Title: Being of Service: X-Files Fans and Social Activism
Author: memories_child
Word count: 9221
Abstract: I explore the ways in which celebrity charity and fan activism can lead to civic engagement and social change. Fan studies has moved away from the traditional view of fans as psychologically deficient and has begun to examine resistance within the cultural productions of fandom—fan fiction, for example, addressing gender imbalances in popular TV shows. However, scholarship on celebrity-focused fans still retains much of the stigmatizing language that mars early writing about fans. I examine the relationship between celebrity and fan; examine the role celebrity plays in framing fan charity; assess how fan investment affects celebrity charity work; and argue that fans are active participants in encouraging social awareness and charitable giving.
A/N: This article was published in the Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol 10 (2012). I am indebted to the fans who generously gave their time for my interviews, and allowed me to quote them in the essay. Huge thanks must also go to amalnahurriyeh for the beta. It has not been my intention to misrepresent any of the fans quoted in this paper, and I hope that you won't think I have.

Being of Service: X-Files Fans and Social Activism

Title: "I do not gaze at Scully" The Rain King: The X Files' Response to Laura Mulvey
Author: memories_child
Word count: 2859
A/N: Written for the 2011 round of xf_is_love. I'm writing this much later than I'd have liked to, mainly because I forgot I was posting today until yesterday, and so it's therefore shorter than I'd like it to be. There's a lot more I could say about the male gaze and The X Files, but if you take a look at the bibliography you'll find some of the articles out there covering this in more depth than I am in this essay.


( Is Mulder’s comment to Holman in Rain King a serious reference to Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze? Were the writers planting an in joke that only students of pop culture would get? And if so, does their response to Mulvey hold up? Collapse )

Title: Slow Evolution: 'First Time Fics' and The X Files Porn Parody
Author: memories_child
Word count: 5739
Abstract: Chris Carter once famously said that he “didn't want [The X-Files] to be another Moonlighting. [He] didn't want the relationship to come before the cases” effectively ruling out the possibility of a relationship between the two main characters and reassuring NoRomos that their reading of the text was the preferred one. While this did, ultimately, change by the end of the show’s run, the unresolved sexual tension that existed through the course of the series, particularly in seasons one to seven, gave fanfiction writers fuel with which to create their own erotic adaptations of the show. Perhaps, for a fandom that coined the term ‘shipper’, it is not surprising that a large number of fics concerning Mulder and Scully’s relationship have been written. It is perhaps less surprising that a high percentage of these are ‘first time fics’, dealing with the first sexual encounter between the two agents. But this is also a subject that the 2009 X-Files porn parody (The Sex Files: A Dark XX Parody) has chosen to deal with. In this paper I wish to explore the interaction between the canon text, the fan fiction texts which have arisen from it, and The Sex Files: A Dark XX Parody, to examine the appeal of ‘first time fics’ and the ways in which prior readings of the text(s) led to the development of the porn parody.
A/N: This paper was presented at the Erotic Adaptations symposium at De Montfort University on 26th January 2011. Huge thanks must go to amyhit for the insightful emails discussing first time fics, littlegreen42 for the encouragement, and cadiliniel for the beta, sharing the hotel room and encouraging me to participate in the symposium. It has not been my intention to misrepresent any of the fics or authors referred to in this paper, and I hope that you won't think I have.




( Slow Evolution: 'First Time Fics' and The X Files Porn ParodyCollapse )

The X Files wiki entry for Hollywood A.D. summarises the plot of the episode as 'an X-file becomes the plot of a Hollywood movie, but Mulder and Scully find their case — and themselves — distorted on the big screen.' This distortion reflects the idea of truth which is so prevalent in the show, and the episode as a whole - in the vein of Bad Blood and Jose Chung's From Outer Space - attempts to examine what 'truth' really means.

Sherry R. Truffin, in 'Trying to Tell "The Truth": Metafiction and Historiographic Metafiction in The X Files, argues that The X Files may be 'one of the most popular forms of historiographic metafiction ever produced. The show is, among other things, an extended meditation on the inescapability and elusiveness of history, both personal and public' (2007:249). Hollywood A.D. certainly looks at the inescapability of history - firstly through the use of Christian texts, and then through the 'X Files' motion picture depicting the case.

The case begins with a pipe bomb exploding through the crypt of Cardinal O'Fallon's church. On the surface this appears to be a straight up terrorist act, but further investigation discovers the body of Micah Hoffman, who had sold a forged gospel of Mary Magdalene to the Cardinal. The Cardinal, in turn, hid it.

CARDINAL O'FALLON: When Micah came to me... with these, as I then thought, ancient texts and our experts verified them - he exploded a bomb in my heart. The Christ that I'd loved was not the Christ in these texts.

MULDER: So you bought them in order to hide them?

CARDINAL O'FALLON: To keep others from feeling the despair... and the anger that I felt. To protect people from what I can now see they needed no protection from.

MULDER: Why didn't you just destroy the documents yourself?

CARDINAL O'FALLON: I thought they were real. I hated them, I despised them. I would have liked to destroy them, but I couldn't. Is being made a fool of a crime, Agent Mulder?

I would argue that this is the first meditation on private/public history in this episode. The Jesus story has been argued among theologists, philosophers, historians and archaeologists for years, and there are many different theories as to who - or what - Jesus was. All we really know about Jesus - with the exception of some artefacts - is what is given to us in the Bible, yet there are texts which never made it into the Bible. A result, maybe, of St Paul and later editors censuring what they didn't want the people to know. But more than giving us the story of Jesus, the Bible acts as a way to make sense of the world and our experiences, to provide us with moral codes and rules to abide by, to build traditions. Truffin says The X Files

suggest[s] a great deal about the nature of narrative, as well as its attractions and its dangers. Taken together, these episodes present narrative as a ubiquitous, if problematic, way of understanding, articulating and communicating human experience... They suggest that we use stories to give our experiences comprehensible, recognizable forms; to distract ourselves from the tedium or difficulty of our lives and/or to imagine alternative lives; to measure ourselves against others or to create a sense of self; to honour or build traditions and develop a sense of community and continuity; to establish authority and feel powerful; to get attention, sympathy, and support; to demean or manipulate others; to shape reality to our liking. These episodes highlight the consequences of the stories we tell, both positive and negative, both intended and unintended.

In Hollywood A.D., the Cardinal is forced to reflect on what the story of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene tells us about Christ. The Christ of this gospel is not the same as the Christ of the New Testament. Not the same as the Christ that Christianity is built around, and that would be more damaging to the Church than the Cardinal's concealment of them. Of course, in typical X Files fashion, Hoffman undergoes a conversion experience and becomes Christ, bombing the crypt to destroy the blasphemous forgeries that he created.

MICAH HOFFMAN: [O'Fallon's] a decent man but with an overweening pride and sense of responsibility borne of a fundamental lack of respect for the human animal. He believes in God, but not in man, in man's ability to choose, to live in freedom. He has Christ in his brain, but not in his heart.

SCULLY: So, uh... you created a Christ in these forgeries that was more suited to your particular world view?

MICAH HOFFMAN: Yeah. But before I could write like Christ I had to become him in much the same way I imagine an actor who plays a part becomes that part. So I immersed myself in Jesus Christ. Not just the church and teachings but the man, the custom of his time, the language, the vibe, the feeling of Christ.

SCULLY: So why didn't O'Fallon and the Elders go outside the church for authentification?

MICAH HOFFMAN: Because the forgeries were too damning of the church. They couldn't risk the exposure. But then, something truly weird came over me.

SCULLY: Remorse?

MICAH HOFFMAN: Conversion, Agent Scully. The lightning bolt that transformed Saul to Paul on the road to Damascus. One day I was not just impersonating Jesus Christ, I had become him. That's why I blew up the crypt. The forgeries were blasphemous and needed to be destroyed.

To create the authentic feel of the text Hoffman created, he had to immerse himself in the life of Christ, suggesting that texts have as much of an impact on people as people do on texts.

The second way in which I argue Hollywood A.D. looks at the inescapability of history is in the motion picture Federman produces. This time however, it is the impact the film will have on future viewers that interests me, rather than the impact that history has on the film.

One of the many problems Mulder has with the film is that it reduces the real people involved in the case to mere characters.

SCULLY: I got a page from the Washington Bureau. Micah Hoffman was murdered tonight. Murdered in his own home by Cardinal O'Fallon who then hanged himself. A murder-suicide.

MULDER: It's Jesus and Judas, Scully.

SCULLY: Wow... It's all over now.

MULDER: No, no, it's just beginning. Hoffman and O'Fallon were these complicated, flawed, beautiful people and now they'll just be remembered as jokes because of this movie. The character based on O'Fallon is listed in the credits as "Cigarette-Smoking Pontiff." How silly is that?

SCULLY: Pretty silly.

MULDER: Yeah, what about us? How are we going to be remembered now 'cause of this movie?

SCULLY: Well, hopefully, the movie will tank.

MULDER: What about all the dead people who are forever silent and can't tell their stories anymore? They're all going to have to rely on Hollywood to show the future how we lived and it'll all become... oversimplified and trivialized and Cigarette-Smoking Pontificized and become as plastic and meaningless as this stupid plastic Lazarus Bowl.

SCULLY: I think the dead are beyond caring what people think about them. Hopefully we can adopt the same attitude. You do know that there aren't real dead people out there, right? That this is a movie set?

MULDER: The dead are everywhere, Scully.

And this is where the idea of truth, and the inescapability of history merge. The series is about the quest for truth, yet we never really see one single truth. We see, instead, what the key players in the conspiracy - Mulder, Scully, Cigarette-Smoking Man - want us to see. We are at the mercy of the writers and producers to accurately reflect the truth to us, much like Mulder and Scully are at the mercy of Federman to accurately reflect the truth of the case to the film audience. And as Federman comments, 'fiction is quicker than truth and cheaper'.

Truffin notes that

"Hollywood A.D." is the story of physical crimes committed in the name of textual legitimacy, and of narrative crimes committed in the name of financial expediency. The episode is concerned with the stories we tell and, to some extent, with the physical texts in which those stories are expressed or "contained".

But more than anything perhaps, the episode explores what is lost when fact is turned into fiction; what is lost in terms of truth, reality and history.

One of the many recurring themes in The X Files, commented upon by more than one critic, academic or fan, is that of free will. all things is one episode which uses this theme as its central point, from Scully's voiceover in the introduction:

Time passes in moments. Moments which, rushing past, define the path of a life just as surely as they lead towards its end. How rarely do we stop to examine that path, to see the reasons why all things happen, to consider whether the path we take in life is our own making or simply one into which we drift with eyes closed. But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?

to the mix up with the autopsy report, to the appearances of the blond nurse to the repetition of the Moby song The Sky is Broken. While there has been much discussion about free will in theological, philosophical, scientific and psychological circles, I intend to stick with the more simple definition of free will. Free will is the notion that individuals have the capability to make choices freed from any constraints. In metaphysics, the two opposing sides in this debate are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus that free will exists, and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus that free will does not exist. At this point I should give a brief definition of determinism. Determinism says that future events are necessitated by past and present events. There is a cause and effect motion in place which means that individuals have no real control over what happens to them. This has been illustrated by the Laplace's demon thought experiment:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.

Indeterminism, on the other hand, is the idea that events are not caused deterministically by prior events. Consequently, indeterminism is holds that free will and determinism are logically incompatible, and that the major question regarding whether or not people have free will is whether or not their actions are determined. And this is what Scully asks in her opening monologue. Do we drift into life following paths with our eyes closed, and if we opened our eyes and took stock of what was around us would we - could we - choose another path?

There is no answer to this yet, of course. Different schools of thought argue different things. It is worth noting however, given the influence of Buddhism on this episode, that Buddhists believe in neither absolute free will, nor determinism. Buddhism says the idea of absolute freedom of choice is incorrect because each of us have physical needs and circumstances that must be taken into account. Somone in a wheelchair, for example, cannot get up and run a marathon - no matter how much they want to - because their disability will get in the way. Equally incorrect is the idea that we have no choice in life; to deny freedom would be to deny the efforts of Buddhists to make moral progress, one of the things the religion aspires to.

In all things, however, we are asked to think about whether everything does happen for a reason. If the autopsy report hadn't been mixed up with Daniel Waterstone's x-rays, Scully wouldn't have realised that she's not the same person she was ten years ago, and that the life she lives is where she wants to be.

SCULLY: I once considered spending my whole life with this man. What I would have missed.

MULDER: I don't think you can know. I mean, how many different lives would we be leading if we made different choices. We... We don't know.

SCULLY: What if there was only one choice and all the other ones were wrong? And there were signs along the way to pay attention to.

MULDER: Mmm. And all the... choices would then lead to this very moment. One wrong turn, and... we wouldn't be sitting here together. Well, that says a lot. That says a lot, a lot, a lot. That's probably more than we should be getting into at this late hour.

But would Scully have come to that conclusion on her own eventually anyway? Possibly. Coincidences happen more often that we realise, and humans - I would argue - tend to look for meaning in them when it suits us. If Scully hadn't already been wondering about where her life was going and if she was happy, she may not have given Daniel Waterstone's x-rays a second glance.

The opening monologue to this episode sums up both the two-parter and the series itself well.

I want to believe so badly; in a truth beyond our own, hidden and obscured from all but the most sensitive eyes. In the endless procession of souls. In what cannot and will not be destroyed. I want to believe we are unaware of God's eternal recompense and sadness, that we cannot see His truth. That that which is born still lives and cannot be buried in the cold earth. But only waits to be born again at God's behest. Where in ancient starlight we lay in repose.

My reading of this lies in the use of the word 'want'. That Mulder wants to believe in these things suggests that, at the moment, he doesn't (I want a writing credit on the next X Files movie suggests I don't (or am not likely to) have one at this moment in time). And even though Mulder finds out what happens to his sister by the end of the episode, and says that he is finally free, I think that he nevertheless loses something. The realisation that there is no 'truth' beyond our own, maybe.

Which ties in nicely with the idea of The X Files as a postmodern text. Critical of modernism's concerned with principles such as identity, unity and authority, postmodernism is characterized by the problematisation of objective truth and suspicion towards meta-narrative. Though the show's tagline 'The Truth is Out There' could be considered modernist - pointing towards one objective truth - through the course of the series we find several different versions of truth, depending on who is talking, who or what they're talking about, which season we're in (and what the writers have remembered from previous episodes). This is perhaps best summed up in the following exchange from Jose Chung's From Outer Space:

SCULLY: What made you decide to write a book about an alien abduction if you're not that interested in the subject yourself?

JOSE CHUNG: Actually? It was my publisher's idea. At first I was reluctant, until I realized that I had an opportunity here to create an entirely new literary genre... a non-fiction science fiction. Now, see, that gimmick alone will guarantee it's landing on the best-seller list. In short, to answer your question? Money.

SCULLY: Well... just as long as you're attempting to record the truth.

JOSE CHUNG: Oh, God, no. How can I possibly do that?

SCULLY: What do you mean?

JOSE CHUNG: I spent three months in Klass County and everybody there has a different version of what truly happened. Truth is as subjective as reality. That will help explain why when people talk about their "UFO experiences," they always start off with "well, now, I know how crazy this is going to sound... but."

SCULLY: So you're here to get my version of the truth?

JOSE CHUNG: Exactly.

But I think this is echoed in Closure, in Mulder's desire to believe in a truth beyond our own and his realisation that this can never happen.

I've written previously about this episode focussing on the religious sacrifice element which is so prominent (the parallels between Mulder and Christ are particularly obvious) but something struck me while reading bardsmaid's meta last week which I want to look at further here.

Diana Fowley has never been the fans' favourite character. There are a variety of reasons for that, which I won't go into here, and the way she's been written doesn't help. But she does, as bardsmaid says, '[becomes]three-dimensional. Whether or not you like her (okay, so almost nobody is actually cheering for Diana--except maybe CSM), she was always a two-dimensional character before, a plot device. Finally she gets to be more than just a threatening mouth in a dark suit.' Fowley, throughout the course of the series, has been portrayed by turns as calculating and manipulative, and under CSM's thumb. She's the bitch, the 'fowl' one. The one everyone loves to hate. But Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati changes that.

We are told, at the end of the episode, that it was Fowley who helped save Mulder's life. She gave Scully the book, and it was her key which enabled Scully to reach Mulder. We also discover that it Fowley was found murdered that morning. She paid the ultimate sacrifice to do the right thing. She gave her life to save Mulder's. Regardless of what we think of her, it is hard to argue that Fowley didn't feel something for Mulder, something which led her to disobey CSM and give Scully the means to find Mulder. And this makes her, in my eyes at least, a more sympathetic character. It also makes her appear more feminine.

As I mentioned earlier, Fowley is seen as a bitch - she's the worst kind of woman; calculating, manipulative, not at all above using her feminine wiles to get what she wants. She lies in sharp contrast to Scully who is consistently good, empathetic, honest and caring. Fowley's sacrifice makes her more sympathetic and more feminine by aligning her with the other women of The X Files (women who, while at times badly written, are much more likeable and, arguably, believable than Fowley). Each woman in The X Files has sacrificed something: Teena Mulder sacrifices her daughter; Melissa Scully her life; Scully her safety, her plans for a family, her child. The list goes on. Sacrifice then, it seems to me, is a historically female trait. How often do we hear the phrases 'sacrificed her career'; 'sacrificed her chance for a family'; and so on, not to mention the role that actual female sacrifice has played in various histories?

Giving her life to save Mulder puts Fowley firmly in this camp, making her 'more' of a woman, more sympathetic as a character and, ultimately, offers the viewer a chance to rethink their original perception of the 'fowl one'.

Title: Christ, Hamlet and Ralph Nader: Symbolism and Sacrifice in The X Files
Author: memories_child
Word count: 1816
A/N: Written for the 2010 round of xf_is_love. I'm writing this much later than I'd have liked to, and it's therefore shorter (and possibly less coherent) than I'd like it to be. There's so much I could say about The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati. Religion, philosophy, reality, fiction, sacrifice and resurrection are just some of the themes covered in this episode, and if you take a look online (or at the bibliography) you'll find just some of the articles out there covering these. I hope that you enjoy this essay though, that it gives you something to think about, and that I haven't offended anyone with what I've written (that definitely isn't my intention).


( Read more...Collapse )

This was the first essay submitted for my MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing at Cardiff University. Now that the essay has been marked and returned, I figured I would be okay to post it to a public forum.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone who's talked to me about their fanfiction, everyone who's allowed me to cite them in this essay (I hope you don't feel that I've misrepresented you) and a huge thanks to sixpences for taking a look at the first draft and providing me with valuable suggestions. I'm leaving this as friends only for the time being, as the essay is due in tomorrow and I don't want this version to be broadcast on the internet until the hard copy has been marked, but I thought some of you might be interested in reading, and I would appreciate any comments, criticism or feedback you might have.



( So, if fan fiction involves writing about the characters and situations invented by another writer, where is the creativity? To answer that question I feel have to talk about my fanfic and the reasons for writing it.Collapse )

A repost of my 2009 xf_is_love piece.

Title: Seeing is Believing: Reality, Truth and Fiction in Jose Chung’s From Outer Space
Author: memories_child
Word count: 4362
A/N: This essay is something I've wanted to write for a long time - since writing my 3rd year dissertation on reality and fiction, in fact, and referencing Jose Chung's in that. Writing it was something I really enjoyed, though cutting the first draft down from 15000 odd words was pretty tough. I could have covered so much more on the subject, but I think it works as it is and I hope you all enjoy reading it. Huge thanks must go to truemyth for the incredibly insightful beta, the encouragement, the early morning emails getting excited over what else from the series fitted into the essay and the absolutely gorgeous cover.



( Truth is as subjective as reality. So, it can be argued, is love.Collapse )