Deconstructing the X-files
Deborah A Tinsley
I'm a thrill seeker so here goes. I was reading an essay "explaining"
structuralism, Derrida and it made me think of TXF especially the
discussions we've been having about continuity and CC following through on
what he's given us so far. I'll try to keep this short and comprehensible,
but I'm making no promises, especially about the latter<g>.
I find myself thinking of TXF as a structure, a system, a language. I think
what happened to me last week when I became so frustrated with the show was
for some reason or another, I suddenly wanted TXF to explain everything,
give me some resolution. A natural desire I suppose but not what TXF has
built it's house upon.
The beauty of TXF is that its meaning comes from the very nature of its
flaws. There is no such thing as a perfect system, or structure-- there is
no "The Truth", but that doesn't mean there is not meaning or value in TXF.
It only means it's more realistic in it's conception than series that
purport to give us "The Truth". There can be no "The Truth" because the
truth is made up of a million little truths, because everything is in
motion and flux. Like Dreamland, what is true one moment is no longer true
the next. Mulder has a waterbed. No he doesn't. Both are true. Both are
false.
TXF is mythopoetic, not rational. It doesn't have to be overly concerned
with coherence or continuity because it provides elements within it's
structure that allows us endless play with its meanings. The proof is in
all the different interpretations we have not only for each season, each
episode, some scenes, but for a glance, a gesture, a word. It's structure
is fluid. If parts don't fit, we don't throw it all out. We play with it,
turn it over, upside down and backwards. We bend it or bring in something
from our own imagination to make it work-- to tell the story.
Last week I wanted the Romance to conform to a structure I wanted to see. I
became rigid in my vision. The pieces didn't fit. The center would not
hold. It was reassurance of a kind I was after I suppose, a reinforcement
of old, favorite models-- a kind of nostalgia for the past, a return to
simpler times, for fixity in meaning.. But those tried and true, set in
stone, patterns are not part of the X-Files universe. The X-files universe
is relative and ambiguous, and that is where it finds its power.
--
Deborah
co...@my-dejanews.com
Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> snippage>
>
> The beauty of TXF is that its meaning comes from the very nature of its
> flaws. There is no such thing as a perfect system, or structure-- there is
> no "The Truth", but that doesn't mean there is not meaning or value in TXF.
> It only means it's more realistic in it's conception than series that
>
> TXF is mythopoetic, not rational. It doesn't have to be overly concerned
> with coherence or continuity because it provides elements within it's
> structure that allows us endless play with its meanings. The proof is in
> all the different interpretations we have not only for each season, each
> episode, some scenes, but for a glance, a gesture, a word. It's structure
> is fluid. If parts don't fit, we don't throw it all out. We play with it,
> turn it over, upside down and backwards. We bend it or bring in something
> from our own imagination to make it work-- to tell the story.
Yes! I've been thinking about this too - what I see in TXF is an attempt,
more than any other TV show I've ever seen, to really bring the watcher in as
part of the story-telling. There is narrative, but it's incomplete, and the
viewer *has to participate* in the construction of the narrative in order to
be satisfied. This seems to me an example of older forms of story-telling
than we usually get in the 20thC, where there is little allowance for
ambiguity or subtlety (Spielberg comes to mind), and where the storyteller
supplies all the answers, whether the watcher agrees with them or not. (I
mention Spielberg because that was one of my major problems with Hook - he
took out all the magic but showing us *everything*.) Back to TXF.
In no other tv show (and few popular novels too) would, say, that one scene
between Mulder & Diana at the end of One Son have received, and merited, so
much analysis. If any other show had done such a pivotal scene involving a
lead character, his motivations would never have been so opaque, or at least
would have been clarified no later than the next episode. But CC just left
it out there, for us to deal with - so we do, each to our own satisfaction,
to match our needs or expectations for Mulder. [OK, maybe Homicide would do
it - but they'd clarify it at some point, as continuity seems to be king on
that show.]
One of the things I'm really liking about TXF (I'm a relatively new fan) is
that even when there is some sort of closure, it usually isn't the type of
closure that tv usually gives us. M&S don't solve the mystery/bring the
killer to justice/come up with the answers. And yet they're still the
heroes. There is more going on here than just man-versus-x conflict, though
there is that too. The triumphs are in just surviving with integrity intact,
however bruised.
hmm. I could keep going, but I am actually supposed to be working.
Thoughts? Or am I merely parrotting what's already been discussed here?
OT note - somebody said there's a plan afoot to take over
alt.tv.buffy-v-slayer. Please. Do. Save them from themselves.
later-
Connie Callahan
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Deborah A Tinsley
co...@my-dejanews.com wrote in article <7d9092$i3p$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <01be7419$afc23f60$44ba...@spam.oemcomputer>,
snip
Connie I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to wade
through my original post and reply. I'm just beginning to play around with
stuff and am dying for feedback! I hoped someone else had been ruminating
over this kind of stuff.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
> Yes! I've been thinking about this too - what I see in TXF is an
attempt,
> more than any other TV show I've ever seen, to really bring the watcher
in as
> part of the story-telling. There is narrative, but it's incomplete, and
the
> viewer *has to participate* in the construction of the narrative in order
to
> be satisfied. This seems to me an example of older forms of story-telling
> than we usually get in the 20thC, where there is little allowance for
> ambiguity or subtlety (Spielberg comes to mind), and where the
storyteller
> supplies all the answers, whether the watcher agrees with them or not. (I
> mention Spielberg because that was one of my major problems with Hook -
he
> took out all the magic but showing us *everything*.) Back to TXF.
I love the way you've summed this up. I've been mixing the mythic qualities
of TXF with the aspects that reveal a deconstructivist slant on story
telling. My knowledge and experience in both these fields of analysis is
limited, but I'm very enthusiastic : ).
TXF really is in many ways a min-universe of its own. 1013 has developed a
very individual way of telling the story. It's not so much that the
structure of their story telling is so unique (except for their reliance on
ambiguity and the fact they feel no compunction about leaving us dangling),
but unlike other dramas the information we have to go on comes from the
characters memories, dreams and other unprovable events. We cannot rely on
seeing to provide us enough information just as Mulder and Scully cannot.
I'm saying this badly I know.
For example-- think of everything Mulder has seen and what good has it done
him. He saw it but seeing was not enough if he had no tangible evidence
(Folie a Deux is a great example). In fact, in some stories, what he saw
wasn't what he thought he saw (Paper Hearts is classic). Scully, who does
not rely on seeing but on evidence and science is the one who makes a dent
in the patriarchal structure of the FBI and the Syndicate. Mulder's genius
comes in the form of his dreams, his memories, his intuition, that facility
for putting things together without consciously being aware. Scully taps
into that power by her faith in him. Even when she doesn't believe, her
faith in Mulder enable her to prevail (HTGSC is a great recent example).
This is so different from every other TV show where what you see is what
you get, information is dominated by what they show us. On TXF what they
don't show us is sometimes more important. The monsters are always more
frightening when we barely see them. Consider the creature of The Host vs
the coffeeground monster in Arcadia -- less is really more. CSM was a much
more powerful figure in my imagination before Musing of CSM and the recent
revelations in One Son.
Well I could go on and on because my thoughts are not fully formed, but I
hope someone will take a stab at deciphering these thoughts enough to
comment. I know its probably pretty boring to most of you--mostly because
I'm doing such a bad job of putting these ideas into a coherent form, which
is why I'd love some input. Maybe kickstart my brain a little.
snip
> hmm. I could keep going, but I am actually supposed to be working.
> Thoughts? Or am I merely parrotting what's already been discussed here?
snip
Not at all. I loved your comments Connie.
Deborah
Chevrefoil
certainly the most profitable approach to take when "reading" TXF, but the
detractors of deconstruction do have a point when they complain that, taken to
extremes, it makes qualitative judgments impossible. If a signifier -- be it a
word, image or gesture -- can be a symbol only of an absence, meaning becomes
nothing more than a matter of willful self-delusion, and therefore all "texts"
are created equal in their fundamental meaninglessness. And so one may find
oneself faced with the depressing, but theoretically sound, proposition that
Paper Hearts and Teso dos Bichos have equal merit. That just ain't right. <g>
Certainly, TXF is not your mother's narrative, and for the most part that's
been a good thing. But sometimes its fluid, "mythopoetic" (I love that word)
nature seems to function as a built-in excuse for the dumb stuff that happens
through inattention or egomania or creative inability or simply from not having
enough time to do it right. For instance:
>In no other tv show (and few popular novels too) would, say, that one scene
>between Mulder & Diana at the end of One Son have received, and merited, so
>much analysis. If any other show had done such a pivotal scene
involving a
>lead character, his motivations would never have been so opaque, or at least
>would have been clarified no later than the next episode. But CC just left
>it out there, for us to deal with - so we do, each to our own satisfaction,
>to match our needs or expectations for Mulder.
This *should* have been a pivotal scene, but it's precisely Mulder's opacity
(although I prefer the term "density") that prevents it from being so. And
CC's failure to resolve the M/F/S issue is more readily explained as bad
writing or, my guess, as an indication that he intends to pursue this cheesy
plotline in future episodes, than as a deliberate exercise in non-rational
storytelling. Sometimes Ockham, not Derrida, applies.
Chev
========================
JESUS LOVES YOU.
Everyone else thinks you're an asshole.
Magpie
>
>> Yes! I've been thinking about this too - what I see in TXF is an
>attempt,
>> more than any other TV show I've ever seen, to really bring the watcher
>in as
>> part of the story-telling. There is narrative, but it's incomplete, and
>the
>> viewer *has to participate* in the construction of the narrative in order
>to
>> be satisfied. This seems to me an example of older forms of story-telling
>> than we usually get in the 20thC, where there is little allowance for
>> ambiguity or subtlety (Spielberg comes to mind), and where the
>storyteller
>> supplies all the answers, whether the watcher agrees with them or not. (I
>> mention Spielberg because that was one of my major problems with Hook -
>he
>> took out all the magic but showing us *everything*.) Back to TXF.
>TXF really is in many ways a min-universe of its own. 1013 has developed a
>very individual way of telling the story. It's not so much that the
>structure of their story telling is so unique (except for their reliance on
>ambiguity and the fact they feel no compunction about leaving us dangling),
>but unlike other dramas the information we have to go on comes from the
>characters memories, dreams and other unprovable events. We cannot rely on
>seeing to provide us enough information just as Mulder and Scully cannot.
>I'm saying this badly I know.
>
>For example-- think of everything Mulder has seen and what good has it done
>him. He saw it but seeing was not enough if he had no tangible evidence
>(Folie a Deux is a great example). In fact, in some stories, what he saw
>wasn't what he thought he saw (Paper Hearts is classic). Scully, who does
>not rely on seeing but on evidence and science is the one who makes a dent
>in the patriarchal structure of the FBI and the Syndicate. Mulder's genius
>comes in the form of his dreams, his memories, his intuition, that facility
>for putting things together without consciously being aware. Scully taps
>into that power by her faith in him. Even when she doesn't believe, her
>faith in Mulder enable her to prevail (HTGSC is a great recent example).
>
>This is so different from every other TV show where what you see is what
>you get, information is dominated by what they show us.
And another unique thing about TXF is the way they really (and I mean
REALLY) play around with POV. Almost every episode has sections with
an obviously unreliable narrator. First we believed Mulder's memories
of Sam's abduction in Conduit, and so did he. Then we saw a different
version in LGM, which was backed up by the Sam clone in C/EG. (It's
strange to watch Conduit now--everything seems so much more innocent;
we were all just beginning the journey then) In most shows one would
assume that the LGM version had to be the truth because we "saw" it, but
not on TXF. It's still a memory, so it can't be more than a clue. All
the memories are true, even as they change.
Not that it matters, exactly.:) Mulder's memories (and Scully's too)
evolve as they are ready to evolve. The truth has always been there
inside both of them, if they could just remember it. So there's a
feeling with the whole show that the truth is right there, all around
them. They search outward and inward at the same time, and we as the
audience do that along with them, I think.
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
Chevrefoil <chevr...@aol.com> wrote in article
<19990323195757...@ng123.aol.com>...
> I enjoy post-structuralist theory as much as the next person, and it's
> certainly the most profitable approach to take when "reading" TXF, but
the
> detractors of deconstruction do have a point when they complain that,
taken to
> extremes, it makes qualitative judgments impossible. If a signifier --
be it a
> word, image or gesture -- can be a symbol only of an absence, meaning
becomes
> nothing more than a matter of willful self-delusion, and therefore all
"texts"
> are created equal in their fundamental meaninglessness. And so one may
find
> oneself faced with the depressing, but theoretically sound, proposition
that
> Paper Hearts and Teso dos Bichos have equal merit. That just ain't right.
<g>
No. It isn't right.
But you are only speaking to one branch of the post-structuralists. They
see meaning and value only coming from the difference (differance)-- you
know what something is by what it is not. Therefore women are defined as
"not men" and women only exist as words. We only know what we can express
in binary concepts: men/women; light/dark; etc. (with the dominant trait
coming before the slash). That's their description for how language works.
I say: Bah phooey! There is the paradoxical quality within this theory.
Language is only a structure, a system, and once we recognize that this
system is flawed, we can still use it. We have to use it.
We recognize that language as a form of communication is flawed, but it
can still be useful. I like Derrida's sense of play, the fluidity between
the symbolic and the semiotic. The structure is flawed and unstable which
means it has play built into it. If we disregard the purity or stability of
the structure, we can still use it to get the job done, to tell the story.
Some of the parts may be broken, but we don't throw it all out. We keep
playing with it and even bring in an element not originally part of the
system to make it work (this is where I see it truly paralleling TXF).
Julia Kristeva hasn't given into the despair of value and meaning you
describe. She finds meaning in the oscillation between the symbol and the
semiotic. I love that description. I can almost see meaning fuming between
the words and images.
What I am doing is not necessarily embracing the whole philosophy of
Foucault, Lacan or Derrida (actually I don't know enough about them to do
that), but rather using some of their ideas, the ones I find meaningful and
applicable to open up my own understanding of TXF. I don't know how to
speak without language, not in this way. As I begin to understand the
limitations and biases of the language, understand it as a system and not
as the truth, I am also finding my way into and around it. I don't know how
write Cixous' "l'ecriture feminine", but I love the concept-- writing with
the body-- mother's milk as opposed to the straight-line, linearity of the
penis. As Cixous says, "Everything doesn't have to make sense." (which
makes her writing very difficult to understand at times <g>).
> Certainly, TXF is not your mother's narrative, and for the most part
that's
> been a good thing. But sometimes its fluid, "mythopoetic" (I love that
word)
> nature seems to function as a built-in excuse for the dumb stuff that
happens
> through inattention or egomania or creative inability or simply from not
having
> enough time to do it right. For instance:
I contend some of the meaning, the power of the myth is exactly because TXF
is not in the control of the Company (CC and 1013 and Fox). Look at the way
the relationship took off against CC's will. He fought it for years, but it
came through anyway as one of the most powerful aspects of the story. CC
and Company do not consciously imbue this series with all the things we
find in it. They aren't capable of that. No one is. Its mythopoetic quality
comes precisely because they do not control every aspect.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <36f8...@news1.us.ibm.net>...snip
> REALLY) play around with POV. Almost every episode has sections with
> an obviously unreliable narrator. First we believed Mulder's memories
> of Sam's abduction in Conduit, and so did he. Then we saw a different
> version in LGM, which was backed up by the Sam clone in C/EG. (It's
> strange to watch Conduit now--everything seems so much more innocent;
> we were all just beginning the journey then) In most shows one would
> assume that the LGM version had to be the truth because we "saw" it, but
> not on TXF. It's still a memory, so it can't be more than a clue. All
> the memories are true, even as they change.
Yes, I find this fascinating. We all learned pov in literature, but many
times it was hard to disengage from the teller of the story. At least it
was for me. I related so many times to the narrator and considered that
view to be the most truthful, the one I was supposed to believe in. But
with TXF we can't be sure. We see what Mulder sees, but we are inside
Mulder often vulnerable to the same delusions or versions or repressions of
his history as he is. Conduit/LGM is a great example, and then later we get
the Paper Hearts Version and additional details in Demons-- all of which
may or may not be true.
Scully's experiences in S5 are fascinating because she has her doubts that
what she sees or remembers may not be true. All Souls is about her working
through what she has seen and her self-conscious knowledge that her
experiences with Emily and trauma from her abduction/rape have shaped her
"vision". She totally believes her memories after her regression hypnosis
in TR&TB at first and then comes to doubt them in part because of Mulder's
doubt.
I love this kind of play with perception and truth.
> Not that it matters, exactly.:) Mulder's memories (and Scully's too)
> evolve as they are ready to evolve. The truth has always been there
> inside both of them, if they could just remember it. So there's a
> feeling with the whole show that the truth is right there, all around
> them. They search outward and inward at the same time, and we as the
> audience do that along with them, I think.
>
> -m
Yes, and I think this is a perfect model for what truth is. Mulder's belief
in Conduit was true and his slightly different memory in LGM is also true.
Even his memory from Paper Hearts has some truth to it, but it is fleeting,
only of the moment until he comes to the truth he must face in that episode
about himself, his sister, how dangerous total immersion in his quest can
be for the innocent, how essential Scully's friendship and loyalty are to
him. He learns a very important truth in that episode. So even though the
killer's delusions were a lie, they brought him to a truth.
Deborah
Magpie
>
>Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <36f8...@news1.us.ibm.net>...
>I love this kind of play with perception and truth.
>
>> Not that it matters, exactly.:) Mulder's memories (and Scully's too)
>> evolve as they are ready to evolve. The truth has always been there
>> inside both of them, if they could just remember it. So there's a
>> feeling with the whole show that the truth is right there, all around
>> them. They search outward and inward at the same time, and we as the
>> audience do that along with them, I think.
>Yes, and I think this is a perfect model for what truth is. Mulder's belief
>in Conduit was true and his slightly different memory in LGM is also true.
>Even his memory from Paper Hearts has some truth to it, but it is fleeting,
>only of the moment until he comes to the truth he must face in that episode
>about himself, his sister, how dangerous total immersion in his quest can
>be for the innocent, how essential Scully's friendship and loyalty are to
>him. He learns a very important truth in that episode. So even though the
>killer's delusions were a lie, they brought him to a truth.
This just reminded me of one of my absolute favorite children's authors
Diana Wynne Jones. She's hard to describe because her imagination is
totally unique--but when you're in her world, she's in complete control
of everything, no matter how strange it gets (she's written adult stuff
too, btw, but I just love her younger fiction!).
Anyway, she is a master at this kind of truth-shifting. In _Hexwood_ we
find out halfway through the book that the character we thought was our
main character is really another character, but she just forgot. The
world we thought was "normal" was an illusion (sort of).
And in my favorite of her books, a YA called _Fire & Hemlock_ the book
starts with Polly home from Oxford flipping through an old book of
short stories. As she reads them, they strike her as strange; she
remembers the book differently. You know how common that feeling is?
Where you pick up something from years ago and you've remembered it
wrong? Only that starts Polly realizing that she's been remembering
the past 9 years of her life wrong. For instance, the girl she thought
she had barely spoken to since she was 10 is really one of her best
friends. Unfortunately, everyone else still "believes the lie" so
it's up to Polly to rescue the man she really cares about (the story's
inspired by Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer).
I think I'll have to read F&H again with TXF in mind. DWJ must love
the show. I just realized how many of her characters suddenly remember
that they are gods halfway through the story.:) Mulder would understand.
-m
GBolt60636
comes in the form of his dreams, his memories, his intuition, that facility
for putting things together without consciously being aware. Scully taps
into that power by her faith in him. >>
This is a wonderful thread everyone. Like a drink of cool water on a hot, dry
day.
I'm not even going to attempt to discuss literature or philosophy <g>, but the
above comment by Deborah touches on something I have been mulling over in my
own mind lately, and I don't think it is unrelated. I speak from a fine arts
background so my references will naturally be art related, so bear with me
please. But Mulder's intuitive abilities, his genius as Deborah calls it,
strikes me strongly as similar to that of an artist. In making art you don't
necessarily think in linear terms, but allow your mind to be open to influences
from all around you, and that includes memory. I was just discussing with a
painter how strange it was the way images from your life can settle down into
your subconscious only to float up into awareness in the most unexpected ways
and forms. Mulder's willingness to give the same credence to his "intuitions"
as he does to hard evidence reminds me of the trust an artist places in these
unconscious influences. You remain open to your "visions." And unlike emperical
science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular and true
perception of reality.
XF is a narrative structure, but it is part and parcel of a visual medium, and
as Mulder relies on his intuitions to reveal truth, I think TXF relies on the
emotional power of the "image" to relate narrative. I don't think the two can
be separated. It's also, I think, why some stories fall flat, because sometimes
the image is not strong enough to carry us over the lapses in narrative or
logic, and why the most successful stories (for me at least) are those where
the words and image meld successfully. Like Deborah, I'm in the initial stages
of forming my ideas along these lines so the above may be a bit confused.
GB
dtin...@gvi.net
I was looking for. I am not conversant enough in all this "theory" to discuss
it in depth. As I said, I'm just taking the ideas that resonate with me and
sort of reconstructing my own ideas built on those ideas. The only reason I
cite any of the philosophers is to acknowledge that the original ideas are
not my own.
In article <19990324092951...@ng-fs1.aol.com>,
gbolt...@aol.com (GBolt60636) wrote:
> << Mulder's genius
> comes in the form of his dreams, his memories, his intuition, that facility
> for putting things together without consciously being aware. Scully taps
> into that power by her faith in him. >>
>
> This is a wonderful thread everyone. Like a drink of cool water on a hot, dry
> day.
This is great. I love it that out of all my bumbling around you picked a lucid
quote from my post. This kind of feedback gives me an idea when I'm on to
something and can communicate it and when I'm just shooting in the dark.
> I'm not even going to attempt to discuss literature or philosophy <g>,
Thank goodness! I'm sure everyone is quite tired of my ramblings.
snip
>I speak from a fine arts background
Me too.
> Mulder's intuitive abilities, his genius as Deborah calls it,
> strikes me strongly as similar to that of an artist. In making art you don't
> necessarily think in linear terms, but allow your mind to be open to influences
> from all around you, and that includes memory. I was just discussing with a
> painter how strange it was the way images from your life can settle down into
> your subconscious only to float up into awareness in the most unexpected ways
> and forms. Mulder's willingness to give the same credence to his "intuitions"
> as he does to hard evidence reminds me of the trust an artist places in these
> unconscious influences. You remain open to your "visions."
I actually, as with many artists, do not think this is a choice. The way he
perceives is actually different. His brain organizes and prioritizes
information in a different way. Look at S5 when he tried to turn his back on
his memories and dreams. He was miserable and blind. He nearly freaked out
(Folie A Deux). Do you think that "bug" from FaD would have driven him to the
brink in S3 or S4? In S5 he was determined to turn his back on that -- he has
a great speech from The Red and The Black where he says if he heard one more
anal-probing, alien abduction story he was going to shoot someone. (Of course
Mulder was never abducted himself! At one time, early in the series, I think
he actually had some envy for those who had expereinced direct contact with
aliens. After his belly- bustin' experiences in FTF, I think he's over that
<g>.)
And unlike emperical
> science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular and true
> perception of reality.
That's what got me into the post-structuralists, deconstructivists and
linguists! That and TXF. For some reason, once I started analyzing TXF, the
philosophy came easier for me--hence my enthusiasm.
> XF is a narrative structure, but it is part and parcel of a visual medium, and
> as Mulder relies on his intuitions to reveal truth, I think TXF relies on the
> emotional power of the "image" to relate narrative. I don't think the two can
> be separated. It's also, I think, why some stories fall flat, because sometimes
> the image is not strong enough to carry us over the lapses in narrative or
> logic, and why the most successful stories (for me at least) are those where
> the words and image meld successfully.
Great point! I have often argued for the lucidity of TXF images over its
narrative. I am much less bothered by plot holes and inconsistencies than
many of the posters on this list (and we quarrel so!). What I begin to see is
an interesting parallel between Mulder & Scully and the viewers. M&S must
rely on their dreams, memories and faith and in a way, we must rely on these
unconscious elements as well. In the thread on whether TXF has ruined us for
other dramas a poster said TXF wasn't that great of a drama, unlike NYPD Blue
or ER. My reply was, even if that was true, I don't dream about those other
shows. They don't touch me, get inside me the way TXF does.
Like Deborah, I'm in the initial stages
> of forming my ideas along these lines so the above may be a bit confused.
>
> GB
Vive la confusion! Out of confusion comes some very creative ideas. I really
enjoyed your reply.
Deborah
ABauer7333
<<We recognize that language as a form of communication is flawed, but it
can still be useful. I like Derrida's sense of play, the fluidity between
the symbolic and the semiotic. The structure is flawed and unstable which
means it has play built into it. If we disregard the purity or stability of
the structure, we can still use it to get the job done, to tell the story.
Some of the parts may be broken, but we don't throw it all out. We keep
playing with it and even bring in an element not originally part of the
system to make it work (this is where I see it truly paralleling TXF).>>
I think that TXF rewards reading through a number of post-structuralist lenses.
But I must confess I'm a Lacanian (not filtered through feminist theory, but
open to it). I find the particular truth addressed in the best eps is a
psychoanlytic truth; this reading also goes the distance in explaining how
utterly involving TXF is as a "text." So to would deconstructionst and
reader-response readings. But to me the central mysteries of the show--as well
as the multiple POV--represent extremely compelling narratives of desire
endlessly deferred (not in the Derridean sense) and circling about--thus
highlighting--the Real. So I have my own "model" for when TXF works and when
it doesn't, whether a particular writer seems to "get it" or doesn't, what
constitutes a "dumb accident" and what functions as an important signifier in
th XF universe. Of course you may argue, I have a more convenient out than
even the deconstructionists: it matters little whether CC planned it that way
or not. since he was smart enough to leave the narrative "holes" where he did.
Magpie
><< Mulder's genius
>comes in the form of his dreams, his memories, his intuition, that facility
>for putting things together without consciously being aware. Scully taps
>into that power by her faith in him. >>
>
>This is a wonderful thread everyone. Like a drink of cool water on a hot, dry
>day.
And your post has got my mind haring off on something too..
>
>I'm not even going to attempt to discuss literature or philosophy <g>, but the
>above comment by Deborah touches on something I have been mulling over in my
>own mind lately, and I don't think it is unrelated. I speak from a fine arts
>background so my references will naturally be art related, so bear with me
>please. But Mulder's intuitive abilities, his genius as Deborah calls it,
>strikes me strongly as similar to that of an artist. In making art you don't
>necessarily think in linear terms, but allow your mind to be open to influences
>from all around you, and that includes memory. I was just discussing with a
>painter how strange it was the way images from your life can settle down into
>your subconscious only to float up into awareness in the most unexpected ways
>and forms. Mulder's willingness to give the same credence to his "intuitions"
>as he does to hard evidence reminds me of the trust an artist places in these
>unconscious influences. You remain open to your "visions." And unlike emperical
>science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular and true
>perception of reality.
I agree, but I'd like to hear if there are any scientists who also
work this way. It seems like an Einstein would work very differently
from a Scully--didn't he once say the theory of relativity came to him
in a dream?
Besides that, this made me think about why Mulder is more comfortable
working this way than Scully. There's a book by Anne LaMott where
she describes a trick writers use (I know I do) where you give a name to
your intuition (or genius or whatever you want to call it). She calls her's
her broccoli. By doing this, it's easier to access it because you're
distanced from it. Rather than having to rely on yourself for answers,
you ask your brocolli. Your mind is free to give you the answer that
way. But you do exactly what gbolt describes artists as doing...when
you want to know what you're going to do next you kind of looking
into your mind and see what answer floats to the surface (like a
magic 8 ball??).
I suspect Mulder is very in touch with his brocolli but Scully has not
named hers. She can't say for sure where her "hunches" come from, so
is insecure about following them unless she has evidence to back them
up. I wonder if part of this comes from their different childhoods.
Mulder's been very alone since he was 12 (maybe even before that, if
you count his story of waking up in the middle of the night in Aubrey).
I think he got good at filling the empty spaces with people. Scully
grew up with a lot of kids always around, so she may have gone inside
herself to be alone. I have no idea what it would be like to be in
Scully's childhood-situation, so feel free to tell me what it's
really like.
When we see Scully alone, she's usually doing something: cleaning her
gun, taking a bath, washing her dog. Mulder is often staring into
space (beyond the tv). Both of them are "in their heads" in
these scenes, but I suspect that the inside of Scully's head looks
a lot like the outside world and Mulder's head looks more like a
Maurice Sendak book, filled with characters he's created right along
with real people in his life.
I don't know how this ties in with the discussion, but the brocolli
thing really seems like the writer parallel to the artist's
methods.
>XF is a narrative structure, but it is part and parcel of a visual medium, and
>as Mulder relies on his intuitions to reveal truth, I think TXF relies on the
>emotional power of the "image" to relate narrative. I don't think the two can
>be separated. It's also, I think, why some stories fall flat, because sometimes
>the image is not strong enough to carry us over the lapses in narrative or
>logic, and why the most successful stories (for me at least) are those where
>the words and image meld successfully. Like Deborah, I'm in the initial stages
>of forming my ideas along these lines so the above may be a bit confused.
I definitely think this is the way 1013 works. You can really tell
when the images and the story don't support each other. It reminds
me of when Twin Peaks was on, and you could tell with the first shot
if David Lynch directed it, because the images formed a strong
narrative (even if you didn't know exactly what it was saying:).
When other directors tried to imitate the style, you felt like
you were getting a lot of images that meant nothing to distract
you.
Did this add anything, or am I just babbling?:-/
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
> gbolt...@aol.com (GBolt60636) wrote:
snip
>> But Mulder's intuitive abilities, his genius as Deborah calls it,
> >strikes me strongly as similar to that of an artist. In making art you
don't
> >necessarily think in linear terms, but allow your mind to be open to
influences
> >from all around you, and that includes memory. I was just discussing
with a
> >painter how strange it was the way images from your life can settle down
into
> >your subconscious only to float up into awareness in the most unexpected
ways
> >and forms. Mulder's willingness to give the same credence to his
"intuitions"
> >as he does to hard evidence reminds me of the trust an artist places in
these
> >unconscious influences. You remain open to your "visions." And unlike
emperical
> >science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular
and true
> >perception of reality.
>
> I agree, but I'd like to hear if there are any scientists who also
> work this way. It seems like an Einstein would work very differently
> from a Scully--didn't he once say the theory of relativity came to him
> in a dream?
I think in higher mathematics and quantum physics, in Chaos theory,
intuition becomes very important. I am completely out of my element here,
but I've heard and read a little that has made me think that while those
sciences have their basis in very definite skills, training in logic and
the rules and laws of the field, you can come to a point when you must go
beyond. But this is entirely out of my hat. Some one more knowledgeable
will have to answer.
snip
> Rather than having to rely on yourself for answers,
> you ask your brocolli. Your mind is free to give you the answer that
> way. But you do exactly what gbolt describes artists as doing...when
> you want to know what you're going to do next you kind of looking
> into your mind and see what answer floats to the surface (like a
> magic 8 ball??).
This is an interesting idea! I don't quite understand how it works.
Wouldn't I still know it was my mind and not my broccoli?<g> Help me
Magpie!
> I suspect Mulder is very in touch with his brocolli but Scully has not
> named hers. She can't say for sure where her "hunches" come from, so
> is insecure about following them unless she has evidence to back them
> up.
But I think Scully is actually more trusting in her faith than Mulder--at
least since S5. Look at Beyond the Sea for the early roots of this. In the
end, Scully just trusts her father, trusts that he loves her no matter
their differences or inability to communicate. Poor Mulder grew up not
trusting his family, not trusting his father (with good reason). Scully may
not always believe Mulder but she does seem to trust him most of the time,
at least pre S5 and post S5. That in part was what The Beginning was about.
Scully doesn't, can't, won't trust just what she sees (and she didn't
remember most of it anyway). For a lot of reasons, she has to have more.
This has always been who she is, but Mulder loses faith in her for a bit
because she won't simply believe him. She trusts him but she often
interprets the data he brings to her in a very different way. Mulder is the
one who loses faith, loses faith in Scully because he's never had anyone in
his life he could trust even when things got rough till Scully came in his
life. So in times of ultimate stress, he feels abandoned. She knows him and
knows to remind him that it's about trust-- his trust in her.
So while Mulder is better able to use his intuitive power and wonderful
brain to pull together the puzzle even when pieces are missing, he has
shown an inability to keep the faith in himself and in others. This is
where Scully's strength, her belief in his conviction and his integrity,
gives her an edge to keep the faith.
I think during S6 Mulder finally came to understand that (even though I
don't quite know how to explain what happened between them in One
Son--Scully lost faith in Mulder's trust of Diana Fowley). I don't know.
Those of you with a better understanding or at least a different one from
mine can perhaps explain this better.
I wonder if part of this comes from their different childhoods.
> Mulder's been very alone since he was 12 (maybe even before that, if
> you count his story of waking up in the middle of the night in Aubrey).
And don't forget the nightmares that woke him. There was also a dream he
related in that episode where the retarded twin was being controlled by his
brother ,"the cryogenically preserved brain". I haven't seen it in awhile,
but it was something about being in a pool of water. He could see his
father under the water and couldn't get to him. Another man was frightening
him and he wanted to leave, but couldn't find his father. I sometimes lose
sight in all the stuff about the Syndicate and the conspiracy how personal
all this was for Mulder and how in the beginning, it wasn't so personal for
Scully.
> I think he got good at filling the empty spaces with people. Scully
> grew up with a lot of kids always around, so she may have gone inside
> herself to be alone. I have no idea what it would be like to be in
> Scully's childhood-situation, so feel free to tell me what it's
> really like.
And his loneliness was exacerbated by the shadow over the whole Mulder
clan.
snip
>Did this add anything, or am I just babbling?:-/
>
> -m
No, you aren't babbling, but I'm starting to <g>.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
<19990324145703...@ng-cg1.aol.com>...
> I have been hopping from TXF site to stie looking for commentary like
this.
> <<We recognize that language as a form of communication is flawed, but
it
> can still be useful. I like Derrida's sense of play, the fluidity between
> the symbolic and the semiotic. The structure is flawed and unstable which
> means it has play built into it. If we disregard the purity or stability
of
> the structure, we can still use it to get the job done, to tell the
story.
> Some of the parts may be broken, but we don't throw it all out. We keep
> playing with it and even bring in an element not originally part of the
> system to make it work (this is where I see it truly paralleling TXF).>>
Be gentle with me. I'm a neophyte, but a fascinated neophyte. I understand
some of the concepts, but I get my philosophers mixed up at times. I know
Lacan is more into the psychology, esp. Freud. I haven't read much Lacan,
but I have read a little Zizek (who endlessly quotes Lacan). I got into
Zizek because he wrote a book, "Everything you wanted to ask Lacan but were
afraid to ask Hitchcock". When I started running into terminology I wasn't
familiar with, I began searching for those meanings and that led to
Saussare, which led to Derrida, which led to Kristeva, etc., etc. I just
discovered the French feminists (they always kind of intimidated me
before), and have just dipped my toe into their pool. I am mostly reading
essays explaining these folks instead of reading the original texts which I
still find rather impenetrable.
> I think that TXF rewards reading through a number of post-structuralist
lenses.
> But I must confess I'm a Lacanian (not filtered through feminist theory,
but
> open to it). I find the particular truth addressed in the best eps is a
> psychoanlytic truth; this reading also goes the distance in explaining
how
> utterly involving TXF is as a "text." So to would deconstructionst and
> reader-response readings. But to me the central mysteries of the
show--as well
> as the multiple POV--represent extremely compelling narratives of desire
> endlessly deferred (not in the Derridean sense) and circling about--thus
> highlighting--the Real.
This sounds very interesting. I'd love if you could give an example to help
me understand what you mean. I sort of know in general, but something more
finite would help my poor brain.
So I have my own "model" for when TXF works and when
> it doesn't, whether a particular writer seems to "get it" or doesn't,
what
> constitutes a "dumb accident" and what functions as an important
signifier in
> th XF universe. Of course you may argue, I have a more convenient out
than
> even the deconstructionists: it matters little whether CC planned it
that way
> or not. since he was smart enough to leave the narrative "holes" where
he did.
I find this aspect absolutely fascinating. How much is intentional? How
much can even be intentional? The very fact that it all comes together is
enough to make me rethink alchemy. Do 1013, CC or the writers see what we
are seeing here or is this kind of structural, psychoanalytic, semiotic,
linguistic analysis so apropos because TXF is a product of the times, a
seminal product of the times?
Deborah
Chevrefoil
>But you are only speaking to one branch of the post-structuralists. They
>see meaning and value only coming from the difference (differance)-- you
>know what something is by what it is not. Therefore women are defined as
>"not men" and women only exist as words. We only know what we can express
>in binary concepts: men/women; light/dark; etc.
Actually, these binary oppositions belong more to classical structuralism, as I
understand it. Deconstruction, at least the Derridean version, tries to
collapse the opposition and show how such seemingly antithetical terms inhere
within each other -- a condition that's evident in the double-meaning of the
unassuming virgule, which can be used to indicate both opposition (man/woman)
and union (Mulder/Scully). Come to think of it, the M/S could be the poster
"couple" for post-structuralism: apparent opposites who are, in fact,
inescapably implicated in one another, and whose opposition can be maintained
only through the imposition of an ideology, the Rule of the Father, Chris
Carter.
>I contend some of the meaning, the power of the myth is exactly because TXF
>is not in the control of the Company (CC and 1013 and Fox).
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that TXF myth has always
been a hybrid narrative: ambiguous, fluid, contradictory and non-rational, yet
punctuated by sometimes mind-numbing, bombastic exposition -- the Father
again, trying to regain control. Unfortunately, these two modes suffered a
head-on collision in the 2F/1S debacle, and I'm not sure either survived. The
quest motif was unceremoniously aborted in favor of an authoritative
pronouncement (I'm surprised CSM wasn't carrying stone tablets), a
pronouncement utterly lacking both dramatic and emotional resonance and which
rendered both itself and Mulder and Scully irrelevant.
Aack. Now I'm pissed off at Carter again (I'm sure that keeps him awake
nights.) Time to play with my TinkyWinky and decompress.
Chevrefoil
> I used One Son because it seemed a good example, but perhaps the
>ambiguity was too close to poor writing. How about the end of Redux II where
>there
>isn't any one explanation for Scully's cancer going into remission?
That works a lot better for me since I consider One Son to be one of the most
poorly written episodes ever.
>I still think
>that much of the ambiguity is purposeful rather than lazy
I think it was mostly purposeful up through Paper Clip. Since then, I've been
inclined to go with the lazy theory.
>So my sense of chronology is skewed at best,
Rest assured, it's nowhere near as skewed as 1013's. <g>
Magpie
I think I stumble upon something important at the end of this one!:)
>> Rather than having to rely on yourself for answers,
>> you ask your brocolli. Your mind is free to give you the answer that
>> way. But you do exactly what gbolt describes artists as doing...when
>> you want to know what you're going to do next you kind of looking
>> into your mind and see what answer floats to the surface (like a
>> magic 8 ball??).
>
>This is an interesting idea! I don't quite understand how it works.
>Wouldn't I still know it was my mind and not my broccoli?<g> Help me
>Magpie!
I'll give it a shot!:) You do *know* it's your mind...no, I'm wrong,
you don't (that's helpful!). For me, I've always referred to my
brocolli as the moon. That is, I'll say, "what does the moon tell
me I should do?" I'm sure I know that the moon isn't actually
whispering to me, but that's what I picture. So it does *seem* to
be coming from somewhere else, even though obviously it's just me
using creative visualization. But it doesn't sound like me, because the
moon doesn't speak the same way I do. Course, I also tend to talk
to people who aren't there and have them answer me, so this makes
sense to me. (No, I'm not crazy--lots of people do it! I hope.) I
wish I had AM's book with me. I'm sure she explains it more clearly.
That is very true. Actually, when I said Scully needs evidence to
back up her intuitions I wasn't only thinking of physical evidence.
Scully has a lot of strong beliefs that she has already worked out
in her mind and she trusts those beliefs. Many of them have been
there since childhood, probably. So Scully isn't an indecisive
person--she's very capable of going with what her heart tells her
to do, but that's because her heart knows what is right.
Mulder doesn't have faith in anything like this. That's where he really
needs Scully. It's also probably why he was so much less effective
before she showed up. It wasn't only that he tended to make these
wild leaps without producing physical evidence. It's that he lacked
the conviction to stick with it until he'd gotten through to others
in a way they could understand. Instead he just gave up, assuming
no one would ever believe him anyway, and went onto something else.
Scully trusts that others will eventually be open to the truth, because
they are basically sane and good. Mulder's not so sure.
It seems strange to say this, but it sounds almost like I think Scully
trusts her heart and Mulder trusts his mind.
>I think during S6 Mulder finally came to understand that (even though I
>don't quite know how to explain what happened between them in One
>Son--Scully lost faith in Mulder's trust of Diana Fowley). I don't know.
>Those of you with a better understanding or at least a different one from
>mine can perhaps explain this better.
>
>I wonder if part of this comes from their different childhoods.
>> Mulder's been very alone since he was 12 (maybe even before that, if
>> you count his story of waking up in the middle of the night in Aubrey).
>
>And don't forget the nightmares that woke him. There was also a dream he
>related in that episode where the retarded twin was being controlled by his
>brother ,"the cryogenically preserved brain". I haven't seen it in awhile,
>but it was something about being in a pool of water. He could see his
>father under the water and couldn't get to him. Another man was frightening
>him and he wanted to leave, but couldn't find his father. I sometimes lose
>sight in all the stuff about the Syndicate and the conspiracy how personal
>all this was for Mulder and how in the beginning, it wasn't so personal for
>Scully.
Yes, it really is reminding me of those Diana Wynn Jones books.:)
Like some of her characters, Mulder had what he thought was a normal
life, albeit a sad one. Then slowly cracks started to appear and doors
in his mind start opening and he's possibly some kind of monster.
Scully has had to struggle with what she believes, trying to reconcile
herself to a world that's changing before her eyes. A lot of Mulder's
quest has been about finding out just who or *what* he is. He
probably fears that he might not be human after all.
I think I might be on to something there! Think of Mulder's history
as a Profiler adept at "understanding" the monsters he chased,
and the way he continues to explain the motivations and feelings of
the monsters he and Scully chase. Perhaps in his heart this is
what he is really afraid of--one of the things keeping him from
having a life and from really making a move on Scully. That ultimately
he will turn out to be--literally--a monster. That's pretty damned
terrifying, isn't it?
Whatddya think?
-m
ABauer7333
been a hybrid narrative: ambiguous, fluid, contradictory and non-rational, yet
punctuated by sometimes mind-numbing, bombastic exposition -- the Father
again, trying to regain control. Unfortunately, these two modes suffered a
head-on collision in the 2F/1S debacle, and I'm not sure either survived. The
quest motif was unceremoniously aborted in favor of an authoritative
pronouncement (I'm surprised CSM wasn't carrying stone tablets), a
pronouncement utterly lacking both dramatic and emotional resonance and which
rendered both itself and Mulder and Scully irrelevant."
What a beautiful way of stating how horrible 2F was! The whole idea of the
narrative frame, the central voice, so totally undermined everything the
mythology has been about. And one can't call it parody; it didn't reflect any
previous conventions (well, the parody was in the double-double (or was it?)
crosses). And giving CSM even a provisional name. I always viewed him as "the
obscene father" who perverts procreation and law. But once he is exposed, his
power vanishes; his tawdry nature is revealed (ever since Jeremiah SMith I've
been thinking of TBK; in 1S CSM is the devil who appears to Ivan as a poor
relation, implicating FM. But no follow through!!!)
Sigh!
Dr. B
GBolt60636
intuition becomes very important. I am completely out of my element here, but
I've heard and read a little that has made me think that while those
sciences have their basis in very definite skills, training in logic and the
rules and laws of the field, you can come to a point when you must go beyond.
>>
In the movie CONTACT Jodie Foster's character is derided by a scientific
associate for doing things like staring into the snow on a tv screen in an
attempt to "see patterns in the chaos." About to lose funding for her project,
she was trying to open her mind to seeing something new in what seemed a
dead-end endeavor. Now staring into tv snow is certainly something I can see
Mulder doing but not Scully.
Still, this doesn't really explain why gaps in logic don't bother some fans but
make others grind their molars. Maybe it's to do with what Deborah said about
Mulder's mind working in a totally different way from Scully's. Are individual
minds hard-wired for a specific kind of thinking, namely linear and non-linear?
Is it a difference between the visible, conscious reality of realism and the
invisible, subconscious reality of surrealism?
Sometimes the nature of the XF narrative almost strikes me as "eastern" in
nature. I think NYPD BLUE and ER (neither of which I watch, BTW) are linear and
western, but XF is a different animal. I don't think CC was awarded a recent
Director's Guild award for his "vision of television" just for fun. I think he
has tapped into the power of image unlike anyone else producing tv today. But I
can't as yet really grasp it's place in a traditional narrative. It seems an
almost visceral thing, and it certainly seems to do more than just support or
illustrate action or words.
GB
GB
dtin...@gvi.net
chevr...@aol.com (Chevrefoil) wrote:
> Actually, these binary oppositions belong more to classical
structuralism, as I
> understand it. Deconstruction, at least the Derridean version, tries to
> collapse the opposition and show how such seemingly antithetical terms
inhere
> within each other -- a condition that's evident in the double-meaning of
the
> unassuming virgule, which can be used to indicate both opposition
(man/woman)
> and union (Mulder/Scully). Come to think of it, the M/S could be the
poster
> "couple" for post-structuralism: apparent opposites who are, in fact,
> inescapably implicated in one another, and whose opposition can be
maintained
> only through the imposition of an ideology, the Rule of the Father, Chris
> Carter.
>
Hmmm, I'm sorry I'm not familiar with all the jargon yet. What's a virgule?
I addressed the Derridean elements of play in my next paragraph of my post, I
quote:
"We recognize that language as a form of communication is flawed, but it
can still be useful. I like Derrida's sense of play, the fluidity between
the symbolic and the semiotic. The structure is flawed and unstable which
means it has play built into it. If we disregard the purity or stability of
the structure, we can still use it to get the job done, to tell the story.
Some of the parts may be broken, but we don't throw it all out. We keep
playing with it and even bring in an element not originally part of the
system to make it work (this is where I see it truly paralleling TXF)." end
quote
> The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that TXF myth has always
> been a hybrid narrative: ambiguous, fluid, contradictory and non-rational, yet
> punctuated by sometimes mind-numbing, bombastic exposition -- the Father
> again, trying to regain control. Unfortunately, these two modes suffered a
> head-on collision in the 2F/1S debacle, and I'm not sure either survived. The
> quest motif was unceremoniously aborted in favor of an authoritative
> pronouncement (I'm surprised CSM wasn't carrying stone tablets), a
> pronouncement utterly lacking both dramatic and emotional resonance and which
> rendered both itself and Mulder and Scully irrelevant.
I love the concept of play and fluidity of meaning, of using language in
unintentional ways. Where you call the TXF myth a hybrid narrative, I apply
the concept of bricolage-- keep using the structure but recognize it is
flawed, stop attributing "truth value" to a structure of system, but see that
system as a construct, something built around a central idea even though that
idea is flawed or perhaps an illusion.
The bricoleur doesn't care about purity or stability of the system but uses
what's there. i.e. many of us can talk about "penis envy" without actually
knowing much about psychoanalysis. We use the terms without having to
acknowledge the system that produced the term.
In this sense, flawed though it is, 2F/1S works for me. The symbols are not
static. The role of the Father flimmers, trying to reassert himself but now
without the obdurate power base of his enigma to fall back on. While CSM was
an unknown, he had mythical power and that was a primary motivation for
bringing out the truth, or truths about him. As he became known, became a
real person instead of a shadow figure, he lost his effectiveness. The same
thing, in a positive way, happened to Deep Throat. While he was a mysterious
unknown, he seemed very powerful, the strong Father figure but as he became
more human, caught in lies, afraid, seen as not all powerful and then finally
mortal, he became human and sacrificed his life to save Mulder. This
redeemed him of his past complicity in the evil acts.
I don't see Mulder and Scully as irrelevant but their part in the quest
deferred. 2F/1S were episodes for CSM, Spender and Fowley to do their stuff.
M&S were not the primary players but setting the stage for their next foray
into the myth.
Deborah
Deborah Tinsley
"We have met the enemy and he is us,
but we are not who we are." -Leslie Jones
Vehemently
Chevrefoil wrote:
> Come to think of it, the M/S could be the poster
> "couple" for post-structuralism: apparent opposites who are, in fact,
> inescapably implicated in one another, and whose opposition can be maintained
> only through the imposition of an ideology, the Rule of the Father, Chris
> Carter.
Oh hell. I knew CC was a slightly nutty exec producer, but now he's a
dominant paradigm.
> The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that TXF myth has always
> been a hybrid narrative: ambiguous, fluid, contradictory and non-rational, yet
> punctuated by sometimes mind-numbing, bombastic exposition -- the Father
> again, trying to regain control.
I wonder, and this is my rusty litcritter training kicking in, whether
all the ambiguity/fluidity is intended. This is the show that has no
Bible -- and I fear it's due to laziness/craziness rather than a true
devotion to ambiguity. There are times, certainly, when the show seems
to be questioning the basic narrative structure, or it toys with
intentional incoherence (Tunguska/Terma, for all its rollicking good
action, left immense plot holes specifically for the reason that
Krycek's role had to be completely obscured until the very end. They
never did fill in all those holes though.)
Then again, there are times, as in Bad Blood, when the show suggests a
post-modern sense of narrative, and then retreats. That ep had two
distinct points of view which contradicted each other, and if it had
been left at that I could have bought into a sense of post-structural,
post-coherence, indeterminate structure. But then we have that final
sequence, after the individual narratives have gone by, in which the
'camera eye' takes over again. Some of Mulder's POV is proved true
(Scully's eyes for the sherriff) and some of it is proved false (when
Scully points out, non-verbally, that the sherriff's teeth aren't
crooked as Mulder had thought). The final sequence, while necessary to
the wrapping up of the story, is ultimately a retreat from all of the
pomo stuff it begins to imply.
Ultimately I see the X-Files as deeply rooted in its stylistic
forbear: the American roman noir. It has its tics and avant-gardisms,
it wears its cool cinematography on its sleeve, but deep in its heart
it really does believe in the Truth, and romance, and all that
simplistic Rule of the Father-based stuff. Just as I've always felt
that CC at least writes the show as The Mulder Show, despite bones
thrown to Scully occasionally, I think all of the admittedly
interesting and lovely experiments are external defenses that disguise
the conservatism at the show's heart. I don't know where I got the
quote, but somebody said of film noir: "Under the breast pocket of
every cynical bastard beats the heart of a thwarted romantic." I think
that applies.
Vee
d_re...@my-dejanews.com
co...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> One of the things I'm really liking about TXF (I'm a relatively new fan) is
> that even when there is some sort of closure, it usually isn't the type of
> closure that tv usually gives us. M&S don't solve the mystery/bring the
> killer to justice/come up with the answers. And yet they're still the
> heroes. There is more going on here than just man-versus-x conflict, though
> there is that too. The triumphs are in just surviving with integrity intact,
> however bruised.
> Connie Callahan
There's a documentary about the making of an episode of Homicide that really
illuminates the kind of pressure "regular" tv dramas are under to go for that
closure. One of the Homicide writers talks about how they have to fight the
network's desire to always solve the cases, find and punish the guilty. She
mentioned specifically that the "suits like to see the perp walk" — and about
the struggle to keep the show honest in the face of all that pressure.
TXF circumvents all that (in part by being on a less risk-averse network) by
being less about the justice system than justice itself.
Remiel, also addicted to Homicide (which is actually on this week!)
? Do you think it's a bad sign when one's TV viewing is limited to TXF,
Homicide, and Joan Nathan's Jewish Cooking in America?
ABauer7333
unintentional ways. Where you call the TXF myth a hybrid narrative, I apply
the concept of bricolage-- keep using the structure but recognize it is
flawed, stop attributing "truth value" to a structure of system, but see that
system as a construct, something built around a central idea even though that
idea is flawed or perhaps an illusion.
The bricoleur doesn't care about purity or stability of the system but uses
what's there. i.e. many of us can talk about "penis envy" without actually
knowing much about psychoanalysis. We use the terms without having to
acknowledge the system that produced the term.
In this sense, flawed though it is, 2F/1S works for me. The symbols are not
static. The role of the Father flimmers, trying to reassert himself but now
without the obdurate power base of his enigma to fall back on. While CSM was
an unknown, he had mythical power and that was a primary motivation for
bringing out the truth, or truths about him. As he became known, became a
real person instead of a shadow figure, he lost his effectiveness. The same
thing, in a positive way, happened to Deep Throat. While he was a mysterious
unknown, he seemed very powerful, the strong Father figure but as he became
more human, caught in lies, afraid, seen as not all powerful and then finally
mortal, he became human and sacrificed his life to save Mulder. This
redeemed him of his past complicity in the evil acts.
I...
Deborah Tinsley>>
ITA with your assessment of the roles of CSM and Deep Throat. And this is why
I would not evoke bricolage as a theoretical model, even though I competely
understand why you do. What happens to these characters reflects a
psychoanalytic model. My problem is that to take out the dark heart of the
narrative--CSM's mystery, omniscience (challenged as early as season 2), and
authority--by exposing it undermines the delicate structure of the mythology,
unless there's someone to take his place. That someone could be an alien, but
that would undermine the role the aliens as a signifier play in the scheme of
the mythology. ANd so on and so on . . . I guess I'm saying that, suing my
model, 2F/1S doesn't quite do it because of what happens to CSM and the
Syndicate. But there are other things that really work: the ambiguous role of
Krychek, Marita's decline, Cassandra as a little piece of the "real," which
must be killed or absorbed (more should have been done with this!)
Dr. B
Jack Ayer
>Ultimately I see the X-Files as deeply rooted in its
>stylistic forbear: the American roman noir. It has its
>tics and avant-gardisms, it wears its cool
>cinematography on its sleeve, but deep in its heart
>it really does believe in the Truth, and romance, and
>all that simplistic Rule of the Father-based stuff.
>Just as I've always felt that CC at least writes the
>show as The Mulder Show, despite bones thrown to
>Scully occasionally, I think all of the admittedly
>interesting and lovely experiments are external
>defenses that disguise the conservatism at the show's
>heart. I don't know where I got the quote, but
>somebody said of film noir: "Under the breast pocket
>of every cynical bastard beats the heart of a thwarted
>romantic." I think that applies.
I love this comparison. I can definitely see Mulder's
roots in the cynical dick (interpret that word any way
you like) with the bruised heart, and Scully works
perfectly as the quintessential tart-tongued beauty
with the smoky voice. And I agree about the
conservatism. Like Mulder and Scully, classic noir
characters were always embroiled in convoluted
conspiracies which touched them personally -- touched
them personally, but never succeeded in compromising
their innate morality.
You mention the roman noir, but I think the film noir
influence on XF is equally evident. There's the dark
lighting, the omnipresent rain, the subdued costuming.
"Travelers" with its 1950s setting definitely reached
for the noir feel, and one of the episode's more
successful moments came when Dales was talking to
sharp-witted secretary Dorothy Bahnsen, a throwback to
the old noir Girl Fridays. I tend to think that
Maritia Covarrubias, as originally conceived, was
supposed to have a noir quality -- the beautiful woman
with the air of mystery, leading the detective on. I
always suspected that Laurie Holden was trying to do a
Lauren Bacall impersonation, only she just wasn't very
good at it.
-- Jack
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
.
Vehemently
of film noir in re the X-Files:
Jack Ayer wrote:
> I love this comparison. I can definitely see Mulder's
> roots in the cynical dick (interpret that word any way
> you like) with the bruised heart, and Scully works
> perfectly as the quintessential tart-tongued beauty
> with the smoky voice. And I agree about the
> conservatism. Like Mulder and Scully, classic noir
> characters were always embroiled in convoluted
> conspiracies which touched them personally -- touched
> them personally, but never succeeded in compromising
> their innate morality.
On Thursdays in months beginning with J at least, the above really
does seem to apply to the show. By which I mean, Mulder is the Lone
Wolf Investigator, and Scully is his gun moll. Think Sam Spade and his
secretary Effie in "The Maltese Falcon" (film or novel). It is
necessarily imbalanced in favor of one character, because two wolves
do not a lone wolf make. Such a thing is in line with what I see as
the show's deeply conservative (not politically, but emotionally &
morally & in the narrative sense) roots, but that doesn't mean I like
it.
I will say this isn't always so. There are times when the partnership
really *is* equal, when Scully really gets some scenery-chewing to do,
when it's two solitary and complicated people trying to work together.
I will also note that the mytharc stories, and most often the ones CC
writes, usually leave Scully holding the bag.
> "Travelers" with its 1950s setting definitely reached
> for the noir feel, and one of the episode's more
> successful moments came when Dales was talking to
> sharp-witted secretary Dorothy Bahnsen, a throwback to
> the old noir Girl Fridays. I tend to think that
> Maritia Covarrubias, as originally conceived, was
> supposed to have a noir quality -- the beautiful woman
> with the air of mystery, leading the detective on. I
> always suspected that Laurie Holden was trying to do a
> Lauren Bacall impersonation, only she just wasn't very
> good at it.
Stylistically, visually, I think the film noir influence is
unmistakeable. What I'm really interested in is the character and
plot-eventualities. If you'll recall, there are only two kinds of
women in film noir: the slightly mundane Potential Sweeties and the
fascinating Man Destroyers. I don't like either one of these, despite
the fact that the latter *is* a sort of back-handed blow for feminism
(Hey, murder's a way to get out of the kitchen, no?).
But again, all the female roles are antagonistic or as supporting
characters -- often, as in "Kiss of Death," banished to offscreen
safety so the man can do his man-business. (And I will also say that I
think I'm working from a narrower definition of film noir than Jack.
Jazz and cigarettes don't do the trick; it's got to have existential
dread and a satisfyingly unhappy ending. But, you know, I'm like
that.)
Vee
bugs...@my-dejanews.com
Vehemently <vehem...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ah, Jack has hit on the one major objection I have to the iconography
> of film noir in re the X-Files:
> Stylistically, visually, I think the film noir influence is
> unmistakeable. What I'm really interested in is the character and
> plot-eventualities. If you'll recall, there are only two kinds of
> women in film noir: the slightly mundane Potential Sweeties and the
> fascinating Man Destroyers. I don't like either one of these, despite
> the fact that the latter *is* a sort of back-handed blow for feminism
> (Hey, murder's a way to get out of the kitchen, no?).
>
> But again, all the female roles are antagonistic or as supporting
> characters -- often, as in "Kiss of Death," banished to offscreen
> safety so the man can do his man-business. (And I will also say that I
> think I'm working from a narrower definition of film noir than Jack.
> Jazz and cigarettes don't do the trick; it's got to have existential
> dread and a satisfyingly unhappy ending. But, you know, I'm like
> that.)
Uh...I'm probably going to get in trouble for this...but here it goes. Do you
think Scully can be seen a potential Man Destroyer? Relationships are viewed
in film noir as distracting to the man at the best, destructive and deadly at
the worse. In film noir this was wrapped up in the package of the 'bad woman'
in the tight skirt, but for the time frame those films were made in, that was
correct. No nice girl was going to have sex with a man, and sex was where the
road to destruction began. It weakened the men...
Hmm...we've had this discussion before haven't we? 'Why the hell don't those
two have sex and be done with it?' Perhaps I've hit on the answer. CC watches
too many film noirs looking for lighting tips and the subliminal messages are
pickling his brain.---bugs---
>
> Vee
Jack Ayer
>Uh...I'm probably going to get in trouble for
>this...but here it goes. Do you think Scully can be
>seen a potential Man Destroyer? Relationships are
>viewed in film noir as distracting to the man at the
>best, destructive and deadly at the worse. In film
>noir this was wrapped up in the package of the 'bad
>woman' in the tight skirt, but for the time frame
>those films were made in, that was correct. No nice
>girl was going to have sex with a man, and sex was
>where the road to destruction began. It weakened the
>men...
This is why, in my teenage years, I had the strength of
ten.
But to address your question, Bugs, I don't see Scully
as a woman from the femme fatale mold. I see her more
as the Vivian Sternwood character in the screen version
of "The Big Sleep" (can you tell I have a thing for a
young Lauren Bacall?). In fact "The Big Sleep" seems
to me to be a pretty close noir counterpart to The
X-Files -- the film version, I mean, since Bogart's
Philip Marlowe is a lot more relaxed than the Chandler
original, and thus more like XF's laid-back Mulder. In
common with the XF mytharc, "The Big Sleep" has an
incredibly convoluted plot; even the director and the
writers of the movie (who included William Faulkner)
couldn't decide who killed the chaffeur in the
submerged Packard. And when the jaded Marlowe finds to
his surprise that Vivian is wholly trustworthy and
loyal, to me that's a close parallel to the development
of Mulder and Scully's partnership.
And Vehemently wrote:
>But again, all the female roles are antagonistic or as
>supporting characters -- often, as in "Kiss of Death,"
>banished to offscreen safety so the man can do his
>man-business. (And I will also say that I think I'm
>working from a narrower definition of film noir than
>Jack. Jazz and cigarettes don't do the trick; it's
>got to have existential dread and a satisfyingly
>unhappy ending. But, you know, I'm like that.)
Vee, I completely understand the point you're making
about the way in which both XF and noir tend to
relegate female characters, including and especially
Scully, to the status of molls or sidekicks. I think I
*am* using a broader definition of noir than you are,
or at least a more optimistic one. But, you know, I'm
like that too.
LuluBean12
(GBolt60636) writes:
><>
GB
Isn't all this like Right brain and Left brained thinking? I'm very left
brained at least judging by my right-eye dominance, strict right-handedness,
yet for finding things (say the brand of cereal I want in a grocery story) I
wind up feeling myself sorta "unfocus" so I can find the box I want among all
the confusing display.
In science all that left brain thinking works good on analysis but the big
leaps all seem to come from the right side of the brain. I think everyone one
does a little of each kind of thinking.
Lulu (Chem major (undergrad) and Geology major (grad school) forced to explain
things to HS students for 33 years)
Deborah A Tinsley
> <<I love the concept of play and fluidity of meaning, of using language
in
> ITA with your assessment of the roles of CSM and Deep Throat. And this
is why
> I would not evoke bricolage as a theoretical model, even though I
competely
> understand why you do. What happens to these characters reflects a
> psychoanalytic model. My problem is that to take out the dark heart of
the
> narrative--CSM's mystery, omniscience (challenged as early as season 2),
and
> authority--by exposing it undermines the delicate structure of the
mythology,
> unless there's someone to take his place. That someone could be an
alien, but
> that would undermine the role the aliens as a signifier play in the
scheme of
> the mythology.
I'm not sure I understand you completely so if I'm way off base, please
forgive me-- perhaps Krycek will emerge to take CSM's place. There is still
a lot of mystery about Krycek and even though in the past he did not have
the weight or dimension to carry the mythopoetic themes, he could be
developed that way. He isn't a father a figure, but in a way he and Mulder
are becoming the Fathers now that the power of the old men has been broken.
They are the next generation, approaching their mid-life, and time to
assume their leadership roles. Mulder is no longer the deluded boy
controlled by his father and by the men who controlled his father. Krycek
is no longer the pawn. Maybe the stage is being set for them to enter the
next level? It's a thought.
ANd so on and so on . . . I guess I'm saying that, using my
> model, 2F/1S doesn't quite do it because of what happens to CSM and the
> Syndicate. But there are other things that really work: the ambiguous
role of
> Krychek, Marita's decline, Cassandra as a little piece of the "real,"
which
> must be killed or absorbed (more should have been done with this!)
>
> Dr. B
I love this description of Cassandra.
I am a new student to these philosophies of deconstruction and my
understanding of some of the major concepts is (why do I want to say
jejune? I just get so silly sometimes)-- not fully formed, a long way from
formed. My understanding of bricolage, which I find fascinating, and many
other terms is still relatively shallow. My point is, I may not always get
your point. Not necessarily because you haven't said it well, but because
of my own ignorance.
Deborah
reynard muldrake
Mulder could be the filmed C. Woolrich character from "Black Angel".
This fellow (played by Dan Durea) was a drunken piano player whose
trampish wife is murdered. Our protagonist goes through a grueling
search, (with attractive female help), only to discover *he* is the
guilty party.
Or, Mulder's Sam Spade, to Scully's Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Melissa as
the "Falcon". "You killed Deep Throat, and you're going over for it".
(S) yappi
Magpie
><< I think in higher mathematics and quantum physics, in Chaos theory,
>intuition becomes very important. I am completely out of my element here, but
>I've heard and read a little that has made me think that while those
>sciences have their basis in very definite skills, training in logic and the
>rules and laws of the field, you can come to a point when you must go beyond.
>>>
>
>associate for doing things like staring into the snow on a tv screen in an
>attempt to "see patterns in the chaos." About to lose funding for her project,
>she was trying to open her mind to seeing something new in what seemed a
>dead-end endeavor. Now staring into tv snow is certainly something I can see
>Mulder doing but not Scully.
>
>Still, this doesn't really explain why gaps in logic don't bother some fans but
>make others grind their molars. Maybe it's to do with what Deborah said about
>Mulder's mind working in a totally different way from Scully's. Are individual
>minds hard-wired for a specific kind of thinking, namely linear and non-linear?
>Is it a difference between the visible, conscious reality of realism and the
>invisible, subconscious reality of surrealism?
>
>Sometimes the nature of the XF narrative almost strikes me as "eastern" in
>nature. I think NYPD BLUE and ER (neither of which I watch, BTW) are linear and
>western, but XF is a different animal. I don't think CC was awarded a recent
>Director's Guild award for his "vision of television" just for fun. I think he
>has tapped into the power of image unlike anyone else producing tv today. But I
>can't as yet really grasp it's place in a traditional narrative. It seems an
>almost visceral thing, and it certainly seems to do more than just support or
>illustrate action or words.
This is a really interesting idea. I don't know whether I would use
the word "eastern" exactly, though I can understand why that word
would come to mind. I can think of some Western traditions that
might match TXF narrative--just not the dominant one.
I think part of what makes TXF different is that it follows a different
path almost every week, but all those paths lead to the truth. Compare
it to what I believe Millenium does (I'm not an expert on this show,
though, so I apologize if I'm totally off here). Millenium seems to
have one overall mythology that is "correct" in its universe. Other
mythologies that it comes across are then interpreted to fit into
that single mythology. So, for instance, a pre-Christian god
becomes a demon involved in Armageddon.
That is certainly a valid dramatic choice, but it's not the one
TXF chooses. With each MOTW, we enter into a world with its
own mythology. That mythology is true within that episode, and
it is complete in itself. Mulder believes almost all the gods he
runs into in the MOTWs while Scully provides consistency by
applying her scientific beliefs to them.
Millenium, therefore, seems to start with a truth that is known.
That is how it links all the episodes together. TXF has a
truth that is always "out there" and all the mythologies must
be taken on their own terms in order to provide a small glimpse
of that truth. All the mythologies and languages M&S encounter
are inadequate to that truth--not because they are lies, but because
we as humans do not yet have the capacity to fully comprehend the Truth.
This is definitely not what I think of when I think about "Western
thought". We tend to want to fit everything into one language that
encompasses everything. However, I think TXF's method of slipping
from one perspective to another wouldn't bother the followers of a
lot of Western traditions like some Native American philosophies and
the tribal cultures of ancient Europe etc. I wish I could say this with
some authority, but I can't.:)
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
Magpie
>forgive me-- perhaps Krycek will emerge to take CSM's place. There is still
>a lot of mystery about Krycek and even though in the past he did not have
>the weight or dimension to carry the mythopoetic themes, he could be
>developed that way. He isn't a father a figure, but in a way he and Mulder
>are becoming the Fathers now that the power of the old men has been broken.
>They are the next generation, approaching their mid-life, and time to
>assume their leadership roles. Mulder is no longer the deluded boy
>controlled by his father and by the men who controlled his father. Krycek
>is no longer the pawn. Maybe the stage is being set for them to enter the
>next level? It's a thought.
I would LOVE things to play out this way. Krycek has become more and
more of an unknown as the show has progressed and I think he is the
logical heir to the antagonist's role. The show has progressed to the
point when the villain must be "known" to Mulder somehow. He's learned
too much now to put him back into the role he had in Season One, stumbling
around in the dark. Krycek is Mulder's mirror image in so many ways--
and this is the logical next step for Mulder, imo. In his youth the
demon was a distant, monsterous figure. Now he's ready to recognize
his own face in the villain.
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
<36FA6945...@yahoo.com>...
> I wonder, and this is my rusty litcritter training kicking in, whether
> all the ambiguity/fluidity is intended. This is the show that has no
> Bible -- and I fear it's due to laziness/craziness rather than a true
> devotion to ambiguity. There are times, certainly, when the show seems
> to be questioning the basic narrative structure, or it toys with
> intentional incoherence .
I don't mean to be dense, but the direction I'm headed in is that it is NOT
intentional, that it happens naturally???? That story telling has begun
changing, is or has changed. We are living within the philosophy or more
likely, simply are aware of it. And since we, the audience and the
creators, are more aware of it, we respond to it and they write to it--not
in an attempt to fulfill or prove deconstructivist philosophy, but because
our awareness has changed how we derive meaning and value from language,
from narratives and images. I don't see 1013 and Company trying to produce
the perfect pomo piece of art-- I see them simply putting on a television
show that is riding the crest of the times.
As an audience, more of us not only will tolerate this
fluidity/incoherence, but actually respond to it. I have found it
stimulating and refreshing. I do not think of myself as some kind of
pomo/deconstructivist intellectual (and Lordy, it would have to be
pseudo-intellectual anyway). TXF led me deeper into the philosophy. I'd
always had a peripheral interest, had read a bit here and there, but all
the layers and ambiguity of TXF, an aspect I truly responded to, made me
want to know more about it.
I don't believe art gets created to support theories. I think people have
ideas and feeling and the urge to create. They stick it together with
blood, sweat and chewing gum and few lucky bastards manage to hit on
something that means something to a lot of us and theories and philosophies
are built around the art.
I don't imagine TXF affects 1013, CC or the actors as much as it affects
some of us. I don't even know if they understand our passion for the show
and frankly I don't care if they do or not. That's the beauty of the way
this show works. Because of the fluidity of meaning, that oscillation
between sign and symbol, it can be taken very personally. That's what
amazes me. Not whether CC ever read Lacan or Derrida.
> Then again, there are times, as in Bad Blood, when the show suggests a
> post-modern sense of narrative, and then retreats. That ep had two
> distinct points of view which contradicted each other, and if it had
> been left at that I could have bought into a sense of post-structural,
> post-coherence, indeterminate structure. But then we have that final
> sequence, after the individual narratives have gone by, in which the
> 'camera eye' takes over again. Some of Mulder's POV is proved true
> (Scully's eyes for the sherriff) and some of it is proved false (when
> Scully points out, non-verbally, that the sherriff's teeth aren't
> crooked as Mulder had thought). The final sequence, while necessary to
> the wrapping up of the story, is ultimately a retreat from all of the
> pomo stuff it begins to imply.
And I believe the story had to follow its own path. To try to adhere to a
pomo philosophy would not only have killed it deader than a doornail, it
actually isn't possible is it? I mean you are using the old forms of
language and text and narrative, so while it may lead us, show us images
that resonate in our little deconstructivist hearts, it can't actually be
purely deconstructivist. If bricolage thrives without purity or stability,
why should we expect a pre-conceived structure to be demonstrated in a
narrative?
Deborah
ABauer7333
a lot of mystery about Krycek and even though in the past he did not have
the weight or dimension to carry the mythopoetic themes, he could be
developed that way.>>
Yes! That is what I mean. What are K's possible roles? Allied with the
rebels? Trying to wrest the power of the Syndicate away from the old guard?
Playing both ends against the middle? Allied to a third group led by
Strughold? A completely free agent? All we really know is that he keeps
stirring the pot. His past on TXF is full of horror and humiliation; if he
can transcend that to appear as someone controlling events behind the scenes, a
real mover and shaker, he'll be a real anti-hero.
<< He isn't a father a figure, but in a way he and Mulder
are becoming the Fathers now . . . Maybe the stage is being set for them to
enter the
next level? It's a thought.>>
Makes sense to me. I sure hope it's handled well, though, or that scenario
could be full of cliches.
<<I am a new student to these philosophies of deconstruction and my
understanding of some of the major concepts is (why do I want to say
jejune? I just get so silly sometimes)-- not fully formed, a long way from
formed. My understanding of bricolage, which I find fascinating, and many
other terms is still relatively shallow. My point is, I may not always get
your point. Not necessarily because you haven't said it well, but because
of my own ignorance.>>
Please don't apologize! My knowledge of critical theory is spotty at best! I
just settled on Lacan/Zizek awhile ago and read everything I could find. I do
love a lot of the French writers, and Americans, and I love reading different
takes on the same text. I am the one who should apologize, because the ideas I
want to express can come off as very arcane. Basically, though, I do read TXF
as conservative; not post-modern (with exceptions, e.g. Jose Chung), an open
text but certainly not one without a center. The reason TXF seems like the
perfect psychoanalytic text is that it's entire premise--it's name--evokes the
"real," the register of experience that lies outside of the symbolic. And it
seems to deliberately shift registers, from the Imaginary (the world of dreams,
images that resist description, events that are apprehended outside of a
narrative framework), to the Symbolic (FBI procedure, scientific method,
written reports or narrated logs of linear experience, evidence that does
occasionally correspond to a pre-established signifying network) and the Real:
that which either resists signification to begin with or is "left over" when
all that can be said has been said. (I can think of many examples: alien
encounters obscured by bright lights, Big Blue disappearing as M&S leave
Heuvelman's Lake, missing time, branched DNA . . the list goes on and on).
When some person or thing sets a narrative in motion, and yet that person or
thing is an unknown or ambiguous quantity, it functions as a "little piece of
the real," a fascinating object that the other desires, which, by default, sets
the desires of our heroes in motion (the mysterious rock in the diplomatic
pouch in Tunguska/Terma, the alien shot down in Iran on its way to Washington
state in EBE, the piece of alien technology carried by Max in Tempus Fugit, and
-- the supreme la petit a of all, Samantha, who has left traces everywhere but
can never actually be reached).
This is why I am completely against seeing aliens, knowing CSM's name, perhaps
even sex between M & S (well, that's where I might forsake my theoretical model
. . ) Once the mystery is stripped away, I'm afraid we'll be left with a B
thriller, unless the ever-shifting narrative can replace the function of
someone like CSM or Samantha with another. For instance, we're probably
supposed to consider Diana mysterious and possibly dangerous. But we've had
far too little characterization, so she's a straw horse. Remember how, at the
beginning of the series, a middle-aged man smoking in the corner could inspire
fear and terror? I felt a little of that old spookiness return in SR 819 when
Krychek loomed out of the back seat at the end, and in Tihonus when Scully was
shot and GA's eyes gave us a terrifying vision of death.
Don't know if this helps, but I hope it gives you a little idea of how I see
the show.
Thanks for your interest!
Dr. B
Deborah A Tinsley
> "Deborah A Tinsley" <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> >
> >ABauer7333 <abaue...@aol.com> wrote in article
> ><19990325121634...@ng-ch1.aol.com>...
>
> >
> >I'm not sure I understand you completely so if I'm way off base, please
still
> >a lot of mystery about Krycek and even though in the past he did not
have
> >the weight or dimension to carry the mythopoetic themes, he could be
Mulder
> >are becoming the Fathers now that the power of the old men has been
broken.
> >They are the next generation, approaching their mid-life, and time to
> >assume their leadership roles. Mulder is no longer the deluded boy
> >controlled by his father and by the men who controlled his father.
Krycek
the
> >next level? It's a thought.
>
> more of an unknown as the show has progressed and I think he is the
> logical heir to the antagonist's role. The show has progressed to the
> point when the villain must be "known" to Mulder somehow. He's learned
> too much now to put him back into the role he had in Season One,
stumbling
> around in the dark. Krycek is Mulder's mirror image in so many ways--
> and this is the logical next step for Mulder, imo. In his youth the
> demon was a distant, monsterous figure. Now he's ready to recognize
> his own face in the villain.
>
> -m
I like this idea even better after your comments. They could be the warring
twin gods CSM was talking about in Redux, not Spender. Now all the fathers
are dead or "castrated" (well maybe we shouldn't give up on ol'Smokey yet,
but unless CC finds some way to breathe life into him--his own dialog to
Mulder has come true for him: "You're time here is done.").
I could see Krycek as a powerful antagonist because he's so attractive. He
isn't repulsive in the way CSM was before they humanized him. We know
Krycek was used and victimized (and lord knows about the skeletons in his
past). It's that allure of the devil beckoning you, making you have
sympathy for him right before he sticks the pitchfork in-- and part of that
pitchfork is making you realize that you have a lot in common with him. Oh
yeah, he could play Mulder on a whole different level than CSM ever did.
With CSM it was the Father tricking the boy, but with Krycek they are
equals. And no matter where you fall on the UST between M&K you have to
admit there's electricity between them-- even if it's hatred.
And Scully! We've barely seen her interact with Krycek. Krycek as Scully's
demon lover? (symbolically only). I can see Krycek convincing Scully that
Mulder's gone over the edge, encouraging her to betray him. It'd be
interesting to see how the intrepid Scully would handle him.
I like this idea.
Deborah
ABauer7333
each MOTW, we enter into a world with its
own mythology. That mythology is true within that episode, and
truth that is always "out there" and all the mythologies must
be taken on their own terms in order to provide a small glimpse
of that truth. All the mythologies and languages M&S encounter
are inadequate to that truth--not because they are lies, but because
-m>>
This is a lovely way to look at TXF. But I have a sneaking suspicion--that CC
will eventually link all MOTWs to the mythology. Ever since Gibson, who's gift
could of been that of any standalone stiff, was elevated into an avatar who's
very existence "might explain everything in the X-Files" (i.e., everything out
there is really in here--at the bottom of the gene pool where the sun never
shines).
Dr. B
Cheryl Deering
: I enjoy post-structuralist theory as much as the next person, and it's
: certainly the most profitable approach to take when "reading" TXF, but the
: detractors of deconstruction do have a point when they complain that, taken to
: extremes, it makes qualitative judgments impossible. If a signifier -- be it a
: word, image or gesture -- can be a symbol only of an absence, meaning becomes
: nothing more than a matter of willful self-delusion, and therefore all "texts"
: are created equal in their fundamental meaninglessness. And so one may find
: oneself faced with the depressing, but theoretically sound, proposition that
: Paper Hearts and Teso dos Bichos have equal merit. That just ain't right. <g>
I would say _not_--g! And one can argue with good cause that XF became
popular as much (or more) on the strength of its traditional narrative as
it did on its deconstructionist aspects. As well, weren't many of the
techniques credited to deconstructionism (shifting POVs, unreliable
narrators, references to
previous media/literary works) ones that were in use in traditional
narrative long before deconstructionism was given concrete theoretical
form? Geez, you can find shifting POVs and unreliable narrators in more
4th rate noirs from the 30's than you can count. And the animators at
Warner Bros. in the 40's and 50's specialized in using other works to
bounce jokes off--g! It's not like post-structuralism suddenly invented
these techniques--or that because a work just happens to feature these
elements its narrative failings should be regarded as deconstructivistic
brilliance--g!
: Certainly, TXF is not your mother's narrative, and for the most part that's
: been a good thing. But sometimes its fluid, "mythopoetic" (I love that word)
: nature seems to function as a built-in excuse for the dumb stuff that happens
: through inattention or egomania or creative inability or simply from not having
: enough time to do it right. For instance:
: >In no other tv show (and few popular novels too) would, say, that one scene
: >between Mulder & Diana at the end of One Son have received, and merited, so
: >much analysis. If any other show had done such a pivotal scene
: involving a
: >lead character, his motivations would never have been so opaque, or at least
: >would have been clarified no later than the next episode. But CC just left
: >it out there, for us to deal with - so we do, each to our own satisfaction,
: >to match our needs or expectations for Mulder.
Oh, _please_. Why should the writers give Mulder any character traits at
all, then? Why not just put a person up on screen and let the audience
dictate what he should be like/do?
: This *should* have been a pivotal scene, but it's precisely Mulder's opacity
: (although I prefer the term "density") that prevents it from being so. And
: CC's failure to resolve the M/F/S issue is more readily explained as bad
: writing or, my guess, as an indication that he intends to pursue this cheesy
: plotline in future episodes, than as a deliberate exercise in non-rational
: storytelling.
Agreed--any old body could leave something crucial unresolved and use that
"Oh, I wanted the audience to fill in the character to match their needs,"
excuse. But, if every crucial element that draws one into a story is left
up for grabs--if one's natural curiosity about how a character is going to
deal with a situation is answered with a "He ain't; you do the
work,"--one winds up not giving a hoot about what's going on once one
catches on--g! Such manuevers are spoilsport storytelling at best;
incompetence at worst.
: Sometimes Ockham, not Derrida, applies.
As well, it's using the "Oh, that referred back to THE WIZARD OF OZ or
SEVEN" constant-self-referentialism-is-a-good-thing excuse
that had led to so much uninspired, copy-cat, 20th-generation-Xerox
movie/TV writing out there now. If the art of narrative becomes one
endless series of mirrors that never show any new POVs or experiences or
anything else, and do nothing but bounce
preconceptions/stereotypes/references to MY MOTHER THE CAR back
and forth so an audience can feel clever, where's the joy of discovery in
that? Where (and when) does creativity outside of nudging an audience with
obscure TV references come in? I feel about deconstructionist works that
work very much like I feel about visual/FX dominated movies--every one
that works is an exception to the rule, not the rule.
C.
**
bugs...@my-dejanews.com
ayer...@earthlink.net wrote:
> Bugs wrote:
>
> >Uh...I'm probably going to get in trouble for
> >this...but here it goes. Do you think Scully can be
> >seen a potential Man Destroyer? Relationships are
> >viewed in film noir as distracting to the man at the
> >best, destructive and deadly at the worse. In film
> >noir this was wrapped up in the package of the 'bad
> >woman' in the tight skirt, but for the time frame
> >those films were made in, that was correct. No nice
> >girl was going to have sex with a man, and sex was
> >where the road to destruction began. It weakened the
> >men...
>
> This is why, in my teenage years, I had the strength of
> ten.
LOL! I hope you are now a mear husk of a man, spend.
>
> But to address your question, Bugs, I don't see Scully
> as a woman from the femme fatale mold.
I don't either, but my point is, the femme fatale was a product of the time. I
was suggesting something more insidious, that she still represents that woman.
Just a thought.
I see her more
> as the Vivian Sternwood character in the screen version
> of "The Big Sleep" (can you tell I have a thing for a
> young Lauren Bacall?).
God, I was thinking about this thread as I drove home, thinking about women
in noir and I realized Bacall was an exception, probably born out of her
relationship with Bogie. But, in Big Sleep, you weren't sure of her
allegiances until the end of the film when she sides with Bogie.
Her character is interesting in Dark Passage, because she should be the 'good
girl' but the first rule of 'good girls' in noir is sappiness and she's
incapable of projecting that, can you tell I'm a huge B&B fan? The Agnes
Moorehead's character is the femme fatale in that, killing Bogie's wife to
get him and not caring that he went to San Quentin as long as no other woman
got him. I loved how when Agnes went ape shit as she discovered Bogie had
fallen for Baby and starts threatening them, Baby only looks slightly
preturbed, as though she's found a fly in her soup. Before there was Scully,
there was Bacall...
In fact "The Big Sleep" seems
> to me to be a pretty close noir counterpart to The
> X-Files -- the film version, I mean, since Bogart's
> Philip Marlowe is a lot more relaxed than the Chandler
> original, and thus more like XF's laid-back Mulder. In
> common with the XF mytharc, "The Big Sleep" has an
> incredibly convoluted plot; even the director and the
> writers of the movie (who included William Faulkner)
> couldn't decide who killed the chaffeur in the
> submerged Packard. And when the jaded Marlowe finds to
> his surprise that Vivian is wholly trustworthy and
> loyal, to me that's a close parallel to the development
> of Mulder and Scully's partnership.
>
>
I like the idea of the Big Sleep parallels. That is such a popular movie but
it makes no sense at all, the first real style over substance.--bugs-----
> .
Steve Pagano
news:19990324092951...@ng-fs1.aol.com...
> Mulder's intuitive abilities, his genius as Deborah calls it,
> strikes me strongly as similar to that of an artist. In making art you
don't
> necessarily think in linear terms, but allow your mind to be open to
influences
> from all around you, and that includes memory.
This idea, and several other ideas hinted at in this thread so far, bring to
mind one of the greatest problems I have with modern attempts at art. We do
know that use of one's intuition, imagination, and other non-linear forms of
thought is really necessary for the achievement of actual Art qua art. But
on the other hand, if the non-linear thought is all that is allowed to
direct one's artistic sense, one leaves the merits/quality of the final
piece entirely up to chance. Art, like math and science, takes discipline
as well as creativity. All too much of today's modern art is all intuition
and no logic, and most of it fails to be anything but rubbish.
Much in the same way, in order for Mulder and Scully to attain their goals,
they must rely on Mulder's ability to intuit and think non-linearly, but
they must also rely upon Scully's adherence to order and linearity. I was
reminded of this yet again last night when I caught Paper Hearts on FX.
Although the episode is essentially driven by Mulder's dreaming -- his
intuitions driving him all along -- very little comes to actual fruition
until Scully has her say in things. She continually puts Mulder back on
track in this episode, and it is because of her influence on him that Mulder
survives Roche, and Mulder survives his own dangerous dreaming, and the
little girl is saved in the end. (I'd better stop before I veer off into a
discussion about wardrobe that ties in here, which is still brewing in my
brain.)
> And unlike emperical
> science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular and
true
> perception of reality.
This is a *very* inaccurate view of scientists. I could expound on it at
length, but suffice it to say that no new science is ever discovered without
creative thought; no scientists ever achieves anything worthwhile unless
s/he realizes that our own perceptions are not always accurate, and that
there must be new and better perceptions of relaity developed constantly.
After all, the entire Theory of Relativity relies on differences in
perceived phenomena according to where one centers one's POV.
> XF is a narrative structure, but it is part and parcel of a visual medium,
and
> as Mulder relies on his intuitions to reveal truth, I think TXF relies on
the
> emotional power of the "image" to relate narrative. I don't think the two
can
> be separated. It's also, I think, why some stories fall flat, because
sometimes
> the image is not strong enough to carry us over the lapses in narrative or
> logic, and why the most successful stories (for me at least) are those
where
> the words and image meld successfully.
I think this idea gets to my point of needing some sense of logic to the
intuition/creativity, else the art fails to be art.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> In article <19990324092951...@ng-fs1.aol.com>,
> gbolt...@aol.com (GBolt60636) wrote:
> And unlike emperical
> > science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular
and true
> > perception of reality.
>
> linguists! That and TXF. For some reason, once I started analyzing TXF,
the
> philosophy came easier for me--hence my enthusiasm.
To clarify an earlier point of mine (stated elsewhere) slightly:
There is only one actual Reality. However, there are infinitely many
*perceptions* of reality, and our ability to determine which one is
best/truest/most correct is limited.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> gbolt...@aol.com (GBolt60636) wrote:
> >I'm not even going to attempt to discuss literature or philosophy <g>,
but the
> >above comment by Deborah touches on something I have been mulling over in
my
> >own mind lately, and I don't think it is unrelated. I speak from a fine
arts
> >background so my references will naturally be art related, so bear with
me
> >please. But Mulder's intuitive abilities, his genius as Deborah calls it,
> >strikes me strongly as similar to that of an artist. In making art you
don't
> >necessarily think in linear terms, but allow your mind to be open to
influences
a
> >painter how strange it was the way images from your life can settle down
into
> >your subconscious only to float up into awareness in the most unexpected
ways
> >and forms. Mulder's willingness to give the same credence to his
"intuitions"
> >as he does to hard evidence reminds me of the trust an artist places in
these
> >unconscious influences. You remain open to your "visions." And unlike
emperical
> >science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular
and true
> >perception of reality.
>
> work this way. It seems like an Einstein would work very differently
> from a Scully--didn't he once say the theory of relativity came to him
> in a dream?
Quite literally all scientists work that way. So do all mathematicians (of
which I am one). We just tend to take more care in making sure that the
logic is attended to properly, to verify the results intuited by our
'broccoli'.
When I do my work, there is never a single moment when I'm not
simultaneously left-braining anf right-braining. I always (well, usually!)
know when it's my intuition giving me the ideas that I pursue; the intuition
points the direction to go in, and then the logic finds its way there. It's
rather like the eyes and the feet: the eyes point you where you want to go,
but the feet actually get you there. You can get there with feet alone, but
you're never quite sure that you're there unless your eyes (or other sense)
can verify it, and there's no guarantee you'll ever get there at all. On
the other hand, if you have good eyes then you can see all you like, but
without the feet (or other transport) to get you there with, you're screwed.
I don't have a name for my broccoli, per se, but in this eyes/feet methphor,
I never shut my eyes, and I never stop my feet from moving, and I'm
generally aware of which is doing the work when.
And as for the matter of dreaming: I think Einstein did indeed say that some
of his ideas came to him while sleeping, but I'd have to double-check to
verify that. In any event, it's most assuredly possible to intuit truths in
dreams -- and sometimes it's even possible for the logic to verify said
truth in the same arena! I've done it several times myself.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> as a Profiler adept at "understanding" the monsters he chased,
> and the way he continues to explain the motivations and feelings of
> the monsters he and Scully chase. Perhaps in his heart this is
> what he is really afraid of--one of the things keeping him from
> having a life and from really making a move on Scully. That ultimately
> he will turn out to be--literally--a monster. That's pretty damned
> terrifying, isn't it?
>
> Whatddya think?
I'm not so sure that if Mulder thinks that he'll end up a monster. I think
that his lack of 'making a move' on Scully is tied up in two things:
1) Mulder perhaps doesn't view himself as worthy of Scully, and/or he
perhaps doesn't view himself as worthy of a normal relationship. He might
even think that he's incapable of having any sort of deep relationship.
2) Mulder intuits that Scully would not be receptive to him if her were to
make a move; he is clearly in a wait-and-see mode at the moment. On top of
this, I get the impression that he's in tune enough with his intuition to
know that intuition tends to get badly bent when it comes to the topic of
relationships and romance, so he perhaps doesn't quite trust his
perceptions/intuitions enough to go ahead and make that move. (Yes, I'm
oversimplifying; I just don't want to reiterate a lot of previously-said
stuff here.)
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> Are individual
> minds hard-wired for a specific kind of thinking, namely linear and
non-linear?
No, not at all. We all have different talents in working with each
individual half of the brain, but having one half well-developed doesn't
imply that the other one is less so. And on top of talent comes training
and experience, which can stifle a great talent or augment a weak talent or
do any one of a million other things.
> Is it a difference between the visible, conscious reality of realism and
the
> invisible, subconscious reality of surrealism?
I'll respond if you can clarify the question a bit more. I don't know what
you're asking.
> Sometimes the nature of the XF narrative almost strikes me as "eastern" in
> nature. I think NYPD BLUE and ER (neither of which I watch, BTW) are
linear and
> western, but XF is a different animal.
You'll again have to define what you mean by Eastern. If you define it in
the usual sense, as in using methods of anti-thought to attain 'truths',
then I'd definitely say No: genuine thought is used an awful lot more than
non-thought in TXF.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
news:01be75a8$6150e6c0$a862...@spam.oemcomputer...
> Julia Kristeva hasn't given into the despair of value and meaning you
> describe. She finds meaning in the oscillation between the symbol and the
> semiotic. I love that description. I can almost see meaning fuming between
> the words and images.
Would you please clarify what you mean in the previous paragraph, especially
the second sentence? We're getting a bit into lingoism, and it's clouding
the issue for me.
> I don't know how
> write Cixous' "l'ecriture feminine", but I love the concept-- writing with
> the body-- mother's milk as opposed to the straight-line, linearity of the
> penis. As Cixous says, "Everything doesn't have to make sense." (which
> makes her writing very difficult to understand at times <g>).
I'd have to look deeper into her writing, to judge it accurately. However,
it's become recognized that most supporters of this philosophy of thinking
are committing many major errors of thinking, and are (perhaps
inadvertently) being alarmingly sexist in their views. Susan Haack did a
wonderful exposition on this just recently ("Manifesto of a Passionate
Moderate", 1998), and I'll have to set aside more time to further study her
denunciations of "women's ways of knowing" and her attack on the notion that
linear thought (or logic) is necessarily a) masculine or b) insufficient.
Then I'll be able to face the issue a bit better-armed.
--Steve
Gwaihir
>
>Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in message news:36f9...@news1.us.ibm.net...
>> I think I might be on to something there! Think of Mulder's history
>> as a Profiler adept at "understanding" the monsters he chased,
>> and the way he continues to explain the motivations and feelings of
>> the monsters he and Scully chase. Perhaps in his heart this is
>> what he is really afraid of--one of the things keeping him from
>> having a life and from really making a move on Scully. That ultimately
>> he will turn out to be--literally--a monster. That's pretty damned
>> terrifying, isn't it?
>>
>> Whatddya think?
>
>I'm not so sure that if Mulder thinks that he'll end up a monster. I think
>that his lack of 'making a move' on Scully is tied up in two things:
>
>1) Mulder perhaps doesn't view himself as worthy of Scully, and/or he
>perhaps doesn't view himself as worthy of a normal relationship. He might
>even think that he's incapable of having any sort of deep relationship.
You know, I've never really seen this "I'm unworthy" Mulder except in
fanfic. <g> The Mulder I see on the show is pretty darn self-reliant
and confidant most of the time. As far as the show is concerned, he's
had one bad relationship (Phoebe) and one good one (Diana), plus a
marriage that might or might not have been with Diana. He and Diana
are still friendly and he seems willing to trust her, so that tells me
that the parting was amicable at the very least.
>2) Mulder intuits that Scully would not be receptive to him if her were to
>make a move; he is clearly in a wait-and-see mode at the moment. On top of
>this, I get the impression that he's in tune enough with his intuition to
>know that intuition tends to get badly bent when it comes to the topic of
>relationships and romance, so he perhaps doesn't quite trust his
>perceptions/intuitions enough to go ahead and make that move. (Yes, I'm
>oversimplifying; I just don't want to reiterate a lot of previously-said
>stuff here.)
I think Mulder's said his peace and it's now in Scully's court whether
she wants to return the ball or not. He's made his move. Short of
being CaveMan!Mulder and knocking Scully down and hauling her off to
his cave... er apartment, there isn't much else he can do. He's paying
Scully the compliment of giving her time and space to make up her mind
without pressure.
Personally, I think that one of the reasons Mulder is reluctant to
indulge in a romantic relationship is because he knows he's absorbed
in a quest that doesn't really leave much time for personal relationships.
If he was married (and yes I do take the ring as canon) then that
marriage might have broken up because he became absorbed in the X-Files.
He's very well aware of his own obsessive tendencies and if one
relationship broke up because of them, he might be very unwilling to
try a second one.
He's a smart man and knows it isn't fair to try to balance the kind
of quest he's on with a romance - either he flakes off on the quest, i.e
the world ends in an alien invasion, or he gives short shrift to his
lover and ends up hurting her and himself.
Mulder knows how precious a relationship can be and I doubt if he
wants to give it anything less than his very best. He was willing
to tell Scully what she meant to him because, to his surprise, she
didn't know. That was the stunned look I saw just before he followed
her out into the hallway. Then in Triangle he told her he loved her
because (1) it felt like the right thing to do and (2) he felt it was
important for her to know this. He's made the decision to offer her
a chance at a relationship, knowing all of his good and bad points.
Instead of making the selfish decision not to try at all because of
his doubts, he's thrown the case down on the table before Scully and
is letting her make up her own mind.
Joyce
...I will quit watching the X-Files when they
pry the remote out of my cold, dead hand.
Vehemently
reynard muldrake wrote:
> Or, Mulder's Sam Spade, to Scully's Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Melissa as
> the "Falcon". "You killed Deep Throat, and you're going over for it".
Uh, you really don't want to cast Scully as Brigid O'Shaughnessy. If
you'll recall, she seduces Spade, induces him into a messy,
already-fatal symbolic contest, lies through her teeth and goes off to
the gas chamber in the final frame. The OBSSE would be required by
their bylaws to hurt you.
Vee
dtin...@gvi.net
I was hoping you'd have time to get your 2 cents in.
"Steve Pagano" <za...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> GBolt60636 wrote in message
>
> This idea, and several other ideas hinted at in this thread so far, bring to
> mind one of the greatest problems I have with modern attempts at art. We do
> know that use of one's intuition, imagination, and other non-linear forms of
> thought is really necessary for the achievement of actual Art qua art. But
> on the other hand, if the non-linear thought is all that is allowed to
> direct one's artistic sense, one leaves the merits/quality of the final
> piece entirely up to chance. Art, like math and science, takes discipline
> as well as creativity. All too much of today's modern art is all intuition
> and no logic, and most of it fails to be anything but rubbish.
Yes, in the kind of story telling TXF is trying to do, there has to be some
logic and structure. 1013 has chosen American, late 20th century television to
tell their tale. They chose linear narrative so we have a right to expect
certain conventions of that form to be met. What I've been trying to suss out
for myself the language of sign and symbol that has developed within that
narrative.
Maybe TXF works on both levels sometimes better on one than the other. I'd
say most of the time the linear narrative prevails for 95% of the viewing
audience. What is so surprising and delightful to me, is it has these other
levels of meaning. So, for me at least, when the conventions of the
traditional narrative aren't adhered to, there is this other level that
supports my interest. What has happened to me over time, is this secondary or
rather parallel form has come to interest me more than the top layer of story
telling.
Did that make any sense?
>
> Much in the same way, in order for Mulder and Scully to attain their goals,
> they must rely on Mulder's ability to intuit and think non-linearly, but
> they must also rely upon Scully's adherence to order and linearity. I was
> reminded of this yet again last night when I caught Paper Hearts on FX.
> Although the episode is essentially driven by Mulder's dreaming -- his
> intuitions driving him all along -- very little comes to actual fruition
> until Scully has her say in things. She continually puts Mulder back on
> track in this episode, and it is because of her influence on him that Mulder
> survives Roche, and Mulder survives his own dangerous dreaming, and the
> little girl is saved in the end. (I'd better stop before I veer off into a
> discussion about wardrobe that ties in here, which is still brewing in my
> brain.)
Yes, yes, yes and Paper Hearts models the way TXF works for me as a viewer.
While it's the dream like, Imaginary qualities that fascinate me, it's the
structure of traditional narrative that provides form. It's like the
traditional narrative is the mold and the non-rational/Imaginary the jello,
shaking and jiggling inside. I know , terrible metaphor. I still need the
supports offerred by the narrative.
Deborah
Steve Pagano
news:36FA6945...@yahoo.com...
> Then again, there are times, as in Bad Blood, when the show suggests a
> post-modern sense of narrative, and then retreats. That ep had two
> distinct points of view which contradicted each other, and if it had
> been left at that I could have bought into a sense of post-structural,
> post-coherence, indeterminate structure. But then we have that final
> sequence, after the individual narratives have gone by, in which the
> 'camera eye' takes over again. Some of Mulder's POV is proved true
> (Scully's eyes for the sherriff) and some of it is proved false (when
> Scully points out, non-verbally, that the sherriff's teeth aren't
> crooked as Mulder had thought). The final sequence, while necessary to
> the wrapping up of the story, is ultimately a retreat from all of the
> pomo stuff it begins to imply.
First, what is "pomo"?
Second, you have missed the point of the episode, I think. The point of the
episode is that what one perceives as reality and what actually is reality
are often quite different, with the corollary notion that two people often
perceive an identical situation differently.
> Ultimately I see the X-Files as deeply rooted in its stylistic
> forbear: the American roman noir. It has its tics and avant-gardisms,
> it wears its cool cinematography on its sleeve, but deep in its heart
> it really does believe in the Truth, and romance, and all that
> simplistic Rule of the Father-based stuff. Just as I've always felt
> that CC at least writes the show as The Mulder Show, despite bones
> thrown to Scully occasionally, I think all of the admittedly
> interesting and lovely experiments are external defenses that disguise
> the conservatism at the show's heart.
What's wrong with conservatism, taken in moderation? Any -ism taken to an
extreme tends to be a poor philosophy to follow, notably when it's a
political philosophy, but above and beyond that I have no idea what you're
getting at; you seem to be trying to impugn both the show and the philosophy
(and not doing either), or (worse) you are assuming the inherent badness of
the philosophy (and then using it to impugn the show). (Note that I
subscribe to neither conservatism nor liberalism on the whole.)
In any event, I think you miss the point of the importance of Scully to the
show. TXF simply cannot succeed without her; there is plenty of anecdotal
evidence alone in the episodes in which she does not appear. Like most
truly well-written, character-driven shows (as opposed to shows like Law and
Order where (at least in the past) the persona of a character was secondary
to the philosophy embodied by the character), TXF started as a focus on one
character, but the "secondary" character quickly grew to an stature equal to
that of the lead. No matter how tightly the show may focus on Mulder at
times, Scully is absolutely integral to the story.
In any event, I cannot accept the Rule of the Father notion so long as there
is contradictory evidence (such as the lack of a Bible for the show, and the
fact that the Rule of the Father is shown so consistently to be *wrong*).
Also, shows that are too liberal (just like shows that are too conservative)
will alienate all but the very few who agree with all the tenets of that
philosophy; there is a vast difference between what is the Ideal show
(couched at least at the moment in terms of liberalism versus conservatism)
and what is the best show to put on at the moment (not in terms of
best-quality show but in terms of what is best in terms of bringing about
any sociopolitical change one might want in the realm of Television as a
whole). I wrote a longish article a month or so back about logistic growth
and social change; the model (and argument) applies here.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
news:19990325215345....@web210.mail.yahoo.com...
> Vee, I completely understand the point you're making
> about the way in which both XF and noir tend to
> relegate female characters, including and especially
> Scully, to the status of molls or sidekicks.
Unfortunately, with the case of every female character but Scully -- as well
as every male character but Mulder -- the character is not the main
character, and thus is only a supporting character or antagonist (as opposed
to the 'moll' or 'sidekick' which is used wholly inappropriately here -- a
further narrowing and denigrating of the roles which is made completely
without supporting evidence). This renders some of Vehemently's earlier
observations null. As for the other two:
We know that Mulder was intended to be (and to a great extent still is) the
main character of the show.
We also know that Scully has risen from being a mere sidekick to being an
integral part of the show, and more an more evidence continues to pile up
that TPTB want us to realize/accept that she is Mulder's equal rather than
subordinate (the nameplate/desk issue being the only bit of evidence of any
merit I can recall in opposition to that thesis). She is neither a moll nor
a sidekick. And I don't buy the Man-killer idea for even a fraction of a
second, nor will I until there is a good argument set forth, complete with
compelling evidence, to support that notion.
All my further arguments to this issue would refer back to articles by
myself, Deborah Tinsley, Magpie, Maggie Helwig, Heidi, and several others
which I'm sure I'm forgetting -- plus the article I wrote about logistic
growth and social change; therefore I'll drop this issue for the moment.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> Hey Steve,
> I was hoping you'd have time to get your 2 cents in.
Hey, one can always count on me to shoot my mouth off... ;)
I'm having trouble pinning down exactly what you mean by "the language of
sign and symbol" and "symbol" versus "semiotic". Could you elucidate some
of the main ideas therein?
> Maybe TXF works on both levels sometimes better on one than the other. I'd
> say most of the time the linear narrative prevails for 95% of the viewing
> audience. What is so surprising and delightful to me, is it has these
other
> levels of meaning. So, for me at least, when the conventions of the
> traditional narrative aren't adhered to, there is this other level that
> supports my interest. What has happened to me over time, is this secondary
or
> rather parallel form has come to interest me more than the top layer of
story
> telling.
>
> Did that make any sense?
I think you'll need to clarify further. I can see about four ways to
interpret what your intent is, so I don't want to guess.
I think I'm catching your drift, at least in this paragraph. For me, the
surface plot is an absolute essential, because without it all the
subtleties, all the subtexts and insinuations and gestures and expressions
and nuances, are rendered inert when placed within a poor framework.
--Steve
GBolt60636
discipline as well as creativity. All too much of today's modern art is all
intuition and no logic, and most of it fails to be anything but rubbish. >>
If this were a board for the discussion of art, I might ask for definition of
the sweeping condemnation contained within the single word "rubbish" but
suffice it to say, I was not attempting to exhalt art over science, or
intuitive thought over discipline and craft. Mulder and Scully seem to
represent both kinds of thinking, which is probably why they make such a
successful team. Mulder has been labeled as representing an intuitive or
"feminine" logic and Scully the "masculine." I don't see the different kinds of
thinking as gender related myself. I do tend to see Mulder, not as femininely
intuitive, but artistically so in his existance within the rigid structure of
the Bureau, an organization dominated by the necessity for the empirical proof
of reality due to the nature of police work. As Mulder himself once pointed
out, Scully keeps him honest.
GB
Magpie
>Chevrefoil <chevr...@aol.com> writes:
>As well, it's using the "Oh, that referred back to THE WIZARD OF OZ or
>SEVEN" constant-self-referentialism-is-a-good-thing excuse
>that had led to so much uninspired, copy-cat, 20th-generation-Xerox
>movie/TV writing out there now. If the art of narrative becomes one
>endless series of mirrors that never show any new POVs or experiences or
>anything else, and do nothing but bounce
>preconceptions/stereotypes/references to MY MOTHER THE CAR back
>and forth so an audience can feel clever, where's the joy of discovery in
>that? Where (and when) does creativity outside of nudging an audience with
>obscure TV references come in? I feel about deconstructionist works that
>work very much like I feel about visual/FX dominated movies--every one
>that works is an exception to the rule, not the rule.
Boy, that was sure refreshing to read! I couldn't have said it better
myself. I am so sick of being insulted by movies/tv that do this,
especially because it's so obvious they have no real thematic reasons
for referring to this stuff. I enjoy the Simpsons doing little nods
to things, but it's always appropriate and the story stands on its
own without it. A lot of nostalgic references to "Schoolhouse Rock"
is not going to distract me from the fact that I hate the story (and
personally I think the Wizard of Oz is just referenced in everything
now, so it's become almost meaningless).
I get the feeling the people who make these movies think that by referencing
these better works they get credit for writing them; mentioning something
from La Traviata means you are smart enough to know what it is and therefore
could have written it yourself--you just chose to make this stupid movie
instead.
Couldn't let this subject go by without venting a little. Everyone
can now go back to their deconstruction discussion.:)
-m
Deborah A Tinsley
Gwaihir <gwa...@dejanews.com> wrote in article
<7dgjpm$d...@drn.newsguy.com>...
> In article <7dgi6i$hd6$1...@camel15.mindspring.com>, "Steve says...
> >
snip
> I think Mulder's said his piece and it's now in Scully's court whether
> she wants to return the ball or not. He's made his move. Short of
> being CaveMan!Mulder and knocking Scully down and hauling her off to
> his cave... er apartment, there isn't much else he can do.
Well sure there is. He can keep doing what he's doing. He can try to get to
know her better. He could ask her about her life. He could surprise her
with a caring act. He could open up to her. Tell her about Diana and his
marriage.
I'm not saying there aren't a hundred things Scully could do. There are,
but this is about Mulder. The balls still in his court until Scully decides
to play. If he wants to warm her up, and isn't ready to give up on her, he
needs to remain constant and keep trying.
He could even just ask her straight out. "Scully do you see any future for
us?" Having a personal passionate relationship is something they should
discuss if it isn't going to sabotage their partnership.
He's paying
> Scully the compliment of giving her time and space to make up her mind
> without pressure.
<g> I love this side of Mulder. When do we ever see Mulder display
patience? The fact that he is with Scully reveals that side of him we've
seen with Samantha and Teena.
snip
Deborah
GeoRed
<za...@mindspring.com> writes:
>> And unlike emperical
>> science, artists learn that there is no one way of seeing, no singular and
>true
>> perception of reality.
>
>This is a *very* inaccurate view of scientists. I could expound on it at
>length, but suffice it to say that no new science is ever discovered without
>creative thought; no scientists ever achieves anything worthwhile unless
>s/he realizes that our own perceptions are not always accurate, and that
>there must be new and better perceptions of relaity developed constantly.
>After all, the entire Theory of Relativity relies on differences in
>perceived phenomena according to where one centers one's POV.
No need to expound at length....you did just fine. Science is creative. Or it
should be. <g> The bad scientist is the one who is *not* open to "extreme
possibilities".
>> XF is a narrative structure, but it is part and parcel of a visual medium,
>and
>> as Mulder relies on his intuitions to reveal truth, I think TXF relies on
>the
>> emotional power of the "image" to relate narrative. I don't think the two
>can
>> be separated. It's also, I think, why some stories fall flat, because
>sometimes
>> the image is not strong enough to carry us over the lapses in narrative or
>> logic, and why the most successful stories (for me at least) are those
>where
>> the words and image meld successfully.
>
>I think this idea gets to my point of needing some sense of logic to the
>intuition/creativity, else the art fails to be art.
>
>--Steve
>
>
>
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>From: "Steve Pagano" <za...@mindspring.com>
>Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.analysis
>Subject: Re: Deconstructing the X-files
>Date: 26 Mar 1999 12:41:31 -0500
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Heidi
::::::::with head in hands, rocking slowly::::::::::
"It just doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter, it just doesn't matter."
<Mulder: He's not just lean.......he's cuisine.>
Gwaihir
>
>Gwaihir <gwa...@dejanews.com> wrote in article
><7dgjpm$d...@drn.newsguy.com>...
>> In article <7dgi6i$hd6$1...@camel15.mindspring.com>, "Steve says...
>> >
>snip
>> I think Mulder's said his piece and it's now in Scully's court whether
>> she wants to return the ball or not. He's made his move. Short of
>> being CaveMan!Mulder and knocking Scully down and hauling her off to
>> his cave... er apartment, there isn't much else he can do.
>
>Well sure there is. He can keep doing what he's doing. He can try to get to
>know her better. He could ask her about her life. He could surprise her
>with a caring act. He could open up to her. Tell her about Diana and his
>marriage.
I'm afraid I don't see Scully as being completely passive in this
process. She has got to open up to him a little.
Mulder has done plenty. Now it's Scully's turn to give a little.
Everytime he's tried to care, he's gotten hit in the face with a
"I'm fine." She's an equal partner in this relationship and that
means she has to give some input.
A relationship involves reciprocal emotional commitment. Scully
has just as much committing to do as Mulder. He's made the first
steps. It's now quite reasonable for him to expect some response
from her - other than "oh brother."
>I'm not saying there aren't a hundred things Scully could do. There are,
>but this is about Mulder. The balls still in his court until Scully decides
>to play. If he wants to warm her up, and isn't ready to give up on her, he
>needs to remain constant and keep trying.
Why is this about Mulder? Why can't it also be about two people
opening up and meeting somewhere in the middle? Mulder's already
made a huge step in opening up and admitting his feelings. He's
taken all the emotional risks. I personally think it's about time
Scully risked a little - providing of course that's she's interested.
Mulder will probably keep trying, but there's no reason for him to
prove himself to Scully. He's done that, in spades. I don't think
the issue is trust for either of them. They may disagree, even walk
out in anger, but both of them know that they have proved their trust
and their commitment in a hundred different battles. Whether they
become romantically involved or not, their bond as partners and
friends remains very strong.
>He could even just ask her straight out. "Scully do you see any future for
>us?" Having a personal passionate relationship is something they should
>discuss if it isn't going to sabotage their partnership.
Yeah, but so far she's shown no signs that she would even welcome
this sort of discussion. She has got to give him some sort of signal
that she's willing to actually sit down and talk. Remember, she
laughed off his declaration of love. Now that's an encouragement
for him to open up further. Not <sigh> True, she may have had
some justification, in her own mind, but why shouldn't she be the
one to go to him and ask if he was really joking? That would be
a marvelous way to show that she's willing to open up if he is.
Mulder has taken some definite steps forward. Mulder may justifiably
feel that she prefers the relationship to remain as "just partners/
friends."
Actually, the thing that gives me hope that these two realize what
they mean to each other is the sunflower scene in Dreamlands II.
That was a scene, marvelously acted btw, between two people who have
a mature acceptance of their love and all its attendant difficulties
and complexities.
They love each other, forgive each other's faults, understand every
foible and contradiction in their nature, and get massively angry at
each other. They've proved this love over and over. It's only the
matter of whether they're going to have sex that seems to remain.
That's the ultimate in emotional intimacy and both of them may be
hesitant to risk the commitment they already have. Mulder seems
willing to take the risk, but Scully needs time to carefully
consider all the consequences. That's part of who they are. Once
his mind is made up, Mulder is willing to damn the torpedoes and
go full speed ahead. Scully is more cautious. She needs time to
think. One of the surest signs I've seen that Mulder is in love
is his willingness to respect her need for that time to think
without pressuring her, without forcing *conversations* on her.
Deborah A Tinsley
<7dgvbn$gk8$1...@camel0.mindspring.com>...
> <dtin...@gvi.net> wrote in message
news:7dgqfu$cjn$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com...
> > Hey Steve,
> > I was hoping you'd have time to get your 2 cents in.
> Hey, one can always count on me to shoot my mouth off... ;)
if I cut something relevant.
> > "Steve Pagano" <za...@mindspring.com> wrote:
snip
> > > on the other hand, if the non-linear thought is all that is allowed
to
> > > direct one's artistic sense, one leaves the merits/quality of the
final
> > > piece entirely up to chance. Art, like math and science, takes
discipline
> > > as well as creativity. All too much of today's modern art is all
intuition
> > > and no logic, and most of it fails to be anything but rubbish.
Deborah wrote:
> > They chose linear narrative so we have a right to expect certain
conventions of that form to be met.
>>What I've been trying to suss out for myself the language of sign and
symbol that has developed within that
> > narrative.
> I'm having trouble pinning down exactly what you mean by "the language of
> sign and symbol" and "symbol" versus "semiotic". Could you elucidate
some
> of the main ideas therein?
Keeping me honest I see. What do I mean? Hmmm. You are making me pull my
thoughts together. I don't have the "whole cloth" to give you yet. I was
actually hoping the discussions we've been having on this thread will help
me find what I'm after--which isn't necessarily a complete understanding of
Deconstructivist/Postmodern/Structuralism/Linguistic, etc. theories. But
I'm game, so here goes. (Skipping Lacan who should not be skipped, but this
thing's already GD "War and Peace").
POSTMODERN (POMO)
Everything is language; Language is everything-- Postmodernism: there is no
reality outside of language. i.e. woman is only a category, a fiction
created out of language. Since woman does not exist, except in the fantasy
men have created for themselves, women's task is to recreate woman on their
own terms. Since women do not own symbolic language (rational, binary) they
must develop their own out of the Imaginary. This language is often called
semiotic.
DERRIDA AND THE PHALLUS
". . .nothing is stable, . . meaning is always contingent and ambiguous. .
"
Language is a flawed construct
Saussure believed value comes from difference - we define something by what
it is not (women = "not men").
Derrida found an alternative to this dualism - things explained with binary
oppositions: dark/light, male/female, good/evil, order/chaos,
language/silence, etc. in which the first term is valued over the second.
Binary oppositions: pairs that gave each other value.
Even though the structure is flawed, you keep using it. You use what's
there to get a particular job done, but a system must have a center, a
fixity, a presence or play is limited or eliminated.
DERRIDA AND PLAY
So Derrida invented deconstruction to describe the process for reading
infinite alternative meanings into any given text - the inevitable,
meaning-creative gap between object of perception and our perception of it.
Deconstruction looks for binary pairs of oppositions then they look for
places where something disrupts the slash, something that fits on both
sides, or where there's one thing on one side and more than one on another,
or a blank-- without opposition. This deconstructs the structure, put the
elements into play.
SEMIOTICS/SIGNS
Symbols stand for things, meanings and values.
Signs are mediating vehicles - images, sounds, etc.
Signs and sign systems never present a copy of "reality" but a socially
interpreted and valued representation.
Semiotics distinguishes 2 main sign-functions;
1.) the signifier (level of expression, acoustic impressions of speech
sound, visual impression of images)
2.) the signified (the level of content or value, of social meaning is a
code - a rule for combining basic signifiers into a system of meanings).
Semiotics also is used to analyze and study other meaning systems in
society besides language: advertising, popular culture like TV, movies,
music, political discourse, etc. It provides a method for uncovering and
analyzing how a system of signification works in a culture.
Oh God help me!<g> I'm sorry for this shabby little treatise. Let's see if
I can get back to TXF. I'm at that stage where I sort of know where I'm
going but haven't figured out how to get there yet?? Sad to say, I could
have gone on and on.
> > What is so surprising and delightful to me, is it (TXF) has these other
> > levels of meaning. So, for me at least, when the conventions of the
> > traditional narrative aren't adhered to, there is this other level that
> > supports my interest. What has happened to me over time, is this
secondary or
> > rather parallel form has come to interest me more than the top layer of
story telling.
> >
> > Did that make any sense?
>
> I think you'll need to clarify further. I can see about four ways to
> interpret what your intent is, so I don't want to guess.
Only four <g>. (I have to say if you've waded through to this point you
deserve the ATXFA Purple Heart!).
Simply (and you'll just have to trust me on this), what I'm saying is from
the beginning TXF presented to us within a certain amount of information
via dreams, memories, illusions, faith and symbolic imagery (i.e. Scully in
the boat in One Breath) not through the traditional methods of most TV
dramas -- dialog, actions that are not ambiguous. This fascinates me. It
fascinates me on two levels: 1. it's an interesting and unusual way to tell
a story and 2. I believe it mirrors the way our culture perceives reality
(see my last post before this one).
snipped your provocative thoughts
> > Yes, yes, yes and Paper Hearts models the way TXF works for me as a
viewer.
> > While it's the dream like, Imaginary qualities that fascinate me, it's
the
> > structure of traditional narrative that provides form. It's like the
> > traditional narrative is the mold and the non-rational/Imaginary the
jello,
> > shaking and jiggling inside. I know , terrible metaphor. I still need
the
> > supports offerred by the narrative.
>
> I think I'm catching your drift, at least in this paragraph. For me, the
> surface plot is an absolute essential, because without it all the
> subtleties, all the subtexts and insinuations and gestures and
expressions
> and nuances, are rendered inert when placed within a poor framework.
>
> --Steve
TXF wouldn't have enjoyed its success without strong plots, and I agree
with many of you that the plots this year have not been the strongest. TXF
is riding on its past success, but the weakened plots have provided room
for the other elements I have come to love to reach their zenith. I loved
the Dreamland eps, and HTGSC, Rain King, Tithonus, 2F/1S, and Monday
because of the subtexts, insinuations, nuances, gestures and expressions--
for me it's a different kind of language enhanced by the traditional (and
less interesting at this point) plot -- but without some structure, without
some presence, a center, the parts I love will not work.
For a long, but much better written essay on UFO's and Pomo myth, search
for CTHEORY: Through the Dark Mirror: UFO's as Postmodern Myth? by Daniel
R. White and Alvin Y. Wong:
"The structures of symbolic systems as they generate human experience are
also on the mind of Lacan. . ., the analysis of these structures in terms
of the signifiers and signifieds of Saussure's linguistics yields a new
frame within which to set the looking glass of Freudian psychology: a
Lacanian Mirror more reminiscent of Lewis Carroll than of Freud. In any
case, this is a glass within which we might reflect upon the deities of an
emerging postmodern religious sensibility."
Also I've drawn a lot of my ideas from Elizabeth Kubek's essay in , Deny
All Knowledge (didn't you get that for Christmas Steve?), "You'll Only
Expose Your Father" by Elizabeth Kubek.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
> In article <01be77e2$f7fb2c20$bdba...@spam.oemcomputer>, "Deborah
says...
> >
> >Gwaihir <gwa...@dejanews.com> wrote in article
> ><7dgjpm$d...@drn.newsguy.com>...
> >> In article <7dgi6i$hd6$1...@camel15.mindspring.com>, "Steve says...
> >> >
> >snip
> >> I think Mulder's said his piece and it's now in Scully's court whether
> >> she wants to return the ball or not. He's made his move. Short of
> >> being CaveMan!Mulder and knocking Scully down and hauling her off to
> >> his cave... er apartment, there isn't much else he can do.
> >
> >Well sure there is. He can keep doing what he's doing. He can try to get
to
> >know her better. He could ask her about her life. He could surprise her
> >with a caring act. He could open up to her. Tell her about Diana and
his
> >marriage.
>
>
> I'm afraid I don't see Scully as being completely passive in this
> process. She has got to open up to him a little.
I didn't say she was, but we were discussing Mulder, not Scully.
> Mulder has done plenty. Now it's Scully's turn to give a little.
> Everytime he's tried to care, he's gotten hit in the face with a
> "I'm fine." She's an equal partner in this relationship and that
> means she has to give some input.
There is no romantic relationship. Scully hasn't given any indication that
she wants anything other than friendship post kiss. Maybe she's fooling
herself, we all certainly think so, but if Scully's blind to it, she's
blind. If she's not ready, she's not ready. She can't help it. She can't
make herself want more.
If Mulder really wants her to see, he has to keep trying or else give up
and just take it on the chin that she's not interested at this time.
Mulder's the one pushing now, so the ball is in his court. If Scully ever
decides she's interested, then she'll act. Right now, she ain't budging.
I'm not telling Mulder to do anything. He's the only one who can know how
much he wants Scully and how long he's willing to wait and to keep trying.
Maybe Scully will suddenly see the light and commit herself to a romantic
relationship. I'd love that. I'd love for her to be the one to move on him.
My fingers are crossed.
> A relationship involves reciprocal emotional commitment. Scully
> has just as much committing to do as Mulder. He's made the first
> steps. It's now quite reasonable for him to expect some response
> from her - other than "oh brother."
There is no romantic relationship. Scully is keeping up her part as his
dearest friend. Mulder can expect anything he wants, but Scully can only
say and do what she's prepared to do. If she's not ready, she's not ready.
> >I'm not saying there aren't a hundred things Scully could do. There are,
> >but this is about Mulder. The balls still in his court until Scully
decides
> >to play. If he wants to warm her up, and isn't ready to give up on her,
he
> >needs to remain constant and keep trying.
>
>
> Why is this about Mulder?
Because he's the one in pursuit at this time. Of course it is about Scully,
but if she isn't ready or doesn't want a relationship at this time, what
Mulder wants to do about it is entirely up to him. Does he "love" or want
her enough to keep trying, hoping she'll see the light or get past her
fears? That's his decision, but if he wants to influence her at this time,
then only he can do something about it. If he doesn't, just wants her to
come to it on her own, then it's his decision to not do anything. Scully
seems perfectly happy to go on with things as they are. That may change if
some new element enters the picture (i.e. another love interest for Mulder,
Mulder changing his behavior, etc.)
Why can't it also be about two people
> opening up and meeting somewhere in the middle? Mulder's already
> made a huge step in opening up and admitting his feelings. He's
> taken all the emotional risks.
And that's a good thing whether Scully ever wakes up and smells the coffee
or not.
I personally think it's about time
> Scully risked a little - providing of course that's she's interested.
> Mulder will probably keep trying, but there's no reason for him to
> prove himself to Scully.
I never said anything about proving himself. You are right. He's done that.
You never know what will make another person see you in a different light,
and if you think it's worth trying to make that happen, if you are so in
love that you cannot think of living your life without that person, then
you develop patience until you don't feel that way any longer or are ready
to accept that you will never have the relationship you envisioned with
that person. I'm just suggesting ways he might light a fire under her. It's
up to him what he's willing to do.
snip
> >He could even just ask her straight out. "Scully do you see any future
for
> >us?" Having a personal passionate relationship is something they should
> >discuss if it isn't going to sabotage their partnership.
>
>
> Yeah, but so far she's shown no signs that she would even welcome
> this sort of discussion. She has got to give him some sort of signal
> that she's willing to actually sit down and talk.
She doesn't have to do anything because she's not the one pushing for more.
He is, and if he's serious, he needs to find a way to reach her or not! He
can decided to wait and see. I was just suggesting ways he might speed the
process up if it's meant to happen. As for not welcoming this kind of
conversation, that might be a strong sign that it's not meant to be between
them.
Remember, she
> laughed off his declaration of love. Now that's an encouragement
> for him to open up further. Not <sigh> True, she may have had
> some justification, in her own mind, but why shouldn't she be the
> one to go to him and ask if he was really joking? That would be
> a marvelous way to show that she's willing to open up if he is.
Sometimes you have to risk making a fool of yourself for love, you have to
put your heart on your sleeve and risk it getting broken. Faint heart never
won fair maid/lad. If he lacks courage to keep trying, maybe it isn't meant
to be.
> Mulder has taken some definite steps forward. Mulder may justifiably
> feel that she prefers the relationship to remain as "just partners/
> friends."
I think that would be a correct assessment at this point in time. She is
not ready or she'd respond differently.
snip.
>
> They love each other, forgive each other's faults, understand every
> foible and contradiction in their nature, and get massively angry at
> each other. They've proved this love over and over. It's only the
> matter of whether they're going to have sex that seems to remain.
> That's the ultimate in emotional intimacy and both of them may be
> hesitant to risk the commitment they already have. Mulder seems
> willing to take the risk, but Scully needs time to carefully
> consider all the consequences. That's part of who they are. Once
> his mind is made up, Mulder is willing to damn the torpedoes and
> go full speed ahead. Scully is more cautious. She needs time to
> think. One of the surest signs I've seen that Mulder is in love
> is his willingness to respect her need for that time to think
> without pressuring her, without forcing *conversations* on her.
>
> Joyce
Beautifully written Joyce. The biggest obstacle between Mulder and Scully
is Chris Carter!
Deborah
>
Courtney Bailey
> Millenium, therefore, seems to start with a truth that is known.
> That is how it links all the episodes together. TXF has a
> truth that is always "out there" and all the mythologies must
> be taken on their own terms in order to provide a small glimpse
> of that truth. All the mythologies and languages M&S encounter
> are inadequate to that truth--not because they are lies, but because
> we as humans do not yet have the capacity to fully comprehend the Truth.
This points to something that really fascinates me about XF's ambivalent
relationship to the Truth and to postmodernism. On the one hand, XF proclaims "the
truth is out there," which seems to indicate that there is an answer, a totalizing
Truth, that is just waiting to be discovered. This answer ("full disclosure," if
you will) can clear up all the ambiguity of the conspiracy and the myth arc. This
Truth, once revealed, promises to make all the contradictions dissolve, to make
everything "fit" into a stable, overarching structure (this is what postmodernism
would call a "master narrative"). This is ostensibly what 2F and 1S are all
about--giving us the final, definite answer to the myth arc, offering us a
supposedly coherent, linear narrative that can make sense of all the inconsistencies
and uncertainties of the past 5 seasons.
BUT, and this is what interests me more, those inconsistencies and uncertainties
seem to defy the master narrative; they just can't be contained or tamed (as Deborah
and others have pointed out elsewhere on the ng). In this sense, XF can be read as
postmodern, insofar as it constantly subverts its own pretensions to finding the one
truth "out there" that will make everything neat and tidy. (Incidentally, I'm also
fascinated by the repeated assertions of various characters, most notably Scully,
that the truth is "in me." But I'm not quite sure what to make of that). I'm not
really interested in arguing whether the myth arc's internal contradictions are the
result of bad, sloppy writing (which they may very well be). Such arguments, while
not necessarily invalid, seem rather dismissive; they foreclose the possibility that
narrative contradictions and ambiguity can be a rich source of meaning. Indeed, it
seems to me that XF is unusual and provocative precisely because it lends itself to
multiple, often contradictory meanings and readings (see, for example, the
discussion of Mulder's ring), even as it also constructs a master narrative. And
it's the tension between these two that encourages fun and exciting debate on the
part of the audience! <grin>
I have a specific example of the contradictory readings I'm talking about, which
involve Scully and "Christmas Carol"/"Emily," but I'll save that for another post.
Courtney
Gwaihir
to get confused with all the quotes and counter quotes. <g>
In article <01be77fb$164b8fe0$ec9a9cd1@oemcomputer>, "Deborah says...
>
>
>Gwaihir <gwa...@dejanews.com> wrote in article
>> I'm afraid I don't see Scully as being completely passive in this
>> process. She has got to open up to him a little.
>
>I didn't say she was, but we were discussing Mulder, not Scully.
Sorry, I thought we were discussing the relationship. <g>
Great minds on parallel railroad tracks. <BG>
>> Mulder has done plenty. Now it's Scully's turn to give a little.
>> Everytime he's tried to care, he's gotten hit in the face with a
>> "I'm fine." She's an equal partner in this relationship and that
>> means she has to give some input.
>
>There is no romantic relationship. Scully hasn't given any indication that
>she wants anything other than friendship post kiss. Maybe she's fooling
>herself, we all certainly think so, but if Scully's blind to it, she's
>blind. If she's not ready, she's not ready. She can't help it. She can't
>make herself want more.
I'd agree that there isn't a romantic relationship, but, as you can
tell from my later dissertation, there is love. Mulder has just put
it into words. I think he needed to do this, to make clear to Scully
where he stood. I also think, based on the rather content look he
had in Triangle after the declaration, that he's willing to accept
whatever she decides. At least she *knows* how he feels. If she
decides she doesn't want to move forward, then he can't blame himself
for never telling her how he feels. That may sound strange, but I
know from personal experience, that accepting that a relationship
just isn't going to work is a lot easier if you've declared yourself.
>If Mulder really wants her to see, he has to keep trying or else give up
>and just take it on the chin that she's not interested at this time.
>Mulder's the one pushing now, so the ball is in his court. If Scully ever
>decides she's interested, then she'll act. Right now, she ain't budging.
>I'm not telling Mulder to do anything. He's the only one who can know how
>much he wants Scully and how long he's willing to wait and to keep trying.
>
>Maybe Scully will suddenly see the light and commit herself to a romantic
>relationship. I'd love that. I'd love for her to be the one to move on him.
>My fingers are crossed.
I agree. I'd love to see her decide to hell with common sense and
put him up against a wall and kiss the startled lad into senselessness.
<VBG>
>> A relationship involves reciprocal emotional commitment. Scully
>> has just as much committing to do as Mulder. He's made the first
>> steps. It's now quite reasonable for him to expect some response
>> from her - other than "oh brother."
>
>There is no romantic relationship. Scully is keeping up her part as his
>dearest friend. Mulder can expect anything he wants, but Scully can only
>say and do what she's prepared to do. If she's not ready, she's not ready.
Well, I'd say there is a romantic relationship, but no as anyone except
eccentrics like me define it. They have a romance in the classic sense,
not how moderns define it. Their relationship reminds me of the classic
relationship in folklore. They are bonded together by trust and love
so deeply that a simple sexual relationship seems almost casual in
comparison. Not sure if that makes sense. I know what I mean, I just
don't have the words. Damn cold. <sigh>
>> Why is this about Mulder?
>
>Because he's the one in pursuit at this time. Of course it is about Scully,
>but if she isn't ready or doesn't want a relationship at this time, what
>Mulder wants to do about it is entirely up to him. Does he "love" or want
>her enough to keep trying, hoping she'll see the light or get past her
>fears? That's his decision, but if he wants to influence her at this time,
>then only he can do something about it. If he doesn't, just wants her to
>come to it on her own, then it's his decision to not do anything. Scully
>seems perfectly happy to go on with things as they are. That may change if
>some new element enters the picture (i.e. another love interest for Mulder,
>Mulder changing his behavior, etc.)
I hope it doesn't take Mulder turning to someone else to make Scully
decide she wants to move forward. That's a recipe for disaster. I
think Mulder is prepared to wait. While I sometimes think he'd be
better off finding someone a little easier to love, I think Mulder
believes Scully is worth the wait.
>Why can't it also be about two people
>> opening up and meeting somewhere in the middle? Mulder's already
>> made a huge step in opening up and admitting his feelings. He's
>> taken all the emotional risks.
>
>And that's a good thing whether Scully ever wakes up and smells the coffee
>or not.
Ever want to walk up to a fictional character and just take them by
the shoulders and give them a good shake? <G> I'm about Scully's
height, I think I could look her in the eye and tell her that she's
insane not to grab Mulder. Hey, if she doesn't want him, I'm willing
to volunteer. <BG>
>I personally think it's about time
>> Scully risked a little - providing of course that's she's interested.
>> Mulder will probably keep trying, but there's no reason for him to
>> prove himself to Scully.
>
>I never said anything about proving himself. You are right. He's done that.
>You never know what will make another person see you in a different light,
>and if you think it's worth trying to make that happen, if you are so in
>love that you cannot think of living your life without that person, then
>you develop patience until you don't feel that way any longer or are ready
>to accept that you will never have the relationship you envisioned with
>that person. I'm just suggesting ways he might light a fire under her. It's
>up to him what he's willing to do.
That's why Mulder is being patient. Consider the impulsive Mulder of
previous seasons and compare him to the Mulder we're seeing this season
and I think you'll see a man who is prepared to wait, even prepared to
accept that a friend/partner is all she wants from him. I just don't
see Mulder as being a person to be aggressive beyond what's he done
already. That may not be a good thing, but it's part of his essential
character.
>> Yeah, but so far she's shown no signs that she would even welcome
>> this sort of discussion. She has got to give him some sort of signal
>> that she's willing to actually sit down and talk.
>
>She doesn't have to do anything because she's not the one pushing for more.
>He is, and if he's serious, he needs to find a way to reach her or not! He
>can decided to wait and see. I was just suggesting ways he might speed the
>process up if it's meant to happen. As for not welcoming this kind of
>conversation, that might be a strong sign that it's not meant to be between
>them.
Possibly. There have been times this season, when I've really thought
that Mulder should simply give up and go find someone else. However,
Mulder is stubborn and when he gives his trust and his love, he's not
easily dissuaded.
>Remember, she
>> laughed off his declaration of love. Now that's an encouragement
>> for him to open up further. Not <sigh> True, she may have had
>> some justification, in her own mind, but why shouldn't she be the
>> one to go to him and ask if he was really joking? That would be
>> a marvelous way to show that she's willing to open up if he is.
>
>Sometimes you have to risk making a fool of yourself for love, you have to
>put your heart on your sleeve and risk it getting broken. Faint heart never
>won fair maid/lad. If he lacks courage to keep trying, maybe it isn't meant
>to be.
I haven't seen that he isn't willing to keep on trying. I think he's
just waiting for some sign that he should keep trying. After rewatching
Arcadia (with friends who loved it) I think I began to see the signs he
was waiting for. The old familiar teasing was back and it was good to
see them so relaxed with each other. That may be all the sign Mulder
needs to keep on hoping. I do think that Scully needs to take the risk.
It hurts to take those kind of chances and the odds of making a bloody
fool of yourself are high, but she needs to risk everything on a hunch.
Maybe that's ultimately what Mulder is waiting for.
>> Mulder has taken some definite steps forward. Mulder may justifiably
>> feel that she prefers the relationship to remain as "just partners/
>> friends."
>
>I think that would be a correct assessment at this point in time. She is
>not ready or she'd respond differently.
Agreed. Scully still needs some time, but I think she's beginning to
move. Again, I saw definite signs of movement in Arcadia. I believe
Mulder could cope with keeping the relationship as it is now. Not sure
about us fans, however. <g>
>snip.
>>
>> They love each other, forgive each other's faults, understand every
>> foible and contradiction in their nature, and get massively angry at
>> each other. They've proved this love over and over. It's only the
>> matter of whether they're going to have sex that seems to remain.
>> That's the ultimate in emotional intimacy and both of them may be
>> hesitant to risk the commitment they already have. Mulder seems
>> willing to take the risk, but Scully needs time to carefully
>> consider all the consequences. That's part of who they are. Once
>> his mind is made up, Mulder is willing to damn the torpedoes and
>> go full speed ahead. Scully is more cautious. She needs time to
>> think. One of the surest signs I've seen that Mulder is in love
>> is his willingness to respect her need for that time to think
>> without pressuring her, without forcing *conversations* on her.
>>
>> Joyce
>
>Beautifully written Joyce. The biggest obstacle between Mulder and Scully
>is Chris Carter!
Ah, he's not much. <g> If I can read this much romance in the series,
then short of a complete betrayal of characterization a la Agua Mala,
I will continue to see the love that exists between them. It's rather
an old-fashioned type of love, but that is extremely refreshing in
these days of instant physical intimacy on TV. <G>
Joyce - the incurable romantic
Courtney Bailey
> I enjoy post-structuralist theory as much as the next person, and it's
> certainly the most profitable approach to take when "reading" TXF, but the
> detractors of deconstruction do have a point when they complain that, taken to
> extremes, it makes qualitative judgments impossible. If a signifier -- be it a
> word, image or gesture -- can be a symbol only of an absence, meaning becomes
> nothing more than a matter of willful self-delusion, and therefore all "texts"
> are created equal in their fundamental meaninglessness. And so one may find
> oneself faced with the depressing, but theoretically sound, proposition that
> Paper Hearts and Teso dos Bichos have equal merit. That just ain't right. <g>
>
Warning: this is fairly lengthy, so stay with me if you can.
Saying that XF has multiple meanings is not the same as saying that it has no
meaning or that "anything goes." I would argue that, although there is no one
fixed, definitive reading of XF, there are readings that have more cultural
legitimacy and authority than others. These readings are privileged because they
resonate with what we might call "dominant codes" of what is acceptable, normal,
and valued in society. At the same time, there are what is sometimes referred to
as "reading against the grain," where we create meanings that either challenge or
don't jibe with dominant codes.
To try to make this somewhat clearer (perhaps a futile endeavor), I want to offer
two contradictory readings of Scully in "Christmas Carol" and "Emily." The first
one sees these eps as (re)producing prevailing notions, or dominant codes, of
gender. For example, we get the infamous stain glass window shot, where the scene
of Scully lying down next to Emily dissolves into an image of the Virgin Mary with
child. Regardless of the creator's intent, this can be read as an attempt to
"purify" Scully's sexuality, which has arguably been "corrupted" by the "medical
rape" and experimentation she underwent at the hands of the syndicate.
Furthermore, I'm bothered by a certain shift that takes place between CC and Emily,
a shift that involves which character drives the narrative and how they do so. In
CC, we get Scully being active in a very particular way--we see her engaged in the
murder investigation, and she makes many of the inferences that are needed to
propel the story.
At the end of CC, we find out she's a mother, and this marks a qualitative shift in
Emily. Suddenly, Scully seems to abandon what we might consider a more aggressive
pursuit of "the truth" (in fact, she abdicates this pursuit to Mulder, who goes
around threatening doctors and breaking into nursing homes trying to find out what
happened to her). In contrast to her actions in CC, Scully seems reduced to
standing around and wringing her hands, suffering empathetically with Emily as the
little girl undergoes a series of painful medical tests. This shift is
encapsulated for me in the scene where Mulder and Scully face the judge deciding
her adoption petition. For most of the scene, the two men are foregrounded, while
Scully remains in the background, silent. Mulder, on the other hand, does plenty
of talking, partly because he has privileged knowledge about Scully's abduction.
All of this suggests to me that the minute we discover Scully is a mother, she
ceases to act in her investigatory capacity as an FBI agent, and when we discover
*how* she became a mother (through decidedly "unnatural" methods), she is
desexualized through the Virgin Mary imagery. So she can't be a mother, a career
woman, and a sexual being all at once--and that is profoundly disturbing to me.
Having feminist leanings myself, I don't particularly like the implications of this
reading, which can be used to justify paternalistic societal control over women's
sexuality and to insist that being a good mother is necessarily at odds with
pursuing a career, especially a rather dangerous, unstable (dare I say, masculine?)
career as an FBI agent. This precludes the possibility that Scully's pursuit of
the truth through her job might actually be a way for her to *also* be a good
mother.
Since this post has gone on long enough, I'll offer my "reading against the grain"
in a separate post.
Courtney
Magpie
>Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in message news:36f9...@news1.us.ibm.net...
>> I agree, but I'd like to hear if there are any scientists who also
I reread the quote about Einstein and he came up with the theory
in a state of *reverie*--exactly the kind of thing we're talking
about here. (I find that much easier to swallow than a sleeping
dream!) He presumably cast out his mind until he caught this
idea, then carefully worked on the idea until it was solid.
I've been studying some more about dreams recently and even the ones
you have in your sleep need to be subjected to both sides of the
brain to make sense. Thos who believe that dreams contain information
and "messages" to us become very disciplined to understand what those
messages are. That is, they keep dream notebooks and record their
feelings upon waking etc., training themselves to become lucid
dreamers. Most drugstores sell those little "dictionaries of dream
symbols", but they're pretty useless--in order to know what the
symbols of your own dreams mean to you, you have to study the
images yourself and make note of how those symbols are used over
and over. It's your brain that's speaking to you, after all.
Anyway, that's the theory, anyway. Nothing--not science, art or
dreams--are as easy as Hollywood would lead you to believe.:)
-m
Magpie
>Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in message news:36f9...@news1.us.ibm.net...
>> as a Profiler adept at "understanding" the monsters he chased,
>> and the way he continues to explain the motivations and feelings of
>> the monsters he and Scully chase. Perhaps in his heart this is
>> what he is really afraid of--one of the things keeping him from
>> having a life and from really making a move on Scully. That ultimately
>> he will turn out to be--literally--a monster. That's pretty damned
>> terrifying, isn't it?
>>
>> Whatddya think?
>
>I'm not so sure that if Mulder thinks that he'll end up a monster.
Actually, I think I may not have put it well. I don't see Mulder
worried about turning into a monster. But a big part of his
journey has been about finding out where he really comes from.
Once his past is completely uncovered, he'll be able to deal with it,
but the unknown is intimidating and dangerous. Just by being
who he is, Mulder's caused a lot of people--especially Scully--a
lot of pain, and he never knows what's going to happen next. So
I get the feeling that he's hesitant to reach out to anyone. He's
a little like Tony Shaloub's character in the ep with the killer
shadow.
However, I think these two points you make are just as valid. I
don't think Mulder's fear about what he is the answer to everything
he does.
-m
I think
>that his lack of 'making a move' on Scully is tied up in two things:
>
>1) Mulder perhaps doesn't view himself as worthy of Scully, and/or he
>perhaps doesn't view himself as worthy of a normal relationship. He might
>even think that he's incapable of having any sort of deep relationship.
>
>2) Mulder intuits that Scully would not be receptive to him if her were to
>make a move; he is clearly in a wait-and-see mode at the moment. On top of
>this, I get the impression that he's in tune enough with his intuition to
>know that intuition tends to get badly bent when it comes to the topic of
>relationships and romance, so he perhaps doesn't quite trust his
>perceptions/intuitions enough to go ahead and make that move. (Yes, I'm
>oversimplifying; I just don't want to reiterate a lot of previously-said
>stuff here.)
>
>--Steve
>
>
Deborah A Tinsley
Courtney Bailey <cwba...@kiva.net> wrote in article
<36FC733E...@kiva.net>...
>snip
> Warning: this is fairly lengthy, so stay with me if you can.
one.
> Saying that XF has multiple meanings is not the same as saying that it
has no
> meaning or that "anything goes." I would argue that, although there is
no one
> fixed, definitive reading of XF, there are readings that have more
cultural
> legitimacy and authority than others. These readings are privileged
because they
> resonate with what we might call "dominant codes" of what is acceptable,
normal,
> and valued in society. At the same time, there are what is sometimes
referred to
> as "reading against the grain," where we create meanings that either
challenge or
> don't jibe with dominant codes.
I'm fairly new to deconstruction (or is it postmodern), but this seems very
clear to me. I think reading against the grain is what fascinates me. I
like this explanation.
> To try to make this somewhat clearer (perhaps a futile endeavor), I want
to offer
> two contradictory readings of Scully in "Christmas Carol" and "Emily."
The first
> one sees these eps as (re)producing prevailing notions, or dominant
codes, of
> gender. For example, we get the infamous stain glass window shot, where
the scene
> of Scully lying down next to Emily dissolves into an image of the Virgin
Mary with
> child. Regardless of the creator's intent, this can be read as an
attempt to
> "purify" Scully's sexuality, which has arguably been "corrupted" by the
"medical
> rape" and experimentation she underwent at the hands of the syndicate.
Someone on the crew, the director? or the photographer said the shot was
unintentional that it was a nice shot so they included it, but even if
that's true, in the sense of the way it happened, this is where the symbol
(virgin and child) overrides the conscious intent. Whether they chose it to
make a point or not, the point was made even if it was unconsciously. In
fact, as an unconscious decision, the symbol is even more important because
it comes from the heart.
I have to say while I was watching Emily, I did not get a sense of Scully
as passive or in the background. She was reticent but then she was subdued
in CC as well. I don't know if it's GA's acting or just the presence of
Scully's character, but even though she was under great emotional strain,
she still seemed very strong to me. In Emily she was faced with the fact
that her recently discovered biological daughter was dying at the hands of
the men who had abducted and raped her and yet she maintained her
vigilance, competence, resolve and tenderness. She dealt firmly and
effectively with the bureaucracies that threatened to separate her from the
child in their last moments.
Maybe there is a cultural bias that values the "action" Mulder was taking
over the quiet courage Scully had to muster. Scully "ceases to act in her
investigatory capacity as an FBI agent" because she has a more important
and more difficult task to perform--to protect and comfort a dying child.
After all, what did Mulder actually accomplish? Even the "serum" he found
was not the answer Scully or Emily needed. Busting bad guys would be much
easier than waiting in the claustrophobic death chamber of that
hospital--the corroding grief of helplessly watching the slow death of an
innocent would be excruciating.
The most important thing Mulder did in that episode was Mr. Potato head
(which delighted Scully if not Emily when Scully needed to see Emily smile)
and just his presence--at her brother's house, in the judges chamber, in
the hospital, at the chapel. I think Scully had the more difficult role to
play. Mulder's presence did more for Scully than any of his actions. Scully
provided all the truly meaningful action in this episode.
> Since this post has gone on long enough, I'll offer my "reading against
the grain"
> in a separate post.
>
> Courtney
I can't wait!
Deborah
GravesPA2
"unnatural" methods), she is desexualized through the Virgin Mary imagery. So
she can't be a mother, a career woman, and a sexual being all at once--and
that is profoundly disturbing to me.>>
I've been trying to figure out why this particular image just didn't bother me,
and I think it has to do with my own beliefs about Mary, mother of Jesus.
While I accept the belief of her virginity at his birth, I don't see her as the
Virgin Mother---because she was married and had other children, which would
indicate to me that she and Joseph had a healthy and loving sex life afterwards
that was both sanctioned and blessed by God. So I don't see the madonna image
as being a symbol of desexualization outside of the specific circumstance of
Emily's birth. In other words, I don't see it as symbolic of Scully as a
forever desexualized being. Just as I don't see Mary as a desexualized being.
Paula Graves
Magpie
>Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <36fb...@news1.us.ibm.net>...
>> "Deborah A Tinsley" <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >ABauer7333 <abaue...@aol.com> wrote in article
>> ><19990325121634...@ng-ch1.aol.com>...
>>
>> >
>> >I'm not sure I understand you completely so if I'm way off base, please
>> >forgive me-- perhaps Krycek will emerge to take CSM's place. There is
>still
>> >a lot of mystery about Krycek and even though in the past he did not
>have
>> >the weight or dimension to carry the mythopoetic themes, he could be
>> >developed that way. He isn't a father a figure, but in a way he and
>Mulder
>> >are becoming the Fathers now that the power of the old men has been
>broken.
>> >They are the next generation, approaching their mid-life, and time to
>> >assume their leadership roles. Mulder is no longer the deluded boy
>> >controlled by his father and by the men who controlled his father.
>Krycek
>> >is no longer the pawn. Maybe the stage is being set for them to enter
>the
>> >next level? It's a thought.
>>
>> I would LOVE things to play out this way. Krycek has become more and
>> more of an unknown as the show has progressed and I think he is the
>> logical heir to the antagonist's role. The show has progressed to the
>> point when the villain must be "known" to Mulder somehow. He's learned
>> too much now to put him back into the role he had in Season One,
>stumbling
>> around in the dark. Krycek is Mulder's mirror image in so many ways--
>> and this is the logical next step for Mulder, imo. In his youth the
>> demon was a distant, monsterous figure. Now he's ready to recognize
>> his own face in the villain.
>I like this idea even better after your comments. They could be the warring
>twin gods CSM was talking about in Redux, not Spender. Now all the fathers
>are dead or "castrated" (well maybe we shouldn't give up on ol'Smokey yet,
>but unless CC finds some way to breathe life into him--his own dialog to
>Mulder has come true for him: "You're time here is done.").
>
>I could see Krycek as a powerful antagonist because he's so attractive. He
>isn't repulsive in the way CSM was before they humanized him. We know
>Krycek was used and victimized (and lord knows about the skeletons in his
>past). It's that allure of the devil beckoning you, making you have
>sympathy for him right before he sticks the pitchfork in-- and part of that
>pitchfork is making you realize that you have a lot in common with him. Oh
>yeah, he could play Mulder on a whole different level than CSM ever did.
>With CSM it was the Father tricking the boy, but with Krycek they are
>equals. And no matter where you fall on the UST between M&K you have to
>admit there's electricity between them-- even if it's hatred.
>
>And Scully! We've barely seen her interact with Krycek. Krycek as Scully's
>demon lover? (symbolically only). I can see Krycek convincing Scully that
>Mulder's gone over the edge, encouraging her to betray him. It'd be
>interesting to see how the intrepid Scully would handle him.
I definitely had the Twin War Gods in mind when I was picturing
M&K. Spender never really fit that story (poor kid--his dad was
always trying to be something he wasn't!) because for Spender the
conflict was not about what side to choose (until the end) or
who would be the winner...for Spender it was about whether he would
believe or not.
If you look at it that way, Spender's twin is really Scully, and that
creates some interesting contrasts itself. Spender's scepticism is
the dark side of Scully's: he refused to believe out of bitterness and
fear. He had closed his mind when he really knew the truth all
along--his mother had taught it to him at a young age. Scully, otoh,
is open minded. She doesn't believe because she does not yet have
a reason to believe (Pascal said that from a purely logical pov it
is no more absurd to believe in the existance of God than not to).
She has recently started to lean more towards Spender's way, though--
fighting to hold on to her scepticism in the face of pursuasive
evidence.
I'm not sure what Spender's death means in all this. His death
followed his belief. On the one hand, I think Scully is strong enough
to continue to live and fight after becoming a believer. On the other
hand, we might be able to read a warning to Scully in Spender's
fate: see what happens when you take an active part in the conspiracy
by believing?
I don't know if that reading works at all, since there's obviously
no reason to think that Scully's skepticism is keeping her out of
danger. But maybe on some level it does...?
-m
KSJ
><<..and when we discover *how* she became a mother (through decidedly
>"unnatural" methods), she is desexualized through the Virgin Mary imagery. So
>she can't be a mother, a career woman, and a sexual being all at once--and
>that is profoundly disturbing to me.>>
>
>and I think it has to do with my own beliefs about Mary, mother of Jesus.
>While I accept the belief of her virginity at his birth, I don't see her as the
>Virgin Mother---because she was married and had other children, which would
>indicate to me that she and Joseph had a healthy and loving sex life afterwards
>that was both sanctioned and blessed by God. So I don't see the madonna image
>as being a symbol of desexualization outside of the specific circumstance of
>Emily's birth. In other words, I don't see it as symbolic of Scully as a
>forever desexualized being. Just as I don't see Mary as a desexualized being.
>
Unfortunately, the reason people (me included) have trouble with this is
because the Catholic interpretation of Mary is much different. She is indeed
very desexualized. According to many Catholics I know, she not only was a
virgin at the time of Jesus's conception and birth, but was *always* a virgin.
(How she went on to have more children, no one can quite explain, but...)
Considering that Scully is Catholic and it was Catholic imagery, the original
problem still remains.
Kristel
GBolt60636
because the Catholic interpretation of Mary is much different. She is indeed
very desexualized. >>
Considering the imagery of the Madonna window in EMILY, I really felt it was a
visualized connection between two mothers, both of whom grieved the loss a
child who's moment of death was preordained at the moment of conception. Just
another take on it.
GB
Vehemently
give my thoughts on all of them and maybe we can split them up later.
Vehemently <vehem...@yahoo.com> wrote:<<
Then again, there are times, as in Bad Blood, when the show suggests a
post-modern sense of narrative, and then retreats. . . The final
sequence, while necessary to the wrapping up of the story, is
ultimately a retreat from all of the pomo stuff it begins to imply.>>
Steve Pagano wrote: <First, what is "pomo"?
Second, you have missed the point of the episode, I think. The point
of the
episode is that what one perceives as reality and what actually is
reality
are often quite different, with the corollary notion that two people
often
perceive an identical situation differently.>
'Pomo' is short for post-modern. I interpret the contradictory POV
sequences as a flight into post-modernism, because two personal POVs
approximate the 'what really happened' but can't agree on it, just as
post-modernism denies the whole idea of 'absolute truth' because
perceptions are so tainted with ideology, construction, and cultural
viewpoints and so forth. If you take the first 2/3 as 'pomo' then the
last 1/3 is a cop-out. If, on the other hand, you view the first 2/3
as amusing personal takes on reality which will later be contradicted
by the truth (the unironic camera eye) then you've got a pretty good
episode.
Vee: <<Ultimately I see the X-Files as deeply rooted in its stylistic
forbear: the American roman noir. It has its tics and avant-gardisms,
it wears its cool cinematography on its sleeve, but deep in its heart
it really does believe in the Truth, and romance, and all that
simplistic Rule of the Father-based stuff.>>
Steve: <What's wrong with conservatism, taken in moderation? >
Ok, my tone was a mite strong. I study the American roman noir; I'm
not trying to impugn the show nor conservatism by linking them. I just
think they go together. One of the things people remark on, in the
popular press, is that X-Files is such an avant-garde show to survive
on the networks. I'm just pointing out it's not all that avant-garde
in its soul, just in its stylistics. Personally I reject the
capital-letter abstract nouns, but I can see where they have their
place in this social context. As in the roman noir, it seems
revolutionary (future-looking) but really confirms the realities of
the past. (However, as Deborah pointed out, as with the roman noir,
the X-Files can also unintentionally get so involved in style and plot
and making a show that works that they problematize their own
past-looking rather than confirm it.)
Vee: <<Just as I've always felt that CC at least writes the show as
The Mulder Show, despite bones thrown to Scully occasionally, I think
all of the admittedly interesting and lovely experiments are external
defenses that disguise the conservatism at the show's heart.>>
Steve: <In any event, I think you miss the point of the importance of
Scully to the show. TXF simply cannot succeed without her; there is
plenty of anecdotal evidence alone in the episodes in which she does
not appear. . . No matter how tightly the show may focus on Mulder at
times, Scully is absolutely integral to the story.>
Integral to the story, yes. I agree. I just don't think she gets the
shrift she deserves if (a big if admittedly) she is to be considered
an equal partner, not just by the characters but by the writers. CC is
the most guilty of it, since I think he sees Mulder as his own avatar
-- the plots revolve around him and his history; the characters all
refer to it as 'his quest' despite Scully's investment in it; he makes
demands while she accedes to demands; his (ridiculous) leaps of logic
come out right while her dogged searching is dismissed.
Not that this happens all the time; there are episodes where their
working together is what solves the case (I consider these the best
episodes, like Pusher). But the proof that Mulder gets to dominate far
more often is in the plot-eventuality: there has never been an X-File
that has been a hoax, a coincidence, something mundane. If Mulder
inhabits the world of magic (a rather id-ish world) and Scully the
world of logic (superego-style) then it's always Mulder's world that
wins out. And as a middle child I can say that it sucks to stick to
the rules and see the rulebreakers get all the attention.
Ultimately, I wouldn't be bothered if the show were honestly "The
Mulder Show" -- Dick van Dyke had a show and it was his show, with his
stories. But the show as it stands now tries to claim gender parity,
and that's just not so. It's a partnership, yes, but it's an unequal
partnership. Don't get me wrong, I pull for Scully, that's why I'm
making this argument. I don't want people to think that what she
experiences is equality. It's not.
Steve: <In any event, I cannot accept the Rule of the Father notion so
long as there is contradictory evidence (such as the lack of a Bible
for the show, and the fact that the Rule of the Father is shown so
consistently to be *wrong*).>
I guess I can't argue this one without a big old book of Lacan and
some textual evidence for what you mean by the Rule of the Father
being proved wrong. As the argument stands, I see the show's yearning
for a finality, its seeking of proof and truth &c, as confirmatory of
its conservative roots. It may be that where we differ is in the
conclusion of that seeking -- if you see the quest as ultimately
unwinnable, then I guess that *is* a statement on the unattainability
of the R of F and a tacit rejection of same. But what I focus on is
the fact that despite each failure the characters quest on, still
determined to find their abstract nouns. From that point of view, the
R of F still rules.
Steve: <Also, shows that are too liberal (just like shows that are too
conservative) will alienate all but the very few who agree with all
the tenets of that philosophy; there is a vast difference between what
is the Ideal show (couched at least at the moment in terms of
liberalism versus conservatism) and what is the best show to put on at
the moment (not in terms of best-quality show but in terms of what is
best in terms of bringing about any sociopolitical change one might
want in the realm of Television as a whole).>
I guess I'm not even thinking of social change and all that -- I know,
I should be. A lot of TV is conservative -- hardly a surprise,
considering its wide-audience intentions. I still think it's a good
show, just as "The Nothing Man" is a good novel despite its maniacal
attention to phallic imagery. I'm trying to catalogue the show in all
of its imagery, and trying to return a fair description of what I see
onscreen. Somehow, despite its lack of internal coherence, its
ad-libbing actors, its radical redirects on conspiracy and other
matters, the show is one I enjoy. But that doesn't mean I don't see
the social discourse at work in and around it.
Vee
Deborah A Tinsley
but it seems to have been eaten by my ISP. It didn't even show up in my
Posted file. It was very late and I don't know if I can entice my Muse
back, but I'll give it a try.
I'm going to snip for length and for things I can't answer<g>.
Steve Pagano <za...@mindspring.com> wrote in article <
> Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> > Julia Kristeva hasn't given into the despair of value and meaning you
> > describe. She finds meaning in the oscillation between the symbol and
the
> > semiotic. I love that description. I can almost see meaning fuming
between
> > the words and images.
>
> Would you please clarify what you mean in the previous paragraph,
especially
> the second sentence? We're getting a bit into lingoism, and it's
clouding
> the issue for me.
Lingoism yes, this stuff is full of it. I spend at least half my time when
I'm reading looking up what the heck these terms mean and damn if some
folks don't mean different things when they use the same word. I don't know
if I can explain with any authority what Kristeva means when she uses them,
but I'll tell you what I got out of it. (a lot of my response is pulled
from my recent reading. I haven't processed it enough yet to call it my
own).
Language and metaphor, the connection between lived experience and the
language we use to talk about. Seems a simple concept. Hell no! It gets
down to what's the relationship between language and meaning. By the time
that question filters down to Kristeva (via Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan,
etc.) she's wrestling with the hidden, veiled, unconscious meaning of
language, how our language doe NOT represent conscious experience. Lacan
says the unconscious is structured like a language and we have to interpret
those unconscious process in terms of syntax and semantics. (Excuse me if
this is too basic-- it's the level I'm at right now). The unconscious pokes
through in breaks of the language-- those ol' Freudian slips, jokes,
misreadings. Language and signification (value, meaning) become signs that
point in the direction, rather than represent, our unconscious motivations.
Language gives us the clues to the mystery of all our questions -- "Why do
we speak?"
Kristeva (K)brings together the two questions of meaning: the meaning of
language and the meaning of life. She maintains all signification is
composed of 2 elements: the symbolic and the semiotic.
Symbolic=meaning proper, the structures, the grammar that governs how
symbols work. The semiotic is the organization of drives in language - the
rhythms and tones that bring meaning to language without actually
signifying something. For Kristeva the body drives the language (i.e. all
the talk of penis & linearity, etc.). She believes we have a bodily need to
communicate. She and Cixous and Irigaray link the "erotics of the human
body and the fires of language. "It's this writing of the body that
interests me.
Anyway K believes meaning comes from an oscillation between the semiotic
and the symbolic. The symbolic gives structure and the semiotic provides
meaning. Symbolic without semiotic would be empty and semiotic without
symbolic would be babble. The semiotic makes symbols matter; by discharging
drives (bodily drives) in symbols, they become significant, and
signification is what makes our lives meaningful.
> > I don't know how
> > write Cixous' "l'ecriture feminine", but I love the concept-- writing
with
> > the body-- mother's milk as opposed to the straight-line, linearity of
the
> > penis. As Cixous says, "Everything doesn't have to make sense." (which
> > makes her writing very difficult to understand at times <g>).
>
> I'd have to look deeper into her writing, to judge it accurately.
However,
> it's become recognized that most supporters of this philosophy of
thinking
> are committing many major errors of thinking, and are (perhaps
> inadvertently) being alarmingly sexist in their views.
Well how would anyone know if they were major errors or not? I don't know
about the critics of these philosophies because I've just started reading
them. I don't know how far I'll get. I'm just looking for an assist on my
own journey to find meaning. Cixous, I believe, is rather paradoxical in
that gender matters and doesn't matter. Apparently men are able to write
l'ecriture feminine just as women often write the masculine literatur. The
way I understand it is that the feminine is unknown because it cannot be
understood with a language built around "phallogocentric" binary
oppositions: male/female, order/chaos, language/silence, presence/absence,
light/dark, etch--in which the first term is valued over the second.
Therefore woman is only understood by "not male" which mean woman doesn't
really exist or is an unknown. There is Man, the unified, self-controlled
center of the universe and the rest of the world is Other and only has
meaning in relation to the man/father, possessor of the phallus the
transcendental signifier (kind of a Lacanian/Freudian concept). Cixous
believes that by "writing the female body" into existence that dichotomy of
the Symbolic Order can be broken.
I think it's fascinating stuff and at this point how "true" it is can't be
a concern. If you wait till you have a Mulderian Truth <g>, you won't ever
get started.
Susan Haack did a
> wonderful exposition on this just recently ("Manifesto of a Passionate
> Moderate", 1998), and I'll have to set aside more time to further study
her
> denunciations of "women's ways of knowing" and her attack on the notion
that
> linear thought (or logic) is necessarily a) masculine or b) insufficient.
> Then I'll be able to face the issue a bit better-armed.
>
> --Steve
No need to arm yourself -- I'm not too fierce. I'll love to hear what you
have to say. I'm in the process of gathering all kind of data, ideas and
theories. Discovering Kristeva and Cixous (haven't ventured into Irigaray
yet) has helped me understand Derrida and Lacan a little better. BTW I'm
not anti-linear thought. That would silly. I couldn't write this if I
didn't use that system. I just think there's more out there than logic.
Logic can lead one to some pretty silly and erroneous answers if you don't
lift your head and look around. There's more to life than solving problems
and finding the best way to get from point A to point B-- without the
semiotic, we wouldn't even ask the questions.
Deborah
Konrad Douglas Frye
<lots cut>
>Integral to the story, yes. I agree. I just don't think she gets the
>shrift she deserves if (a big if admittedly) she is to be considered
>an equal partner, not just by the characters but by the writers. CC is
>the most guilty of it, since I think he sees Mulder as his own avatar
>-- the plots revolve around him and his history; the characters all
>refer to it as 'his quest' despite Scully's investment in it; he makes
>demands while she accedes to demands; his (ridiculous) leaps of logic
>come out right while her dogged searching is dismissed.
This is one of the reasons I love 'Eve': Mulder's intitial theory is flat
out wrong and it's Scully that first suspects the girls might be involved.
Sadly, Spotnitz and the other writers feel that episodes where
"science wins" would be uninteresting dramatically. I'd argue that knowing
Fox Mulder is "invariably right" presents an even greater problem.
-----
Konrad Frye (umfr...@ccu.umanitoba.ca)
Computer Engineering IV
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Or what? You'll release the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with the
bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you?"
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Pagano
> Steve Pagano wrote: <First, what is "pomo"?
> Second, you have missed the point of the episode, I think. The point
> of the
> episode is that what one perceives as reality and what actually is
> reality
> are often quite different, with the corollary notion that two people
> often
> perceive an identical situation differently.>
>
> 'Pomo' is short for post-modern. I interpret the contradictory POV
> sequences as a flight into post-modernism, because two personal POVs
> approximate the 'what really happened' but can't agree on it, just as
> post-modernism denies the whole idea of 'absolute truth' because
> perceptions are so tainted with ideology, construction, and cultural
> viewpoints and so forth.
If this is *the* definition of post-modernism, then it's painfully obvious
why it continues to fail in its endeavors: it's wholly self-defeating. It's
mysticism and relativism at its finest, wholly intellectually and morally
bankrupt.
> Ok, my tone was a mite strong. I study the American roman noir; I'm
> not trying to impugn the show nor conservatism by linking them. I just
> think they go together. One of the things people remark on, in the
> popular press, is that X-Files is such an avant-garde show to survive
> on the networks. I'm just pointing out it's not all that avant-garde
> in its soul, just in its stylistics.
This was exactly my point when I spoke later of the need to balance
conservatism and liberalism, and the logistics of social change article, and
a few other things. The point is that, as much as one might like to be
"truly" avant-garde, it's impossible to do so and still have a show that's
commercially successful (much less widely admired).
> Personally I reject the
> capital-letter abstract nouns, but I can see where they have their
> place in this social context.
I reject a number of them, but one of them -- Truth -- I don't. Not least
of which is because when one denies that a single Truth exists, when one
starts thinking that there are many differing (meaning explicitly
contradictory) Truths, then one's arguments immediately come back to
contradict themselves. It's difficult to even present so much as an outline
is such a limited amount of space, so I'll merely refer the reader to Susan
Haack's previously-mentioned book.
> Vee: <<Just as I've always felt that CC at least writes the show as
> The Mulder Show, despite bones thrown to Scully occasionally, I think
> all of the admittedly interesting and lovely experiments are external
> defenses that disguise the conservatism at the show's heart.>>
>
> Steve: <In any event, I think you miss the point of the importance of
> Scully to the show. TXF simply cannot succeed without her; there is
> plenty of anecdotal evidence alone in the episodes in which she does
> not appear. . . No matter how tightly the show may focus on Mulder at
> times, Scully is absolutely integral to the story.>
>
> Integral to the story, yes. I agree. I just don't think she gets the
> shrift she deserves if (a big if admittedly) she is to be considered
> an equal partner, not just by the characters but by the writers.
Again we're back to my point about the difference between what we'd like
ideally and what we can get away with in a show that must be commercially
successful.
> CC is
> the most guilty of it, since I think he sees Mulder as his own avatar
> -- the plots revolve around him and his history; the characters all
> refer to it as 'his quest' despite Scully's investment in it; he makes
> demands while she accedes to demands; his (ridiculous) leaps of logic
> come out right while her dogged searching is dismissed.
>
> Not that this happens all the time;
Thankfully. I do get annoyed myself when such things crop up. I (and I
guess you as well) would like to see more attention given to Scully-as-equal
rather than Scully-as-secret-weapon that sometimes gets brought out (as you
pointed out in different words).
> there are episodes where their
> working together is what solves the case (I consider these the best
> episodes, like Pusher). But the proof that Mulder gets to dominate far
> more often is in the plot-eventuality: there has never been an X-File
> that has been a hoax, a coincidence, something mundane. If Mulder
> inhabits the world of magic (a rather id-ish world) and Scully the
> world of logic (superego-style) then it's always Mulder's world that
> wins out.
Depends on how one defines 'wins'. As far as I'm concerned, the magic of
Mulder is where the answer actually lies, but he gets in trouble more often
than not when he fights the tempering Scully introduces into his thoughts
and processes. Both halves are necessary for the whole.
> And as a middle child I can say that it sucks to stick to
> the rules and see the rulebreakers get all the attention.
Happens to us oldest children as well. :)
> Ultimately, I wouldn't be bothered if the show were honestly "The
> Mulder Show" -- Dick van Dyke had a show and it was his show, with his
> stories. But the show as it stands now tries to claim gender parity,
> and that's just not so.
It's not a perfect gender parity. But it's reaching for it more than most
other shows do. It's a step in the right direction, without going too far
('too far' meaning far enough to start stirring up backlash, which nets a
lesser achievement in the short and long run).
> Steve: <In any event, I cannot accept the Rule of the Father notion so
> long as there is contradictory evidence (such as the lack of a Bible
> for the show, and the fact that the Rule of the Father is shown so
> consistently to be *wrong*).>
>
> I guess I can't argue this one without a big old book of Lacan and
> some textual evidence for what you mean by the Rule of the Father
> being proved wrong.
I think that we may be differing in our definitions. Before we continue,
could you please define what you mean by Rule of the Father?
> A lot of TV is conservative -- hardly a surprise,
> considering its wide-audience intentions.
It's still arguably (much) too conservative. As far as I'm aware, the USA
has some of the most stringent censoring done on TV, both by the govt. and
the networks themselves, for a supposedly free country. That begs some
other questions entirely, however, so I'll drop the line.
> I'm trying to catalogue the show in all
> of its imagery, and trying to return a fair description of what I see
> onscreen. Somehow, despite its lack of internal coherence, its
> ad-libbing actors, its radical redirects on conspiracy and other
> matters, the show is one I enjoy. But that doesn't mean I don't see
> the social discourse at work in and around it.
I love the show as well, despite its shortcomings -- if for no other reason
than its actual achievements far outstrip pretty much everything else on the
tube.
In any event, what I'd like to see for some more stable gender equality is:
* Scully's name on the door, and a desk of her own -- or some more hard
evidence that she considers Mulder's desk as her own as well (which has been
hinted at of late, while it was clear that as of mid-season 4 this was not
the case).
* More explicit acknowledgement that the quest is now as much Scully's as
Mulder's. I can understand Mulder's own hesitancy in thinking of the quest
as anything other than his own -- I won't repeat some old arguments why --
but I'd still like a nod from perhaps Skinner and Krycek to the matter. And
even some admission of it by Mulder (although it would be wholly out of
character for him to be explicit with his acknowledgements).
There are some more items that I'd like to see eventually, but I'm too
concerned they might push the edge of the envelope a bit too far a bit too
quickly for us on the whole (the backlash idea again), so I'll drop this
line of thought as well.
--Steve
--Steve
ABauer7333
"Bad Blood" is almost perfect. By positioning the first "2/3rds" as pomo, you
miss entirely the point! The point is that both viewpoints were correct
("well, except for the buck teeth," which has the same function in the
narrative as "Let me talk to the writer!" in PMP), but that there was a huge
Truth that neither M nor S caught! The omniscient narrator winds!
Of course TXF is conservative! Heavens, how could anything on American TV last
if it didn't toss some bones to narrative closure and comfortable, timeworn
conventions of plot and character! It was amazing that Twin Peaks lasted as
long as it did, and it wouldn't in the current climate, when Strange World gets
but 3 eps, and . . well, I could go on.
<<But the proof that Mulder gets to dominate far
more often is in the plot-eventuality: there has never been an X-File
that has been a hoax, a coincidence, something mundane. >>
Quagmire. So we do get the nudge-nudge wink-wink monster at the end, it is yet
established that the crocodile was the killer. And of course Irresistable, if
not mundane, was one of several standard cases solved by standards means
(fingerprinting in this case, combined with Mulder's intuition that Pfaster
would return to his mother's house).
The balance of power, however, is indeed on Mulder's side, yet part of what I
consider to be the "erotics" of TXF is the interpenetration of S & M's methods;
"Tithonu" was only one of several recent eps where Scully adopts not only
Mulder's methods but physical bearing, and "sacrifices" herself to the Truth
much as Mulder might. If I had more time, I'd list Mulder's employment of
science as well, but you get the picture. Mulder's POV dominates simply
because the narrative of Other dominates TXF, and it's identified with him.
BUt Scully's role is much more fascinating, because she really represents our
POV (CC has said she represents "the average person," whereas Mulder is meant
to be an exception), and thus her absorption into the quest is OUR entrance
into it. THis actually makes her a much more proactive and radical figure,
IMO.
Dr. B
reynard muldrake
O'Shaughnessy. If you'll recall, she seduces Spade, induces him into a
messy, already-fatal symbolic contest, lies through her teeth and goes
off to the gas chamber in the final frame."
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& OK, then we go the "Body
Heat" route. Mulder is the semi-naive, Wm. Hurt character. Scully of
course, the sirenish, Kathleen Turner. Remember who went *over*
in that one? He will remember those wind chimes.
What a sap she had!
(S) yappi
Deborah A Tinsley
> Vehemently <vehem...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:36FD1F9A...@yahoo.com...
> > Steve Pagano wrote: <First, what is "pomo"?
> > Second, you have missed the point of the episode, I think. The point
of the
> > episode is that what one perceives as reality and what actually is
> > reality are often quite different, with the corollary notion that two
people
> > 'Pomo' is short for post-modern. I interpret the contradictory POV
> > sequences as a flight into post-modernism, because two personal POVs
> > approximate the 'what really happened' but can't agree on it, just as
> > post-modernism denies the whole idea of 'absolute truth' because
> > perceptions are so tainted with ideology, construction, and cultural
> > viewpoints and so forth.
>
> If this is *the* definition of post-modernism, then it's painfully
obvious
> why it continues to fail in its endeavors: it's wholly self-defeating.
It's
> mysticism and relativism at its finest, wholly intellectually and morally
> bankrupt.
Gee Steve why not tell us what you really think?<g>
First, it may be obvious to you why you think Pomo is a failure, but it
isn't to me? If you mean by failure Postmodernists have failed to expose or
reveal the meaning of life, the secrets of the universe, an overall
unifying theory-- fair enough. But I don't think it's intellectually and
morally bankrupt. I look at it as a set of tools to open language up. I
don't have to buy into completely.
In true Deconstructivist fashion, I can use what works without subscribing
to the whole system. Haven't you ever used a process or a formula where
the end product failed but some of the steps along the way led you to a new
discovery?
Say I want to talk about a belief system, so I refer to God because it's a
useful illustration of something a lot of people believe in. I don't assume
that "god" refers to an actual being or even to a coherent system of
beliefs that situate "got" at the center. I can talk about penis envy or
the Oedipus complex without believing in the whole system of Freudian
psychoanalysis.
I use elements of Pomo like a can opener for my brain and I believe there
is some value in doing so. I don't know that I believe there is no reality
outside of language as the Pomo's do, but I believe a lot of our reality is
determined by language so I am interested in the system of language, how it
came to be what it is.
I'm interested in why TXF has caught my imagination, why it resonates so
deeply with me. It's not simply the plots, though as I explained in my post
on signs and symbols why I find the linear structure important. Important
but not everything and not 'the' thing that engages me.
There have been lots of shows, films, books with great plots, but my
response to TXF is different. I wanted to know why and my search led me to
Lacan, Derrida, Kristeva, Cixous, Levi-Strauss. What does the myth of
flying saucers mean? Why have so many come to it at this point in time?
Have you ever noticed that the underside of those whirling disks resembles
to some degree a mandala? Is that a coincidence? Why are there so many
alien abductees and why are their experiences significant enough that
elements of them have entered the vocabulary? (just say anal probe and
immediately everyone thinks Alien abduction!).
I just read on the other newsgroup that one of the suggested theories about
why the GOV covered up UFO sightings and landings was that if people
believed in little green men then we would come to think of ourselves as
Earthlings and not Americans or Germans, etc. I don't believe this, but
there is something inside it, maybe a longing by some folks for a world
where we would be Earthlings. I believe the UFO phenomenon is linked to the
rise in environmental, whole earth consciousness, and the underlying
message is -- the world is alive.
snip
> I reject a number of them, but one of them -- Truth -- I don't. Not
least
> of which is because when one denies that a single Truth exists, when one
> starts thinking that there are many differing (meaning explicitly
> contradictory) Truths, then one's arguments immediately come back to
> contradict themselves. It's difficult to even present so much as an
outline
> is such a limited amount of space, so I'll merely refer the reader to
Susan
> Haack's previously-mentioned book.
I'll have to take a look at the Haack book. I don't believe in the Truth
not when so many eyes and minds look at something. There are facts and
there are small " t" truths, but Truth often means what the dominant group
wants to be true. (black people are lazy; women aren't as smart as men; men
aren't supposed to cry).
Is Bill Mulder a villain? Is Bill Mulder a hero? . Was Bill Mulder a good
father? Did Bill Mulder do the best thing for his family or for his country
or for humanity? What is the truth.
Is Fox Mulder a good man? Is he doing the right thing? Will his actions
ultimately help or hurt humanity? I guess when you say you believe in a
single Truth, I have no idea what you are referring to. There are absolutes
but as for Truth, to me it's an ideal, something to strive for but rarely
achieved. Pomo is good about taking apart the things that pass for Truth
and revealing them for what they are--wishes.
snip
> Depends on how one defines 'wins'. As far as I'm concerned, the magic of
> Mulder is where the answer actually lies, but he gets in trouble more
often
> than not when he fights the tempering Scully introduces into his thoughts
> and processes. Both halves are necessary for the whole.
Yes, it depends on how one defines 'wins', and that gets back to language.
I responded to a post last night about Christmas Carol and Emily. The point
made was that after Scully was identified as a mother, with the Virgin Mary
window, she lost power and control and Mulder took over with the more
important action. I argued the opposite. Mulder took action but his role
was not nearly as difficult or as important as Scully's. Scully wasn't
running all over, knocking people down and yelling. She was protecting and
comforting a dying child. Apparently society puts more value on Mulder's
failed attempt to catch the responsible parties than on Scully's courageous
decision to stay by that sick child's side till the end. How does one
define win? How does one decide who is most important in the ep? CC may
indeed identify with Mulder but in part how important Scully actually is
depends on the audience. I always thought the true hero of Folie a Deux was
Gary Lambert, the man who took his co-workers hostage. He put his life on
the line to make the truth known. If it weren't for him, Mulder would never
have known and yet, no one speaks of that character:
Gary Lambert is not the hero because the audience did not recognize him as
such. He didn't have the signifiers to identify him as such.
snip
Deborah
GravesPA2
a
visualized connection between two mothers, both of whom grieved the loss a
child who's moment of death was preordained at the moment of conception.>>
Exactly how I read it. And I don't think that Scully's Catholicism really
applies because it wasn't Scully who saw the dissolve from one to the other--it
was the viewer.
Paula Graves
Steve Pagano
news:36FC733E...@kiva.net...
> Saying that XF has multiple meanings is not the same as saying that it has
no
> meaning or that "anything goes."
Excellent -- you're avoiding the error that postmodernists make.
> I would argue that, although there is no one
> fixed, definitive reading of XF, there are readings that have more
cultural
> legitimacy and authority than others.
I would instead argue that there is only one full-blown real reading of
TXF -- but a) what we often take as a reading is often just a portion of the
entire correct reading, and b) there's no guarantee that we could ever
divine the one true reading to take, or if we could ever fathom it if it
were presented to us. We are fallible.
> At the end of CC, we find out she's a mother, and this marks a qualitative
shift in
> Emily. Suddenly, Scully seems to abandon what we might consider a more
aggressive
> pursuit of "the truth" (in fact, she abdicates this pursuit to Mulder, who
goes
> around threatening doctors and breaking into nursing homes trying to find
out what
> happened to her). In contrast to her actions in CC, Scully seems reduced
to
> standing around and wringing her hands, suffering empathetically with
Emily as the
> little girl undergoes a series of painful medical tests. This shift is
> encapsulated for me in the scene where Mulder and Scully face the judge
deciding
> her adoption petition. For most of the scene, the two men are
foregrounded, while
> Scully remains in the background, silent. Mulder, on the other hand, does
plenty
> of talking, partly because he has privileged knowledge about Scully's
abduction.
My take on this is that this plays on what many people (not just women) fear
(or find frustrating) an awful lot: not being able (or perhaps allowed) to
do anything but stand around and wring one's hands. Anyone who's had to
stand by and watch an aging relative pass away, while one stands by unable
to help, knows this feeling.
> All of this suggests to me that the minute we discover Scully is a mother,
she
> ceases to act in her investigatory capacity as an FBI agent, and when we
discover
> *how* she became a mother (through decidedly "unnatural" methods), she is
> desexualized through the Virgin Mary imagery. So she can't be a mother, a
career
> woman, and a sexual being all at once--and that is profoundly disturbing
to me.
> Having feminist leanings myself, I don't particularly like the
implications of this
> reading, which can be used to justify paternalistic societal control over
women's
> sexuality and to insist that being a good mother is necessarily at odds
with
> pursuing a career, especially a rather dangerous, unstable (dare I say,
masculine?)
> career as an FBI agent.
I don't see how it could possibly be used to justify the paternalistic
control as you say it does -- it strikes me as a pretty clear damning of
paternalistic control, actually.
There are a pair of issues which resonate here as well:
1) Scully has been denied the *choice* in the matter, and this is a rather
painful topic for people to face.
2) Scully's being rendered sterile by the writers might be a tool to avoid
facing some of the issues that you refer to. The question of how to balance
a woman as mother, career woman, and sexual being is something I've yet to
be addressed successfully in any modern-day-setting work. As soon as the
issue starts being pursued, the work as a whole starts to alienate a great
portion of its audience (regardless of what 'side' of the issue the work
takes). This again gets back to the idea of generating backlash. Intended
or not, Scully's being sterile allows the writers to sidestep a number of
issues that could drive the show into unprofitable waters.
--Steve
Magpie
>Well, I think we've got more than one issue to discuss here, but I'll
>give my thoughts on all of them and maybe we can split them up later.
<snip good stuff I can't add to>
>
>
>Vehemently <vehem...@yahoo.com> wrote:<<
>Then again, there are times, as in Bad Blood, when the show suggests a
>post-modern sense of narrative, and then retreats. . . The final
>sequence, while necessary to the wrapping up of the story, is
>ultimately a retreat from all of the pomo stuff it begins to imply.>>
>
>Steve Pagano wrote: <First, what is "pomo"?
>Second, you have missed the point of the episode, I think. The point
>of the
>episode is that what one perceives as reality and what actually is
>reality
>are often quite different, with the corollary notion that two people
>often
>perceive an identical situation differently.>
>
>'Pomo' is short for post-modern. I interpret the contradictory POV
>sequences as a flight into post-modernism, because two personal POVs
>approximate the 'what really happened' but can't agree on it, just as
>post-modernism denies the whole idea of 'absolute truth' because
>perceptions are so tainted with ideology, construction, and cultural
>viewpoints and so forth. If you take the first 2/3 as 'pomo' then the
>last 1/3 is a cop-out. If, on the other hand, you view the first 2/3
>as amusing personal takes on reality which will later be contradicted
>by the truth (the unironic camera eye) then you've got a pretty good
>episode.
And a very conservative one that's been done on countless sitcoms.
Not that I'm complaining--it's almost always funny. But BB happened
to be the first ep my brother saw (just this past Christmas) and
five minutes into it he turned to me and said, "oh, it's _this_
episode!", referring to all the other times he'd seen it done.
On a side note, he was also surprised at what a dork Mulder was (in
the best sense of the word). He said, "isn't he supposed to be the
smart one?"
This I definitely agree with. Scully is a unique character in herself,
but she mostly exists in relation to Mulder. Perhaps this is
why Mulder seems to have moved forward in the relationship and Scully
is existing in a sort of limbo about it. We all know what Scully
means to Mulder, but we really don't know what Mulder means to Scully.
She cares about him deeply, yes, but she has never become so central
a character that we have been able to *see* him through Scully's
eyes. I can see many things that Mulder could fulfill in Scully, but
they are pushed aside. Mulder's needs, otoh, are always front and
center, driving him. Until 1013 lets Scully work through this, she
can't really move forward, unless Mulder pulls a caveman routine,
which would put Scully into the role of an object she just wouldn't
fit.
Another problem they run into, regarding the solutions to cases (Mulder
is always right) is that 1013 has a very limited view of science, imo.
We all know and love Scully's explanation that nothing happens outside
of science, only outside our knowledge of it, but she doesn't seem to
remember her own explanation. Scully is often portrayed as a woman who
is not fighting for a "scientific" explanation as much as a woman fighting
for an explanation that she can look up in a book. That's why Scully
can never be right.
There are some episodes that do have scientific explanations, but since
the science is so strange it seems to be part of Mulder's magic. Eve
comes to mind: Mulder thought aliens abducted the girls, but they were
abducted by the very earthly results of a science experiment.
Ultimately, M&S should be moving towards a middle ground, where science
and magic don't have to always be opposed to each other. To do that they
have to decide how they are going to define magic. If something has a
natural explanation, is it no longer magic? Only if you think magic is
by definition unnatural, which Mulder does not seem to believe. Scully,
otoh, only believes in miracles, which by definition, are impossible.
-m
Steve Pagano
> I wrote the best, most intelligent, amusing response to this Steve <VBG>
> but it seems to have been eaten by my ISP. It didn't even show up in my
> Posted file. It was very late and I don't know if I can entice my Muse
> back, but I'll give it a try.
It showed up in my email. :) I responded to you there. If you'd like to,
feel free to post the entirety of my response here. In the meanwhile, I
think I caught two things that I might respond to in this new version.
> Steve Pagano <za...@mindspring.com> wrote in article <
> > I'd have to look deeper into [Cixous's] writing, to judge it accurately.
> However,
> > it's become recognized that most supporters of this philosophy of
> thinking
> > are committing many major errors of thinking, and are (perhaps
> > inadvertently) being alarmingly sexist in their views.
>
> Well how would anyone know if they were major errors or not?
Easily, actually. Many of the errors -- I detailed them in my response to
your email -- are seen to be as such because they contradict some very
elementary tenets of logic (and logic is used, usually tacitly, by all human
beings as they reason, whether or not they feel that their primary mode of
thinking is logic-based -- and whether or not they make errors in the
logic), or they quickly reduce to alarmingly incorrect views (one of which
is, surprisingly enough for it having arisen from one school of feminists,
that women are inferior thinkers to men, which we know is abject rubbish).
>The
> way I understand it is that the feminine is unknown because it cannot be
> understood with a language built around "phallogocentric" binary
> oppositions: male/female, order/chaos, language/silence, presence/absence,
> light/dark, etch--in which the first term is valued over the second.
> Therefore woman is only understood by "not male" which mean woman doesn't
> really exist or is an unknown. There is Man, the unified, self-controlled
> center of the universe and the rest of the world is Other and only has
> meaning in relation to the man/father, possessor of the phallus the
> transcendental signifier (kind of a Lacanian/Freudian concept).
This really devalues women in a big sort of way, though, doesn't it? Men
(and women, I am sure) do *not* think solely in binary concepts. The binary
mode of thinking is not even particular to males or of masculine design. To
call such thinking phallogocentric is sexist in itself, aside from being
incorrect.
In any event, it doesn't take much thought to realize that binary thinking
has its strengths and its weaknesses, and there are situations in which it
*must* be applied, and other situations in which is *cannot* be applied. If
your explication of Cixous is accurate, then I believe that she herself is
falling into the very trap she warns should be avoided -- a common failing
in many philosophers.
--Steve
Steve Pagano
Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:01be77f7$f11a1b40$bdba9cd1@oemcomputer...
> POSTMODERN (POMO)
> Everything is language; Language is everything-- Postmodernism: there is
no
> reality outside of language. i.e. woman is only a category, a fiction
> created out of language. Since woman does not exist, except in the fantasy
> men have created for themselves, women's task is to recreate woman on
their
> own terms. Since women do not own symbolic language (rational, binary)
they
> must develop their own out of the Imaginary. This language is often called
> semiotic.
And now we easily see the falsehood of the notion. The above view
immediately implies a belief that reality can be actively created, which
quickly leads (via some arguments I'll skip) to a contradiction of the
elementary logical tenet that a statement in a fixed context cannot
simultaneously be wholly true and wholly false. And because it can also be
shown (again by long and tedious arguments) that Postmodernists rely on the
rules of logic to attain their own goals, we find that they have undermined
themselves, and so are incorrect.
> > I think you'll need to clarify further. I can see about four ways to
> > interpret what your intent is, so I don't want to guess.
>
> Only four <g>.
Well, four popped to mind within the first two or three seconds of
consideration, after which I moved on. :)
> TXF wouldn't have enjoyed its success without strong plots, and I agree
> with many of you that the plots this year have not been the strongest.
Well, I neither said nor implied that in the above paragraph, but yes, I
have said this elsewhere about this season. :) I still feel that we'll all
appreciate (and understand) this season a lot more by, say, the middle of
next season, when things that are clearly being set up now (many of which
have been missed by people angry with the show) come to fruition, and we can
all look back and slap our foreheads and be surprised at how much we all
missed. :)
> TXF
> is riding on its past success, but the weakened plots have provided room
> for the other elements I have come to love to reach their zenith. I loved
> the Dreamland eps, and HTGSC, Rain King, Tithonus, 2F/1S, and Monday
> because of the subtexts, insinuations, nuances, gestures and expressions--
> for me it's a different kind of language enhanced by the traditional (and
> less interesting at this point) plot -- but without some structure,
without
> some presence, a center, the parts I love will not work.
The ones wherein I found stuff to like were Drive, Triangle, HTGSC,
Tithonus, 2F/1S (I didn't think it was spectacular, but it certainly didn't
suck), Monday, and to a lesser extent Arcadia. The Beginning will become
clearer in the future. I found Dreamland way too weak in too many ways to
enjoy. ToE, well, stank (IMO). The rest were decent but not wonderful.
> Also I've drawn a lot of my ideas from Elizabeth Kubek's essay in , Deny
> All Knowledge (didn't you get that for Christmas Steve?), "You'll Only
> Expose Your Father" by Elizabeth Kubek.
I got it for Christmas, yup. And if you've any idea how much back reading
I've yet to catch up on... :)
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> Steve Pagano <za...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
> <7djjsn$6r8$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>...
> > Vehemently <vehem...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:36FD1F9A...@yahoo.com...
> > > sequences as a flight into post-modernism, because two personal POVs
> > > approximate the 'what really happened' but can't agree on it, just as
> > > post-modernism denies the whole idea of 'absolute truth' because
> > > perceptions are so tainted with ideology, construction, and cultural
> > > viewpoints and so forth.
> >
> > If this is *the* definition of post-modernism, then it's painfully
> obvious
> > why it continues to fail in its endeavors: it's wholly self-defeating.
> It's
> > mysticism and relativism at its finest, wholly intellectually and
morally
> > bankrupt.
>
> Gee Steve why not tell us what you really think?<g>
> First, it may be obvious to you why you think Pomo is a failure, but it
> isn't to me?
I've explained its failings elsewhere. It undermines itself. It's a house
of cards with a lot of very provocative (and alluring) parts to it. But on
the whole it's rubbish.
> In true Deconstructivist fashion, I can use what works without subscribing
> to the whole system. Haven't you ever used a process or a formula where
> the end product failed but some of the steps along the way led you to a
new
> discovery?
There are a few questions begged here. First, what do we mean by a method
failing? I see two immediate possible answers:
1) It gives incorrect answers. In this case, it should be repaired or
abandoned. We can learn from it in a few ways, including a) what exactly
caused it to go wrong and b) portions that seem to be right, and beg further
investigation.
2) I fails to give all answers. We know that this failing is true of all
systems of inquiry which are sophisticated enough to contains basic (read:
grade-school-level) tenets of logic and arithmetic, thanks to Godel.
> Say I want to talk about a belief system, so I refer to God because it's a
> useful illustration of something a lot of people believe in. I don't
assume
> that "god" refers to an actual being or even to a coherent system of
> beliefs that situate "got" at the center. I can talk about penis envy or
> the Oedipus complex without believing in the whole system of Freudian
> psychoanalysis.
Yes, but the point is that the validity of the side topics does not
necessarily derive from the validity of the core topic. For example
Freudian thought may be abject BS, but parts of it certainly can be true.
But if the system itself is BS, we should repair or abandon it, while
retaining the ideas from it that we recognize as worthwhile.
> > I reject a number of [absolutes], but one of them -- Truth -- I don't.
Not
> least
> > of which is because when one denies that a single Truth exists, when one
> > starts thinking that there are many differing (meaning explicitly
> > contradictory) Truths, then one's arguments immediately come back to
> > contradict themselves. It's difficult to even present so much as an
> outline
> > is such a limited amount of space, so I'll merely refer the reader to
> Susan
> > Haack's previously-mentioned book.
>
> I'll have to take a look at the Haack book. I don't believe in the Truth
> not when so many eyes and minds look at something. There are facts and
> there are small " t" truths, but Truth often means what the dominant
group
> wants to be true. (black people are lazy; women aren't as smart as men;
men
> aren't supposed to cry).
This is the very essence of the cardinal error committed by postmodernists
(and other relativists). Reality, and perception of what is real, and
drastically different things, and the latter does *not* determine the
former. Relativists believe that it does. Truth (with a capital T) *never*
is simply what the majority thinks it is. Sometimes the majority is right.
Oftentimes it is wrong. But just because everyone believes a thing to be
true does not _make_ it true. This is the essential difference between
Truth and perception of truth. Postmodernists fail to understand this
difference.
> Is Bill Mulder a villain? Is Bill Mulder a hero? . Was Bill Mulder a
good
> father? Did Bill Mulder do the best thing for his family or for his
country
> or for humanity? What is the truth.
As I said elsewhere, each of these has an answer (providing the questions
aren't ill-posed!). But it may be beyond any human being to know these
answers.
> I responded to a post last night about Christmas Carol and Emily. The
point
> made was that after Scully was identified as a mother, with the Virgin
Mary
> window, she lost power and control and Mulder took over with the more
> important action. I argued the opposite. Mulder took action but his role
> was not nearly as difficult or as important as Scully's. Scully wasn't
> running all over, knocking people down and yelling. She was protecting and
> comforting a dying child. Apparently society puts more value on Mulder's
> failed attempt to catch the responsible parties than on Scully's
courageous
> decision to stay by that sick child's side till the end.
I got the impression from watching the episode that each of M and S was
doing the right thing. I thought they were both being heroic.
> I always thought the true hero of Folie a Deux was
> Gary Lambert, the man who took his co-workers hostage. He put his life on
> the line to make the truth known. If it weren't for him, Mulder would
never
> have known and yet, no one speaks of that character:
> Gary Lambert is not the hero because the audience did not recognize him as
> such. He didn't have the signifiers to identify him as such.
And of course, that depends on how one defines "hero". :)
--Steve
Steve Pagano
> Scully is a unique character in herself,
> but she mostly exists in relation to Mulder. Perhaps this is
> why Mulder seems to have moved forward in the relationship and Scully
> is existing in a sort of limbo about it. We all know what Scully
> means to Mulder, but we really don't know what Mulder means to Scully.
> She cares about him deeply, yes, but she has never become so central
> a character that we have been able to *see* him through Scully's
> eyes.
OTOH, Scully has been constructed in such a fashion that, unless we're given
the proper circumstances (which BTW I think that much of this season has
been preparing for us), it would be out of character for us to see anything
more than passing references to how much he means to her.
An example that seized me immediately when I read your words above: IMO, the
most important scene in Christmas Carol was the one in which Scully made
(and aborted) a phone call to Mulder. This simultaneously showed a way in
which she needs him, and showed us exactly what her state of mind was at the
time.
> I can see many things that Mulder could fulfill in Scully, but
> they are pushed aside.
This is a side product of the way the character has been developed. Would
that 1013 were this consistent in all their characterizations! :)
> Another problem they run into, regarding the solutions to cases (Mulder
> is always right) is that 1013 has a very limited view of science, imo.
The entertainment industry has an alarmingly poor understanding of science
as a whole.
> We all know and love Scully's explanation that nothing happens outside
> of science, only outside our knowledge of it, but she doesn't seem to
> remember her own explanation. Scully is often portrayed as a woman who
> is not fighting for a "scientific" explanation as much as a woman fighting
> for an explanation that she can look up in a book. That's why Scully
> can never be right.
Correct; we are always shown that logic without intuition is too limited to
ascertain Truth. But then again, we're also continuously shown that Mulder
without Scully's stabilizing influence consistently gets himself into dire
straits. And it's rare (if ever) that her influence is not exerted in
*some* way that is absolutely essential to the story/pursuit/discovery.
--Steve
Eric S. Smith: Left-Field Marshal
Konrad Douglas Frye <umfr...@cc.UManitoba.CA> wrote:
>This is one of the reasons I love 'Eve': Mulder's intitial theory is flat
>out wrong and it's Scully that first suspects the girls might be involved.
On the other hand, one of "Eve"'s shortcomings, in my view, is that we
never find out where that blood went, or how. Exsanguinated, and then
evaporated...are episodes that *make sense* uninteresting dramatically,
in someone's opinion?
>Sadly, Spotnitz and the other writers feel that episodes where
>"science wins" would be uninteresting dramatically. I'd argue that knowing
>Fox Mulder is "invariably right" presents an even greater problem.
And don't forget episodes that give the game away too early. If you're
watching "Columbo," you know whodunnit -- that bores me, but I'm willing
to accept it, since the point of the series isn't suspense as much as
appreciation of the detective's wiliness. But I don't think I've seen an
X-F episode that manages non-suspenseful mystery effectively, if it's ever
been attempted at all.
At most, it's, "look at the bad guy doing, uh, bad stuff, and it's really
GROSS and WEIRD," with the accompanying false worry about whether M&S will
meet the previously-displayed terrible fate. There's potential for
atmosphere, there, but it's less interesting than it could be.
--Eric Smith
ABauer7333
engaged in the murder investigation, and she makes many of the inferences that
are needed to
propel the story.
At the end of CC, we find out she's a mother, and this marks a qualitative
shift in
Emily. Suddenly, Scully seems to abandon what we might consider a more
aggressive pursuit of "the truth" . . . This shift is
encapsulated for me in the scene where Mulder and Scully face the judge
deciding
her adoption petition. For most of the scene, the two men are foregrounded,
while
Scully remains in the background, silent. Mulder, on the other hand, does
plenty
of talking, partly because he has privileged knowledge about Scully's
abduction.
All of this suggests to me that the minute we discover Scully is a mother, she
ceases to act in her investigatory capacity as an FBI agent, and when we
discover
*how* she became a mother (through decidedly "unnatural" methods), she is
desexualized through the Virgin Mary imagery. So she can't be a mother, a
career
woman, and a sexual being all at once--and that is profoundly disturbing to
me.>>
Excellent observation. more . .
Dr. B
ABauer7333
All Knowledge (didn't you get that for Christmas Steve?), "You'll Only
Expose Your Father" by Elizabeth Kubek. "
Thanks for bringing that up, Deborah. I just read that, and it's great. As a
Lacanian, thought, I must point out that it's from a feminist perspective.
Nothing wrong with that, but I actually think you miss a lot else that's going
on when you view everything through that lens. The whole allegory of the
father is significant, but part - I think - of a larger dialogue.
Dr. B
gwizz
I know what you're feeling, though I disagree with you. The reason the show
doesn't need continuity isn't because each show is completely separate but
because it appeals to a huge audience. If it suddenly decided that Mulder
was in love with Scully, then all hell would break loose - just to use an
example. However, I'm finding more and more plot holes in the new season.
Being ambivalent about things open to interpretation (relationships) is one
thing, but everyone knows Mulder sleeps on the couch, waterbed or no
waterbed. They could at least have *tried* to explain that one. I think a
lot of good would be had if the writers actually *watched* the show.
-M
mimr...@my-dejanews.com
"Deborah A Tinsley" <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> Maybe there is a cultural bias that values the "action" Mulder was taking
> over the quiet courage Scully had to muster. Scully "ceases to act in her
> investigatory capacity as an FBI agent" because she has a more important
> and more difficult task to perform--to protect and comfort a dying child.
> After all, what did Mulder actually accomplish? Even the "serum" he found
> was not the answer Scully or Emily needed. Busting bad guys would be much
> easier than waiting in the claustrophobic death chamber of that
> hospital--the corroding grief of helplessly watching the slow death of an
> innocent would be excruciating.
>
> The most important thing Mulder did in that episode was Mr. Potato head
> (which delighted Scully if not Emily when Scully needed to see Emily smile)
> and just his presence--at her brother's house, in the judges chamber, in
> the hospital, at the chapel. I think Scully had the more difficult role to
> play. Mulder's presence did more for Scully than any of his actions. Scully
> provided all the truly meaningful action in this episode.
I don't pretend to understand all the philosophical lingo being discussed in
this thread, but I have read post after post about how TXF is subject to many
layers of meanings, how there is no one truth but only smoky symbols subject
to numerous valid interpretations, etc. etc. Well, the smoky (in the case of
Emily, perhaps murky) symbols yielded up a different interpretation to me.
:-) As for whether my interpretation is the unfortunate product of "cultural
bias" ... hmmm. I guess that most of us who were raised in middle-class
America are exposed to the same culture, for the most part, so I can't buy
the implication that some of us get infected by this bias while others,
remaining somehow immune, see more clearly than the rest. We all have our
biases, certainly -- some cultural, some personal, and, in the case of TXF,
some created by whether we identify with one character more than the other.
But to attribute certain viewpoints to "cultural bias" doesn't seem to me to
be useful other than as a means of illegitimizing those viewpoints on some
basis other than their merits.
Anyway, biased or not, I have a different view of M&S' roles in Emily.
Scully was certainly in a difficult position, but her role isn't enhanced by
characterizing Mulder's as meaningless. And asking what is accomplished
doesn't seem particularly fruitful, because neither of them accomplished much
at all, if the point was to allow Emily to live (and I assume that was
supposed to be the point of everyone's efforts, although from the outset it
was depressingly clear to the _viewer_ that 1013 wasn't going to let those
efforts succeed). Scully and the doctor search for the means of saving
Emily's life within the confines of the hospital, while Mulder searches for
its outside -- and finds it.
That Scully _chooses_ not to use the serum to save Emily's life doesn't
diminish the significance of the fact that the serum exists and was found.
In fact, it is crucial to the story, for without it there is no choice for
Scully to make. Her attempt to save Emily's life through conventional means
fails, so without the serum there is no alternative -- Emily will die. But
when Mulder presents her with the "what if," she is faced with the decision
that provides the ethical dilemma which seems to me to be the whole point of
the episode (and which gives rise to the guilt that is supposedly resolved in
All Souls). We can quibble with how Scully resolves that dilemma -- I
certainly do. (If Emily's life is prolonged, might M&S not eventually find
some means of curing her? Scully submitted to some radical tests during her
fight with cancer in order to prolong her own life, which made saving it by
virtue of the implant possible. They might have discovered something more
about the tests and the pharmaceutical company, talked to other patients,
done _something_ to try and save Emily's life. Alas, poor Emily, and the
girls in All Souls, were ill-conceived, both literally and as excuses to
write Scully angst -- and therefore we are invited to see their horrible
deaths as benign, if not welcome.) But for the "action" Mulder provides we
would be left with something which, imo, would have been even worse -- an
entire hour of Scully watching a child die a slow and painful death.
~*~*~Mim Ritty~*~*~
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
mimr...@my-dejanews.com
> write Cixous' "l'ecriture feminine", but I love the concept-- writing with
> the body-- mother's milk as opposed to the straight-line, linearity of the
> penis. As Cixous says, "Everything doesn't have to make sense." (which
> makes her writing very difficult to understand at times <g>).
Now this _is_ fascinating, at least to one who never knowingly used either her
genitals or her bodily fluids while writing. I have questions!
What if I don't have a penis and have never produced mother's milk? What if
I don't have a penis but think they're pretty wonderful as organs go (if
attached to the right person)? What if I use a deodorant that's strong
enough for a man but made for a woman? How _does_ one write with mother's
milk? Is it anything like invisible ink? Is this one of those things that
doesn't have to make sense?
Inquiring minds want to know! :-)
Deborah A Tinsley
<7dkpjp$jh3$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <01be7817$9e91f8a0$e0ba9cd1@oemcomputer>,
> :-) As for whether my interpretation is the unfortunate product of
"cultural
> bias" ... hmmm. I guess that most of us who were raised in middle-class
> America are exposed to the same culture, for the most part, so I can't
buy
> the implication that some of us get infected by this bias while others,
> remaining somehow immune, see more clearly than the rest.
I don't think we all got the same message from the culture. My brother and
sister see things very differently from me, and I was not raised in a
typical middle class household. We weren't poor, but more so than the
average middle class family and I was raised in the country, not the
suburbs. I didn't have the same access to education, films, even television
(we only got 2 fuzzy stations).
We all have our
> biases, certainly -- some cultural, some personal, and, in the case of
TXF,
> some created by whether we identify with one character more than the
other.
> But to attribute certain viewpoints to "cultural bias" doesn't seem to me
to
> be useful other than as a means of illegitimizing those viewpoints on
some
> basis other than their merits.
>
I don't think one follows the other. Cultural bias is an observation. You
don't think the culture has biases? Why during March Madness do we have a
zillion hours of male basketball and only a few of the women's games?
Economic realities shaped by cultural biases. Did I watch those men's
basketball games anyway? You betcha. How does recognizing the bias make
that viewpoint illegitimate? How does pointing out a blind spot say what
was seen has no value?
> Anyway, biased or not, I have a different view of M&S' roles in Emily.
> Scully was certainly in a difficult position, but her role isn't enhanced
by
> characterizing Mulder's as meaningless.
I didn't say it was meaningless just that some people put more value on his
role than it deserved and undervalued Scully's role. That was the point.
And asking what is accomplished
> doesn't seem particularly fruitful, because neither of them accomplished
much
> at all, if the point was to allow Emily to live (and I assume that was
> supposed to be the point of everyone's efforts, although from the outset
it
> was depressingly clear to the _viewer_ that 1013 wasn't going to let
those
> efforts succeed). Scully and the doctor search for the means of saving
> Emily's life within the confines of the hospital, while Mulder searches
for
> its outside -- and finds it.
Scully "accomplished" comforting and protecting a child at the time of her
death. Mulder had a pivotal role but through no fault of his own his
roughing up the doctor and finding the fertility lab didn't have much
effect. Everyone escaped and the serum wasn't used.
> That Scully _chooses_ not to use the serum to save Emily's life doesn't
> diminish the significance of the fact that the serum exists and was
found.
What did Mulder do with it? Put it in the same place he was keeping
Scully's ova. <g>
> In fact, it is crucial to the story, for without it there is no choice
for
> Scully to make.
I didn't say it wasn't crucial to the story. The discussion was about
Scully's role being diminished in Emily. My argument was that it wasn't.
You missed the point of my reply. Read the post I was responding to.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
<7dkqjc$k9p$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <01be75a8$6150e6c0$a862...@spam.oemcomputer>,
> > write Cixous' "l'ecriture feminine", but I love the concept-- writing
with
> > the body-- mother's milk as opposed to the straight-line, linearity of
the
> > penis. As Cixous says, "Everything doesn't have to make sense." (which
> > makes her writing very difficult to understand at times <g>).
>
> Now this _is_ fascinating, at least to one who never knowingly used
either her
> genitals or her bodily fluids while writing. I have questions!
> ~*~*~Mim Ritty~*~*~
little.<g> Fair enough.
If you are truly interested though, you might try wading through the post I
sent just a little while ago in response to Steve Pagano (it's the one
before my apology for sending it to the ng). It's long, but there's a part
that deals with how language was structured around the body. The basic
theory is that our biology does in part determine how we interface with the
world, shapes our experience and our culture. i.e. men stand to pee, and
pee in straight lines. women squat. women also have menses. This has
affected the way we dress, our mobility, modes of transportation, etc.
If you doubt this is true think how architecture has been affected (or
should be). Any woman who has had to stand in a long line for the bathroom
and watched her male escort come and go, got to the concession stand, wait
impatiently, etc. can't deny our internal plumbing has affected our place
in the culture. Bathrooms were designed around male needs. As women have
gotten more of a voice, voila, suddenly some new architecture is taking
this into account.
Deconstructivists apply this theory to texts and language. I'm just
learning this stuff so I'm no expert, but you can search the terms on the
Internet for better explanations if you are interested.
Deborah
Courtney Bailey
Deborah A Tinsley wrote:
> I have to say while I was watching Emily, I did not get a sense of Scully
> as passive or in the background. She was reticent but then she was subdued
> in CC as well. I don't know if it's GA's acting or just the presence of
> Scully's character, but even though she was under great emotional strain,
> she still seemed very strong to me. In Emily she was faced with the fact
> that her recently discovered biological daughter was dying at the hands of
> the men who had abducted and raped her and yet she maintained her
> vigilance, competence, resolve and tenderness. She dealt firmly and
> effectively with the bureaucracies that threatened to separate her from the
> child in their last moments.
>
> Maybe there is a cultural bias that values the "action" Mulder was taking
> over the quiet courage Scully had to muster.
This is exactly what I was talking about then I said that certain meanings are
privileged or dominant. So we "read" Mulder as active and Scully as passive
because such a reading fits with other ideas and discourses that have cultural
legitimacy. However, as your response (and others' responses to the Virgin
Mary image) demonstrates really well, there are other possibilities; our
readings of XF and the meanings we produce from it are not completely
determined by dominant codes.
In that spirit, let me offer my own "reading against the grain," one which sees
Scully as much less passive and victimized. I base this reading on two main
points: the cyborg metaphor developed by feminist theorist Donna Haraway and
the symbolism of Scully's cross. First, Scully can be considered a cyborg in
Haraway's sense, that is, as someone who represents a blurring of boundaries
between human and alien, self and other. She has undergone a set of strange
experiments that somehow involve alien DNA, and she has produced a child who
appears to be an alien-human hybrid (in this way, Emily is a cyborg as well).
Moreover, the technology that made Emily's birth possible undermines culturally
accepted notions of "natural" female reproduction, and the fact that Scully was
subjected to this technology places her in an ambivalent relationship to "real"
motherhood. But Haraway's cyborg is not only about the pain and anxiety
surrounding such blurring of boundaries; it is also about pleasure and
empowerment. For instance, Emily does offer resistance to the painful medical
treatments that aim to "cure" her "cyborgness" (that is, to make her whole, to
"purify" her). When Scully honors her resistance ("Mommy said no more tests")
by letting her die peacefully without further medical intervention, this can be
read as one cyborg's recognition of the validity and worth of another.
Second, Scully's position as a cyborg revives her determination to continue the
struggle she shares with Mulder against the syndicate and the destructive
forces of domination that they represent, and this revival is symbolized by her
recovery of the cross from Emily's empty coffin. Although the cross can
represent many different things, I choose to read it in this context as a sign
of rebirth and renewal, and not only because of its association with a Christ
who rose from the dead. I'm thinking here of the next-to-last scene in "One
Breath," where the cross signifies Scully's return (from the dead?) to the
struggle against evil. When Mulder gives the cross back to her, this exchange
affirms their mutual commitment to uncovering the truth and reestablishes
Scully's place in the fight against the syndicate. In both CC/Emily and One
Breath, Scully can be read as a cyborg (signified by her "unnatural" motherhood
in the former and by the genetic tests performed during her abduction in the
latter), and this position as a cyborg reinvigorates her resistance to the
"white patriarchy" of the syndicate.
I must say I much prefer this reading (and the readings offered by Deborah and
Paula among others), even though it may take a bit more work to see and/or be
convincing (that work is perhaps implied by the phrase "reading against the
grain"). But I think it's important, and rather pleasurable, work, especially
because it helps me understand how I can love XF and still recognize its
sometimes problematic implications.
Courtney
Deborah A Tinsley
> Only a few notes here and there. Snipping much.
>
> Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> news:01be77f7$f11a1b40$bdba9cd1@oemcomputer...
> > POSTMODERN (POMO)
> > Everything is language; Language is everything-- Postmodernism: there
is
> no
> > reality outside of language. i.e. woman is only a category, a fiction
> > created out of language. Since woman does not exist, except in the
fantasy
> > men have created for themselves, women's task is to recreate woman on
> their
> > own terms. Since women do not own symbolic language (rational, binary)
> they
> > must develop their own out of the Imaginary. This language is often
called
> > semiotic.
>
> And now we easily see the falsehood of the notion. The above view
> immediately implies a belief that reality can be actively created, which
> quickly leads (via some arguments I'll skip) to a contradiction of the
> elementary logical tenet that a statement in a fixed context cannot
> simultaneously be wholly true and wholly false.
I just can't get my mind around this Steve? I'm not saying it isn't true,
but that I don't understand it in relation to what I'm talking about. I'm
not asking you to explain. I know it must be tedious taking me through
this. I just wanted you to understand how clueless I am.<g>
Will that prevent me from responding? Nope.
I guess I think to a degree reality is created. I'm not denying that the
real exists but when we try to understand it, place value on parts of it,
frame our beliefs on our perception and act on those perceptions--yeah, I
think we create a lot of what we call reality. We've got lot of nifty
mythology around to reinforce what we think is true. Here's a basic one:
work hard and you will succeed. That is generally believed but success
often depends on our circumstances, our class, race, general health and
even on what we consider success or if we even believe in success, and yet
a lot of government and corporate policy is based on this tenet.
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by reality. Their is a real world
but how humans perceive it is conditional and we humans act on our
perceptions, thus creating what we believe to be real. Those perceptions
are affected by how we know a thing. We use language to gain knowledge
about our experience. I don't know how language can be separate from
understanding and anytime language is involved meaning becomes fluid.
snip
> > TXF wouldn't have enjoyed its success without strong plots, and I agree
> > with many of you that the plots this year have not been the strongest.
>
> Well, I neither said nor implied that in the above paragraph, but yes, I
> have said this elsewhere about this season. :) I still feel that we'll
all
> appreciate (and understand) this season a lot more by, say, the middle of
> next season, when things that are clearly being set up now (many of which
> have been missed by people angry with the show) come to fruition, and we
can
> all look back and slap our foreheads and be surprised at how much we all
> missed. :)
I agree. I found that to be especially true of S5. I wasn't putting words
in your post--that was from me.
snip
> > Also I've drawn a lot of my ideas from Elizabeth Kubek's essay in ,
Deny
> > All Knowledge (didn't you get that for Christmas Steve?), "You'll Only
> > Expose Your Father" by Elizabeth Kubek.
>
> I got it for Christmas, yup. And if you've any idea how much back
reading
> I've yet to catch up on... :)
>
> --Steve
LOL - I'm reading it very, very slowly and in between all this other
reading. I actually liked Leslie Jones essay the best of all I've read so
far (I'm not reading them in order). She's (actually Leslie could be a man?
I don't know) the folklorist.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
> Deborah A Tinsley <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> news:01be78a4$e4ec1780$ab9a...@spam.oemcomputer...
> > Steve Pagano <za...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
> > <7djjsn$6r8$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>...
> > > Vehemently <vehem...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > > news:36FD1F9A...@yahoo.com...
>
> > In true Deconstructivist fashion, I can use what works without
subscribing
> > to the whole system. Haven't you ever used a process or a formula
where
> > the end product failed but some of the steps along the way led you to a
> new
> > discovery?
>
> There are a few questions begged here. First, what do we mean by a
method
> failing? I see two immediate possible answers:
>
> 1) It gives incorrect answers. In this case, it should be repaired or
> abandoned. We can learn from it in a few ways, including a) what exactly
> caused it to go wrong and b) portions that seem to be right, and beg
further
> investigation.
That's a rather mechanistic view isn't it? I think there are squadrons of
theorists working on it even as we speak, at least every author I read
seems to have a slightly different slant or emphasis. They are searching
for the meaning of life. It's going to take awhile and I thought I'd lend a
hand.
> 2) I fails to give all answers. We know that this failing is true of all
> systems of inquiry which are sophisticated enough to contains basic
(read:
> grade-school-level) tenets of logic and arithmetic, thanks to Godel.
Well it definitely fails in this regard but so does every other philosophic
and theoretical model doesn't it?
> > Say I want to talk about a belief system, so I refer to God because
it's a
> > useful illustration of something a lot of people believe in. I don't
> assume
> > that "god" refers to an actual being or even to a coherent system of
> > beliefs that situate "got" at the center. I can talk about penis envy
or
> > the Oedipus complex without believing in the whole system of Freudian
> > psychoanalysis.
>
> Yes, but the point is that the validity of the side topics does not
> necessarily derive from the validity of the core topic. For example
> Freudian thought may be abject BS, but parts of it certainly can be true.
> But if the system itself is BS, we should repair or abandon it, while
> retaining the ideas from it that we recognize as worthwhile.
Well that's Derrida's model. You recognize the system is flawed, because
all systems are, and you work with what's available. He calls it play.
"This is another key to deconstruction--even as you come to understand that
nothing is stable, that meaning is always contingent and ambiguous, you
continue to act as if nothing's wrong." (This is from my notes and I don't
have the attribution) He believes all structures have a center and the
center holds the structure together. It limits the movement of the elements
in the structure, and that movement is what he calls play. In semiotic
terms the center is the ultimate source of meaning --"transcendental
signified".
So how do we talk about any system without using the terms of that system?
(Nietzsche, Freud and Heideggear all tried and failed according to
Derrida). His answer is to keep using the structure, but recognize that it
is flawed. In his terms that means to stop attributing what he calls "truth
value" to a structure, but see that system as a construct, something built
around a central idea that holds the whole thing in place even though the
central idea (like binary oppositions) is flawed or even an illusion.
That's where bricolage comes in and bricolage is mythopoetic; it's more
like play than the system. It produces a new way to talk and think about
systems without falling into the trap of building a new system out of the
ruins of an old one. The bricoleur can't care about the purity or
stability of the system, but uses it to get the job done. S/he doesn't
believe in "truth" as an absolute but only as something that emerges from a
coherent system as a kind of illusion. S/he speaks language, s/he
originates from her/his own unique existence. (again much of this is from
my notes and not original thought. I'm just trying to synthesize what I've
read).
snip>
> > Is Bill Mulder a villain? Is Bill Mulder a hero? . Was Bill Mulder a
good
> > father? Did Bill Mulder do the best thing for his family or for his
country
> > or for humanity? What is the truth.
>
> As I said elsewhere, each of these has an answer (providing the questions
> aren't ill-posed!). But it may be beyond any human being to know these
> answers.
Well if humans can't answer them or even ask the right questions, what the
hell are we supposed to do?<g> For the record, I believe BM is a villain
and a hero, a good and bad father, that he did what he thought was best for
his family and his country, for humanity and had mixed results-- it's kind
of a flimmering truth.
snip
>
> > I always thought the true hero of Folie a Deux was
> > Gary Lambert, the man who took his co-workers hostage. He put his life
on
> > the line to make the truth known. If it weren't for him, Mulder would
never
> > have known and yet, no one speaks of that character:
> > Gary Lambert is not the hero because the audience did not recognize him
as
> > such. He didn't have the signifiers to identify him as such.
>
> And of course, that depends on how one defines "hero". :)
>
> --Steve
Well he gave his life trying to expose what he (and Mulder) believed was a
considerable threat to humanity. That's pretty heroic, and he did so for no
personal gain and probably knowing on some level he was doomed. People have
been deemed heroes for much less, but I suppose it is subjective. He'd be a
hero to some and not to others.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
Courtney Bailey <cwba...@kiva.net> wrote in article
<36FEB9EB...@kiva.net>...
>
>
> Deborah A Tinsley wrote:
snip
> > Maybe there is a cultural bias that values the "action" Mulder was
taking
> > over the quiet courage Scully had to muster.
>
> This is exactly what I was talking about then I said that certain
meanings are
> privileged or dominant.
Leave it to me to miss the forest for the trees<g>.
> So we "read" Mulder as active and Scully as passive
> because such a reading fits with other ideas and discourses that have
cultural
> legitimacy. However, as your response (and others' responses to the
Virgin
> Mary image) demonstrates really well, there are other possibilities; our
> readings of XF and the meanings we produce from it are not completely
> determined by dominant codes.
>
> In that spirit, let me offer my own "reading against the grain," one
which sees
> Scully as much less passive and victimized. I base this reading on two
main
> points: the cyborg metaphor developed by feminist theorist Donna Haraway
and
> the symbolism of Scully's cross. First, Scully can be considered a
cyborg in
> Haraway's sense, that is, as someone who represents a blurring of
boundaries
> between human and alien, self and other.
Wow, another new theory (to me anyway). I never knew when I joined this ng
it was going to be such a mind expanding experience. This is great. I'm
only snipping parts because I have nothing to contribute, but this is very
interesting. Another author to add to my list!
This is lovely. I never made all these connections even though now that you
have made them it's hard to see how I missed them. It's that forest/trees
thing again<g>.
> I must say I much prefer this reading (and the readings offered by
Deborah and
> Paula among others), even though it may take a bit more work to see
and/or be
> convincing (that work is perhaps implied by the phrase "reading against
the
> grain"). But I think it's important, and rather pleasurable, work,
especially
> because it helps me understand how I can love XF and still recognize its
> sometimes problematic implications.
>
> Courtney
I just came across "reading against the grain" in some of my reading today
so I was hoping you would post on this topic as you promised. Thanks again.
Deborah
Magpie
>mimr...@my-dejanews.com wrote in article
> If you doubt this is true think how architecture has been affected (or
>should be). Any woman who has had to stand in a long line for the bathroom
>and watched her male escort come and go, got to the concession stand, wait
>impatiently, etc. can't deny our internal plumbing has affected our place
>in the culture. Bathrooms were designed around male needs. As women have
>gotten more of a voice, voila, suddenly some new architecture is taking
>this into account.
Gotta ask: How does the architecture come into it? I've always
thought women were just big slowpokes! Nothing's more annoying
than seeing some woman futzing around in the stall, taking five
years to pull up her pantyhouse and tuck in everything and get
her coat on slowly. Arrrgh! Me, I'm like lightning, even in
a leotard (you don't have to take the whole thing off every
time, ya know)!
But obviously I've missed something--how is the architecture
changing to help us? Because we do need help.
-m
mimr...@my-dejanews.com
"Deborah A Tinsley" <TINS...@prodigy.net> wrote:
> Hmmm, somehow I feel you aren't serious but to the opportunity to razz me a
> little.<g> Fair enough.
You're right, I was trying to add a little levity -- bad idea, I guess. :-) I
wasn't razzing you, though, but Mlle. Cixous (or rather, her ideas, as they've
been presented here). I've spent the better part of my life resisting having
men define me by my gender, and it's depressing as hell to find the same thing
being done by women.
Deborah A Tinsley
Magpie <bel...@ibm.net> wrote in article <36fe...@news1.us.ibm.net>...
Many women actually need more time. Often there are more clothes to contend
with especially if panty hose are involved and then the whole process is
more complicated than unzipping a zipper. In addition if it happens to be a
certain time of the month that must be dealt with and can involve
additional time. Many women have to take children or babies with them to
the bathroom. The bottom line is bathrooms were not designed for women's
needs. Men's public bathrooms usually have more urinals than stalls because
that's all men need. Urinals take less space than stalls. Architects did
not consider the needs of women and to a degree our behavior was shaped by
that. The whole phenomenon of women going to the bathroom in pairs probably
came because they had to wait in line and wanted someone to talk to.
I've noticed that new theatres often have two to three times the number of
women's stalls than they used to, and this is a good thing. I remember
going to the bathroom at concerts when I was younger and waiting in a line
with 50 women ahead of me. Not only did I miss part of the show, I
experienced a lot of discomfort and was afraid to drink anything before or
during the show. At a couple of concerts we took over the men's bathroom.
I used this as an example of how the needs of the body affect culture. Once
women had political clout and a voice to be heard, bathrooms changed.
Deborah
Deborah A Tinsley
mimr...@my-dejanews.com wrote in article
<7dmeoh$s5k$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> In article <01be7957$f459e400$6cba9cd1@oemcomputer>,> > Hmmm, somehow I feel you aren't serious but taking the opportunity to
razz me a
> > little.<g> Fair enough.
>
> You're right, I was trying to add a little levity -- bad idea, I guess.
:-)
Levity is always a good idea. I just didn't know if it was meant as jest or
jibe. Either way, it helps break up things up a bit.
I
> wasn't razzing you, though, but Mlle. Cixous (or rather, her ideas, as
they've
> been presented here). I've spent the better part of my life resisting
having
> men define me by my gender, and it's depressing as hell to find the same
thing
> being done by women.
>
> *~*~Mim Ritty~*~*~
I think the outrageousness of writing with mother's milk tickled my
funnybone! We hear so much power of the penis, I thought it was an
entertaining change. You have every right to object - I guess I don't have
to tell you that. I don't mind. In fact, I like hearing the responses to
it. I'm just beginning to look at this stuff and sometimes it helps to get
tugged back down to earth.
Deborah
mimr...@my-dejanews.com
> > :-) As for whether my interpretation is the unfortunate product of
> "cultural
> > bias" ... hmmm. I guess that most of us who were raised in middle-class
> > America are exposed to the same culture, for the most part, so I can't
> buy
> > the implication that some of us get infected by this bias while others,
> > remaining somehow immune, see more clearly than the rest.
>
> I don't think we all got the same message from the culture. My brother and
> sister see things very differently from me,
Exactly. Which is why I think it's fruitless to automatically attribute an
opposing viewpoint to some nebulous cultural bias rather than debating that
viewpoint on its merits.
> and I was not raised in a
> typical middle class household. We weren't poor, but more so than the
> average middle class family and I was raised in the country, not the
> suburbs. I didn't have the same access to education, films, even television
> (we only got 2 fuzzy stations).
Whether you were raised in a log cabin or a New York brownstone, you were
raised in a culture and are as subject to being biased by that culture as
anyone else.
> We all have our
> > biases, certainly -- some cultural, some personal, and, in the case of
> TXF,
> > some created by whether we identify with one character more than the
> other.
> You
> don't think the culture has biases?
To repeat: "We all have our biases, certainly -- some cultural ..." The
point isn't to deny that cultural bias exists, but to question whether it is
fair or useful in a discussion to give others' viewpoints the perjorative
label of "biased" because they differ from our own.
> How does pointing out a blind spot say what
> was seen has no value?
How does one know whose interpretation is a "blind spot" and whose is "true"?
Attributing opposing viewpoints to bias (or a blind spot, or fascism, etc.)
is a common technique in debating, but it only serves to end rather than
promote discussion because it attacks the viewpoint without saying anything
about its merits.
> > Anyway, biased or not, I have a different view of M&S' roles in Emily.
> > Scully was certainly in a difficult position, but her role isn't enhanced
> > by characterizing Mulder's as meaningless.
> I didn't say it was meaningless
You wrote:
> > > Scully
> > > provided all the truly meaningful action in this episode.
I think my interpretation was a fair one.
> Mulder had a pivotal role
That was not clear from your original post.
> > That Scully _chooses_ not to use the serum to save Emily's life doesn't
> > diminish the significance of the fact that the serum exists and was
> > found.
> What did Mulder do with it? Put it in the same place he was keeping
> Scully's ova. <g>
He could have flushed it down the toilet for all the interest Scully showed in
it. As for the ova, all we know is that they're in a place where they aren't
being used to make more Emilys, which is a Good Thing. :-)
> > In fact, it is crucial to the story, for without it there is no choice
> > for Scully to make.
> I didn't say it wasn't crucial to the story.
Again, that wasn't clear from your post. You wrote:
> > > The most important thing Mulder did in that episode was Mr. Potato head
> > > (which delighted Scully if not Emily when Scully needed to see Emily
> > > smile) and just his presence--at her brother's house, in the judges
> > > chamber, in the hospital, at the chapel.
> The discussion was about
> Scully's role being diminished in Emily. My argument was that it wasn't.
> You missed the point of my reply. Read the post I was responding to.
I didn't miss the point you made in your reply, although it's possible I
missed the point you meant to make. While the original post was mostly about
Scully's role, your reply introduced the comparison between Scully's and
Mulder's roles -- and concluded that all the truly meaningful action was
provided by Scully. I agree that Scully's role was important, but I believe
that Mulder's actions were equally pivotal to the story. That disagreement
seems to have caused some offense, for which I apologize.
~*~*~Mim Ritty~*~*~