thinking tonight about how much has been written over the past 30 years about the x files' subversion of gender roles, mulder as a 90s sci-fi hero who is the more emotional and open of the two, who cries on screen regularly, who is empathetic to a fault and deeply devoted to helping the vulnerable. scully as the rational one, the science brain, the person who is taken seriously. the unique view of a relationship to the paranormal and occultism, which, from its rise in the 1940s, was originally viewed as feminine and something irrational that women were comforted by. and how all of this is true and interesting but, to me, none of it is the biggest marker of gendered experiences in their characters.
at the end of the day, their characters both respond exactly as men and women in our society do, in the ways that they respond to violence.
mulder, in his mid-20s, started at the FBI working in the violent crimes division
where his profiling abilities, his way of being able to get into the mind of a killer, were revered
it's also where, in his words, he first saw monsters.
this show always deeply understood that the scariest monsters were not the vile creatures, they were violent men, and some of the most memorable villains on the show (john lee roche, luther boggs, john barnett) are resurfaced serial killers that mulder previously caught in his violent crimes days.
but mulder's background is in behavioral science, and he always wants to understand what makes someone how they are
and his positive worldview requires him to view every act of evil as the consequence of a larger cause, as not being senseless
which is why he wants to believe that men who are killing women are only doing so out of a biological imperative to survive
or out of a misguided attempt to SAVE them
meanwhile, scully is affected by the brutalization of women on an emotional level.
she hangs back at the crime scene and the police station to compose herself, while the men she's working with march up to a woman's desecrated corpse
she knows that even when mulder is right, even when the killer is acting out of a biological need for survival
that doesn't make it any better
because the impact on the women that he brutalized is more than physical, it's more than biological, it's more than any rational reasoning that he might have behind why he did it
she knows that it doesn't matter
and she doesn't need to try to understand. she doesn't need to know what the killer's reasoning is.
she already knows why men brutalize women
she's experienced it, she doesn't need to study it.
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