always matter. Poor Queequeg.
If we categorize fear, the supernatural falls into the Fun Zone. We can enjoy poltergeists, assured by science they won't come to our house, probably. There are, however, varmints that will. The X-Files ferments logical fears of things in the walls, closets and sewers.
The Information Age bit hard and has been shaking us by the neck ever since. "Rm9sbG93ZXJz" (S11, e7) - "Followers" in base64 code - could be an epilogue to "Ghost … ". It's a semaphore warning. Your inner Sheldon Cooper dreams of life sans other humans, but "Followers" explores the self-aware silicon being. (Cue ominous, Google dogs.)
Chris Carter has tapped our amygdalas: the area of the brain where neuroscientists pinpoint fear-conditioning is encoded. Whether your poison is airline disasters, bikini season, sharks, cancer, poverty or Bigfoot, fear reigns in our brains. Yet, how dare we let it rule us?
"X-COPS" (S7, e12) may be the pinnacle of The X-Files monster, for it is all monsters, via the power of suggestion. Werewolves, Freddy Kruger, pimps, wasps, the Hanta virus and even abandonment rear their interchangeably ugly heads during a full-moon, police ride-along in a SoCal 'hood.
If the future of fear lies in our amygdalas and Google dogs, where lies the future of The X-Files?
“I think there will be more X-Files,” Carter prophesied in a March 2018 Den of Geek interview. "They haven’t locked up the file cabinet in Mulder’s office. There’s still more stories to be told."
If there comes S12, it will be sadly sans Scully. Gillian Anderson made it clear she's left the Bureau.
"I’ve said from the beginning this [S11] is it for me,” Anderson affirmed in a January 2018 TV Guide interview. Although, "It's never a fitting end unless you die," David Duchovny asserted in a 2016 EOnline interview. Scully isn't dead.
"I have his manifesto … I don't know which was more disturbing: his description of the Inner Core reincarnated souls' orgy, or the fact that the whole thing was written in screenplay format."
At the end of the night, The X-Files represents an underlying fear of anyone living in a democracy, and paying attention: government overreach. Scully and Mulder fight the beasties for us, real and perceived; but when the IRS appears in your driveway … you're on your own.
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