Thursday, March 26, 2015

Fictional Feminists:
DANA SCULLY of the X-files






Six New Episodes Of The X-Files Are Coming! In 2015 or 2016 or 2017, don't know when. But they are coming! My inner geek is overjoyed.  They BETTER be good!


Calming Down. Back to Business....


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I'm not unusual in that I wasn't too sure about kill-joy Dana Scully at first. She could poo-poo absolutely anything, and sooo closed minded. But that didn't stop her from performing when the sh*t hit the fan. And fan hitting was quite frequent on the X-files.

And though the gender norms/ gender stereotypes were most definitely reversed.
He was the emotional one.  She was the stone, cold logical one. Even so, there was never, ever a doubt that she was female, even in those squared off suits of hers. She was this completely soft, empathetic person and a bad ass too.

But for me, the feminist-y-est thing about the X-files was this:

Mulder would always wind up dragging her somewhere I never would have gone in broad daylight, much less at night. Then they'd split up. Mulder would head off somewhere even darker. Then, sometimes -only sometimes -someTHING, some huge, slimy, rottening and ugly thing would claw its way up outta some hole.  And Mulder would realize that he was about to be chewed up and spit out... like literally eaten, and his reaction was to SCREAM Scully's name...over and over "like a girl" until she came to save his @$$.

"SCULLY!!!! ....SCULLY!!! .....SCULLY!!!"  (No shame in his game. He came out alive, ya know? He was completely practical, in my opinion...Actually Mulder 's character was drawn in a very feminist way as well, wasn't he?)

And Dana Scully always came running in the take-me-seriously suit with those quasi-reasonable heels clicking along, GUN OUT FRONT! And mostly? She usually got there just in time. If not there in time, and the ugly thing snatched him, she'd find him...or mourn until finally she did. And she always found him.


Scully and Mulder even fell in love in a respectable, quiet way -- and she didn't judge him for being more than a little bit of nerdy weirdo who watches porn and has severely nerdy friends (The Lone Gunman - I think I actually cried when they died)

I think I loved almost everything about the X-Files. It got muddy toward the end. No doubt. And, seriously, I could used A FEW more black folk along the way, especially earlier on in the series. But there are quite a few shows, like Sleepy Hollow - should it survive until next season, that could stand to pick up a few pointers in regards to the format.

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X-Files gets 4 out of 5 FEM STARS!!! (Take one star off because Mulder was nearly always right...eventually...no matter how ridiculous his theory was. lol )

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/the-x-files-to-return-for-six-episode-limited-series/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=1

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