Dana Scully taught me it’s OK to be vulnerable
by Jade Green
Image: The X Files
TW: Sexual violence
I did not expect to find myself weeping at an episode of The X Files. Two months into my new job as a support worker for survivors of sexual abuse, I settled in for some light TV after a hefty shift, and was confronted with the season two episode Irresistible.
The X Files was revolutionary in its portrayal of a strong, emotionally grounded woman-in-STEM protagonist. Dana Scully fought bad guys and shot guns and rescued her male partner from danger just as often as he rescued her. Dana Scully, the Special Agent whose representation inspired a whole generation of girls and women to become scientists and mathematicians. If I had any aptitude for numbers I’d be contemplating my own career change.
Irresistible is an outlier of an episode in its lack of supernaturalism. The story centres on a serial killer with a fetish for collecting hair from the corpses of women he’s murdered. Our two agents are called into a miscellaneous town with the promise of alien activity, only to find the monster they’re hunting is a very normal-looking man; the kind you would pass on the street and not give a second look.
Inexplicably, this rattles the normally strong-headed Scully. Most episodes see her plunging her hands into corpses (this woman lives for a good autopsy), chasing down suspects and confronting all manner of monsters with poise and power. But in Irresistible, we get to see a side of her we never normally see. Her vulnerability is laid bare. In a therapy session, she is on the verge of tears as she tries to make sense of what she is feeling.
SCULLY: I know these things. I'm conscious of them. I know the world is full of predators, just as it has always been. And I know it's my job to protect people from them. And I've counted on that fact to give me faith in my ability to do what I do...I want that faith back. I need it back.
Later in the episode the killer kidnaps Scully, and as he secures rope around her wrists we see him – through her eyes – morph into ominous formations of different men, finally settling into the outline of a demon. Scully is paralysed with fear. It is like she is realising her own mortality, and confronting something far more disturbing than the supernatural forces she spends her working life trying to disprove. Forget about aliens and spaceships for a moment; the truth of the capability of human beings to commit monstrous acts is here, right now.
As usual, Gillian Anderson brings a level of sensibility to the performance that elevates the writing into another dimension. Throughout the episode, Scully is scared to reveal what she is going through to Mulder, for fear of worrying him or making him feel as though he needs to protect her. But after her narrow escape from the killer, she allows herself to crumble into Mulder’s open arms and weep. She is human, after all, and her world is full of horror.
Many of the stories we are sold in popular media would have us believe that perpetrators are a rarity. They are ‘bad apples’ and the mentally unstable and normal people pushed to the edge by extreme circumstances. This is often the case with The X Files, too – which is why the message of Irresistible hits so hard. Not only does it show that seemingly normal men can act in monstrous ways, but it highlights Scully’s vulnerability – and the vulnerability of women – to these acts of monstrousness.
In my new job, I’d been listening to people talk about their experiences with perpetrators on a national rape helpline. Naturally, my level of sensitivity to this subject was extreme when I sat down to watch this episode. Something that was occurring to me after two weeks on the job was that survivors of sexually violent crimes are just as diverse and wide-ranging as perpetrators. I’d spoken to people of all ages, genders, backgrounds and classes. I’m not sure what I had expected – perhaps my internal biases had been shaped by the way a ‘survivor’ is usually represented in media; the helpless, young, usually white women who don’t stand a chance against the assailant’s one-dimensional hunger. But obviously, this doesn’t reflect reality.
The truth is out there, and it is this: all of us, at some point in our ordinary, un-extreme lives, will cross paths with a perpetrator. If we are lucky, this encounter will be nothing more than a passing glace over our shoulder, a bad feeling as we sense something not-quite-right about the person who gave us a particular look in the supermarket aisle. If we are less than lucky, it will be something else; the guy we met on a dating app; the work colleague we had to sit across from every day; the person we wound up marrying. Maybe we were unfortunate enough to grow up in the presence of a parent who was an abuser, a brother or sister or uncle, a priest.
I know the world is full of predators, just as it always has been. Like Scully, we think we can protect ourselves from this truth. We armour ourselves with illusions of invulnerability, pretend that perpetrators of sexual violence only exist on the Internet, or in other parts of the world, or in dark alleyways that can be easily avoided. When we hear about a rape or assault or long-term pattern of abuse, we think, somewhat guiltily, I would never let that happen to me. But sooner or later, we are forced to face the truth. We can no longer hide.
Scully faces this truth in Irresistible, an episode that comes with a surprising dose of clarity. As is the case with so many shows from this era, by the next episode of The X Files, Scully is back to her strong-headed, sceptical self. After I take a particularly heavy or difficult call on the helpline, I go through a similar process: sitting for a moment with my vulnerability, grounding myself in my strength, then moving on to the next call, the next story. If I let the horror hold too much power over me, I won’t survive. But that doesn’t mean I can’t let myself be vulnerable.
It’s a rare thing to witness these polarities explored with such depth in a female TV character. On a show written predominantly by men, I can’t help but wonder if this was entirely intentional, or whether this depth can be mostly attributed to Anderson’s performance. Through Dana Scully, the creative team behind The X Files – intentionally or not – represented the capability and power of women’s healing. In a predatory world, we have no choice but to continuously confront our fear. Like Scully, we learn how to be resilient.
Jade Green (she/her) writes fiction and nonfiction, co-hosts a podcast about the creative process, and is currently working on a book exploring the representation of sexual violence in stories. She is the editor of oranges and lives in Bristol, UK.
Find more of Jade’s work here