Nobody Talks Like That!

The first official episode of the X-Files has our favourite FBI agents investigating the mysterious disappearance of a military test pilot, one Lt. Col. Robert Buderhas. Having done the rounds of interviewing anyone they can get to speak to, Mulder and Scully, after Buderhas is returned as mysteriously as he disappeared, and after an encounter with National Security in the form of a bunch of guys wearing black, back at their motel, have the following conversation: 

SCULLY: Did you ever stop to think that what we saw was simply an experimental plane. Like the stealth bomber or, this Aurora Project. Doesn't the government have a right and a responsibility, to protect its secrets? 

MULDER: Yes, but at what cost, when does the human cost become too high for the building of a better machine? 

SCULLY: Look, these are questions we have no business asking. 

Darren Mooney, of them0vieblog.com, states bluntly, “That’s not the way that people talk to one another” and uses the dialogue as evidence that Chris Carter was not a very good writer. And Mr. Mooney is entitled to his opinion. 

However, even if his opinion is justified, is it accurate? 

Consider: The X-Files is a TV show. In reality, just how many TV characters speak to each other as real-live human beings do? When was the last time you had a conversation that contained no “erms” or other kinds of pauses? Very few of us hold entire conversations which run quite so fluently as a scripted conversation does on TV. So, the fact that this dialogue between Mulder and Scully is unlike the conversations of real-live people is not, in and of itself, a major criticism. 

Consider: Mulder and Scully are involved in the case of the disappearance of a high-ranking air force officer which is conspiratorially covered-up. Surely, therefore, they are justified in questioning their own actions and those of others? Not a conversation the average person on the street is likely to ever have.  

Consider: It is not a question of whether people actually speak to each other in this way as it is a suggestion that they maybe should – especially those involved in law enforcement and other such occupations which can have such profound consequences on ordinary lives. Maybe if more L.A.P.D. officers stopped to question their actions then fewer African American youths would be shot in the back.  

That this is the first episode of a show that would spend nine years investigating all kinds of weirdness and get itself sunk in the quagmire of an interminable conspiracy. One of the two main characters, Fox Mulder, has given his life over to this search for what he calls “Truth”. The other, Dana Scully, has only recently become involved and most definitely is not as ready to believe in the kind of happenings that Mulder takes for granted. It seems perfectly reasonable, therefore, that some such dialogue as this would occur between the two.  

Of course, in reality, Mulder and Scully only exist for as long as they are on screen each episode. But, beside what we see on the screen, there must be an implied life lived by the characters depicted. One can well imagine the kind of conversations that must occur between two characters with such diametrically opposed views of reality. How could they work so closely together, how could they grow so close to each other – and so quickly - if not for an on-going (but off-screen) existence between episodes? By virtue of the events in which they become embroiled, it is almost inevitable that they actually talk to each other, question each other, contradict each other, in order to more fully understand the parameters of their relationship. At this early stage of their relationship, Scully, whose father is still (at this moment) still a serving officer in the military (US Navy), might well uphold the military’s right to conduct secret tests on developing technology.  

Mulder, of course, is a paranoid conspiracy theorist and totally unwilling to consider such sympathies. Any level of secrecy – military or government – is grist to his mill. What is telling in this conversation is Mulder’s focus on the human cost. It is this side of his character that endears him, even at his most annoying, to the audience. Despite the high stakes, Mulder never loses track of the human costs – as will be witnessed two episodes hence (Conduit) when he never gives up on Ruby Morris, despite her less than exemplary reputation, and in other episodes beyond the first season (Oubliette in Season 3, for instance). This focus of Mulder’s serves to remind us that real lives are at stake and that the greatest threat of the Syndicate and Colonisation is their total disregard for these lives.  

In a sense, this is where Samantha Mulder’s story arc fits into our understanding of Mulder’s obsession. Of course, her disappearance would have such a profound effect upon the whole family. But it is Fox Mulder who carries the burden of not acting in his sister’s defence the night she was taken. He failed to protect Samantha so tries, through the cases of the X-Files, to protect all those others who find themselves under threat from diabolical forces in whatever guise.  

It is easy to see Mulder as a side-lined F.B.I. agent, reduced to a basement office after blowing a promising career. This, I think, would be to misjudge Mulder, to hold him to the standards of the very structures he seeks to resist. Of course, in the eyes of the F.B.I., Mulder must be a great disappointment. We, however, must not see him from their perspective. If we are unable to see Mulder in his true role, then we really are the eyes of the conspiracy, keeping tabs on the comings and goings of the gadfly who persists in being a pest (as alluded to in my previous post).  

Mulder’s role is that of Knight (with, not shining armour, but a shining torch). Mulder is the defender of the defenceless, the rescuer of damsels (and dudes) in distress, the slayer of dragons. Mulder and, of course, Scully are modern day heroes, willing to go to any lengths, sacrifice whatever it takes, and never give up. If they don’t talk like ordinary people, well, that is because they are not ordinary people.