Someone so pathetic
What is a ‘father’?
Most obviously, a ‘father’ would be a biological function that requires a certain degree of participation, momentary satisfaction but few other demands.
Today, we recognize the ‘father’ as a cultural construct – a set of roles and responsibilities that may vary and change according to the whims of society.
It may be that a ‘father’ is actually both of these things – a biological function which runs the risk of entrapment or, even, a voluntary participation in a cultural construct.
What a culture constructs the idea of a ‘father’ to be is myriad but might include a willingness to stick around long enough to help with the child’s development from infancy through to early adulthood; a contributory role in the financial sustainability of the family; and beneficial physical and emotional interaction with the child.
If this be a bare minimum for an individual to be recognized as ‘father’, it appears the Cigarette Smoking Man beats Bill Mulder in the fatherhood sweepstakes.
The X Files conspiracy is nothing if not confusing.
The members of the Syndicate each made a ‘painful sacrifice’ of a family member: Bill Mulder sacrificed Samantha (thus making himself a candidate for worst father of the year award), while C.G.B. Spender (The CSM) sacrificed his wife, Cassandra – presumably because she was a woman he’d ‘never even loved’. This happened in 1972.
By 1974 both Samantha Mulder and Jeffrey Spender are living with the CSM on April Airforce Base in California. We don’t know when Jeffrey was born or how old he was at the time. We do know that he was twelve when, after he’d returned to his mother, his father finally left. We also know that there is a police report from 1979 matching Samantha’s description. It appears, the CSM was more attached to the daughter that Bill Mulder sacrificed than he was to his own son.
That being said, and despite Samantha’s being experimented on while at April, the CSM’s investment in ‘fatherhood’ outstrips Bill Mulder’s by some way.
Of course, fatherhood shouldn’t be a competitive sport so much as an act of love. Yet one can’t help but feel that CSM’s attachment to Samantha – and even Fox – is precisely because they are Bill Mulder’s children. There is a sense in which the CSM feels inferior to Mulder, that the father of our hero is much the better man. Does he deserve, then, to be accredited with victory in this battle with Bill Mulder?
As with everything he does, the CSM has ulterior motives. His devotion to Samantha can be explained by his need to have that which belongs to the object of his envy, in this case Bill Mulder, and Jeffrey was to be his own personal Fox – only to hugely disappoint his ‘father’ by falling short of his hopes: “You pale to Fox Mulder”.
The CSM doesn’t want to be a ‘father’ so much as he really wants to be Bill Mulder – or the kind of man his old ‘friend’ is. Scary to think that someone so pathetic gets to wield so much power over others!
Most obviously, a ‘father’ would be a biological function that requires a certain degree of participation, momentary satisfaction but few other demands.
Today, we recognize the ‘father’ as a cultural construct – a set of roles and responsibilities that may vary and change according to the whims of society.
It may be that a ‘father’ is actually both of these things – a biological function which runs the risk of entrapment or, even, a voluntary participation in a cultural construct.
What a culture constructs the idea of a ‘father’ to be is myriad but might include a willingness to stick around long enough to help with the child’s development from infancy through to early adulthood; a contributory role in the financial sustainability of the family; and beneficial physical and emotional interaction with the child.
If this be a bare minimum for an individual to be recognized as ‘father’, it appears the Cigarette Smoking Man beats Bill Mulder in the fatherhood sweepstakes.
The X Files conspiracy is nothing if not confusing.
The members of the Syndicate each made a ‘painful sacrifice’ of a family member: Bill Mulder sacrificed Samantha (thus making himself a candidate for worst father of the year award), while C.G.B. Spender (The CSM) sacrificed his wife, Cassandra – presumably because she was a woman he’d ‘never even loved’. This happened in 1972.
By 1974 both Samantha Mulder and Jeffrey Spender are living with the CSM on April Airforce Base in California. We don’t know when Jeffrey was born or how old he was at the time. We do know that he was twelve when, after he’d returned to his mother, his father finally left. We also know that there is a police report from 1979 matching Samantha’s description. It appears, the CSM was more attached to the daughter that Bill Mulder sacrificed than he was to his own son.
That being said, and despite Samantha’s being experimented on while at April, the CSM’s investment in ‘fatherhood’ outstrips Bill Mulder’s by some way.
Of course, fatherhood shouldn’t be a competitive sport so much as an act of love. Yet one can’t help but feel that CSM’s attachment to Samantha – and even Fox – is precisely because they are Bill Mulder’s children. There is a sense in which the CSM feels inferior to Mulder, that the father of our hero is much the better man. Does he deserve, then, to be accredited with victory in this battle with Bill Mulder?
As with everything he does, the CSM has ulterior motives. His devotion to Samantha can be explained by his need to have that which belongs to the object of his envy, in this case Bill Mulder, and Jeffrey was to be his own personal Fox – only to hugely disappoint his ‘father’ by falling short of his hopes: “You pale to Fox Mulder”.
The CSM doesn’t want to be a ‘father’ so much as he really wants to be Bill Mulder – or the kind of man his old ‘friend’ is. Scary to think that someone so pathetic gets to wield so much power over others!
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