AFTER all the endless spin-off and cashing-in books about The
X-Files, including Michael White鈥檚 disappointing The Science of the
X-Files, it is a pleasure to see something with a little more thought behind
it.
Deny All Knowledge: Reading the X-Files edited by David Lavery,
Angela Hague and Maria Cartright (Faber and Faber, 拢8.99, ISBN 0 571 19141
X) is a collection of essays by American academics in English, communication and
cultural studies, investigating the meaning and significance of the television
series.
The essays explore The X-Files from within several
frameworks, including conspiracy theory, mythology, gender definitions and
popular culture. One contributor examines it in the light of the current spate
of 鈥渢rue alien abduction鈥� stories in the US, while another looks at the serious
X-Files fannish activity on the Internet.
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A recurrent theme is how the rational, scientific, sceptical Dana Scully and
the intuitive, sensitive, believing Fox Mulder are reversals of traditional
societal gender roles.
Agent Scully is a medical doctor, and both Scully and Mulder employ
state-of-the-art scientific and technological aids in their work. Although these
are commented on, there could have been an interesting essay on the uneasy
relationship between science and 鈥減arascience鈥�.
And it would have been good to have more discussion from a psychological
perspective on how Mulder and Scully are affected by their experiences, and how
their characters develop from episode to episode and series to series.
But this is a valuable and generally very readable collection of essays,
offering a largely feminist critique of what is at the same time a popular,
significant and intelligent television phenomenon of the 1990s. At times, you
might wonder though if these academic writers have forgotten that, first and
foremost, The X-Files is fun.