How about Germany? They've never been the bad guys.
I've been having a weird impromptu X-Files marathon lately -- I haven't watched that show in FOREVER but for some reason out of the blue I got the urge to watch the first season episode "Eve", and it held up SHOCKINGLY WELL. I tend to the think of the first season as being kind of terrible, but man, I can see why my 14 year old self got really into it. (Also, hilariously, I have a lot of very specific memories of where I watched different episodes, and I was such a baby. Often it's like, WOW, I watched this for the first time while babysitting for the people who lived behind us, and I totally freaked myself out. Or, I had to go to my friend's play that Friday night, so I had to tape the episode on the VCR and it only taped half and I was super mad. Haha, being a fangirl in the mid-90s was the worst, remember how if you missed something that was just too bad? Unless you could find someone on a Prodigy X-Files message board who would send you a VHS tape in the mail?)
Anyway, here are some reflections on my very first fandom, more than 15 years after it first aired (augh):
1) The show totally holds up, even with their '90s hair and weird awkward flirting that sometimes comes off as a hostile work environment, MULDER. (It is weird to watch older media sometimes, I saw a couple things from the '80s lately, which I do not think of as super old, and boy, the '80s sure played fast and loose with issues of consent, didn't they? NO MEANS NO, BILL MURRAY IN GHOSTBUSTERS.)
2) That being said, I think Chris Carter wanted Mulder and Scully to come off as super smart, which seems to mean "talking like they are robots." No one uses the word "perhaps" in conversations with their mother, Scully! Some of the writing is SO CLUNKY, especially -- haha, remember those horrible voiceovers about, like, the nature of the universe? Those are STILL THE WORST. Chris Carter, stop hurting the English language like that, what did it ever do to you.
3) I had kind of forgotten how very consciously post-Watergate the show is, in a way that comes off really dated now. Sometimes the whole show makes me think, oh, 1990s, things were so good you had to INVENT things to be upset about, that's adorable. Also, like... I know the whole post-Watergate mentality is generally thought of as a very cynical one, but it weirdly comes off to me as really naive now? Like, there are times when Mulder rants about how the truth will come out and the American people will never tolerate it, etc! And my reaction to that is, "Yeah, right, like the truth coming out ever stops anything." Ha ha? I was thinking about whether that's, like, idk, a post-9/11 mentality, but I actually think it's a post-2008-economic-collapse mentality. Oh, everyone knows that Wall Street crashed the economy, but... nothing's going to change? Great!
(Actually, as an aside, I feel like we are so post-9/11 now that we're actually post-post-9/11, in that if I never hear the phrase "post-9/11" again it will be too soon. Also, is anybody watching the show Homeland? Super good show, but it actually strikes me as post-9/11 in a way that is a little bit dated, like it would've felt more timely 5 years ago. Like, ugh, really, we're still worrying about terrorists? I'm actually worried about getting a job, but okay.)
4) God, Scully gets a bum deal in this show. (Haha, hilariously I vividly remember arguing on the internet when I was like 15 that Mulder got kidnapped just as much as Scully, it wasn't sexist! Lolol oh young me, there is just so much I need to tell you about, but tragically I cannot.) And riddle me this, internet: why does every single lady ever on a genre show have to get reproductively assaulted in some way? (Subset question: Why does every lady on a procedural or possibly every other genre eventually realize that all she wants in the world are babies? TIRED TROPE, TELEVISION. TIRED.) But ah, Scully. Family members murdered, ova harvested, cancer gotten, abducted multiple times, life threatened, dog eaten, clone daughter found and then dead, mysterious messiah baby, partner leaving you and writing you notes addressed "Dearest Dana" COULD YOUR LIFE BE WORSE? And to add insult to injury we sure see a lot more of Mulder crying alone in the dark than you. Haha, don't burden us with your silly lady emotions, a MAN is sad.
5) In the same vein, sometimes everything on the show is so SRS BZNS that it's hilarious. Skinner is always stalking around yelling for no reason! Take it down a notch, man! Haha and I seem to remember a quote from Duchovny about how when he has to deliver lines about sewer monsters it is diminishing to him as a human and as an actor and lololololol it's so true, I actually feel bad for the actors in those moments when they have to very seriously deliver very very silly lines.
6) When the show doesn't take itself seriously, though, it is SUCH A DELIGHT. Bad Blood, the Dreamlands, Small Potatoes, etc -- all of those episodes are actually even better than I remembered and I didn't think that was possible. Apparently I could not overhype them to myself enough.
7) I have actually been thinking seriously about writing a Parks and Rec X-Files AU while I've been watching, with Leslie as the Mulder, because I am intrigued by the idea of a gender-swap there. So I've been imagining a lady getting to be as big an a-hole as Mulder often is, all brilliant and tortured and driven by the TRUTH, always vindicated, excused for all her nonsense, in a world where her male partner Ben Wyatt gets abducted and his sperm is taken and he gets cancer and the whole focus being on how sad this makes Leslie, the weight of the world on her shoulders, etc, and OH MAN, it is a weirdly satisfying, Mary-Sue-ish fantasy. Like, WAY more satisfying than I ever thought it would be. I can understand why men HAVE this fantasy and put it on TV so much, dude, it's awesome! You're the protagonist, you can be as big a dick as you want! Everything is about you! It's men who are reproductively violated, while you are just sad about how you couldn't save them! Ugh, it's kind of GREAT, I want to live there and roll around in it. You all should try it as a thought experiment, honestly, it is sort of revelatory.
All right, I'm going to use that last point to segue into a discussion of Parks and Rec from last week, because a week late is how I like my episode reactions:
The Treaty -- I think this episode was like the funniest one of the show ever, God, I laughed so hard. Also I find Leslie and Ben way sexier when they're yelling at each other -- I don't know what that says about me. I just want them to angry-bang at some point.
(Also I totally understand where Ben's coming from, but he's being kind of a dick with the mixed messages about whether they can be friends or not. I don't really get why he gets to set all the terms of the relationship -- like, when Leslie asks HIM out in Soulmates, he says no, but when he asks HER out in Road Trip, that's when they start dating. He breaks up with her, he says whether or not they can spend time together afterwards, etc, etc. Also she takes all the risks, with her career and otherwise -- I mean, she asked him out first, not knowing for sure if he liked her, whereas he didn't ask her out until after Ann had EXPLICITLY TOLD HIM that Leslie liked him. Oh, Ben Wyatt, you are no Gryffindor, bless your heart.)
Oh, also I REALLY liked Ann telling Chris off about their relationship. I find Ann kind of boring when she's being a pushover and not that passionate about anything, so I am really on board with this trend of her being excited about things, like fixing stuff with Ron, and her standing up for herself. (Hahaha, remember that time she finally yelled at April in Flu Season, and April's like, "That's the most I've ever liked Ann"? It was the most I've ever liked Ann too.)
ALSO now I desperately want a high school AU where Leslie and April are best friends, so there's that.
I've also been thinking lately about Leslie Knope and her flaws, since some random bloggers have been complaining that she's too saintly or something. (Which is so weird. She totally has TONS of flaws, it's just that the show doesn't think she deserves to be constantly put down for them, unlike how practically every other show on TV treats women. So maybe that's why it's confusing for people.)
I think what I love about Leslie and her flaws is that they are all, like, childlike flaws, in what is somehow a very appealing way -- she's impulsive and passionate and loses her temper very unself-critically. I feel like post-puberty so many women are socialized to not express negative emotions, or at least to be really... what is the word. Like, circumspect or careful about expressing them.
But the way Leslie Knope gets mad -- man, that is the way a little girl gets mad. She is totally not worried about whether her feelings are legitimate, or whether she's being unreasonable, or about anyone thinking she's a bitch. She just scrunches up her face and loses her shit, and threatens to waterboard a teenage boy, or declares war on the country of Peru, or knocks files out of Mark Brendanawicz's hands. I GUESS I'VE BEEN PRONOUNCING YOUR NAME WRONG ALL THESE YEARS, MARK BRENDANA-QUITS.
Basically I feel like Leslie Knope (and, honestly, a little bit Amy Poehler) are what would happen if a girl was allowed to get through puberty with her real self intact, instead of getting relentlessly socialized to be whatever an acceptable woman is supposed to be, and that is kind of great.
(Oh Poehler: "I like that age, where you’re not quite into boys yet and really think you can be an astronaut, a teacher, a doctor and a roller skater. That girl and I live in the same world.” MARRY ME.)
Anyway, here are some reflections on my very first fandom, more than 15 years after it first aired (augh):
1) The show totally holds up, even with their '90s hair and weird awkward flirting that sometimes comes off as a hostile work environment, MULDER. (It is weird to watch older media sometimes, I saw a couple things from the '80s lately, which I do not think of as super old, and boy, the '80s sure played fast and loose with issues of consent, didn't they? NO MEANS NO, BILL MURRAY IN GHOSTBUSTERS.)
2) That being said, I think Chris Carter wanted Mulder and Scully to come off as super smart, which seems to mean "talking like they are robots." No one uses the word "perhaps" in conversations with their mother, Scully! Some of the writing is SO CLUNKY, especially -- haha, remember those horrible voiceovers about, like, the nature of the universe? Those are STILL THE WORST. Chris Carter, stop hurting the English language like that, what did it ever do to you.
3) I had kind of forgotten how very consciously post-Watergate the show is, in a way that comes off really dated now. Sometimes the whole show makes me think, oh, 1990s, things were so good you had to INVENT things to be upset about, that's adorable. Also, like... I know the whole post-Watergate mentality is generally thought of as a very cynical one, but it weirdly comes off to me as really naive now? Like, there are times when Mulder rants about how the truth will come out and the American people will never tolerate it, etc! And my reaction to that is, "Yeah, right, like the truth coming out ever stops anything." Ha ha? I was thinking about whether that's, like, idk, a post-9/11 mentality, but I actually think it's a post-2008-economic-collapse mentality. Oh, everyone knows that Wall Street crashed the economy, but... nothing's going to change? Great!
(Actually, as an aside, I feel like we are so post-9/11 now that we're actually post-post-9/11, in that if I never hear the phrase "post-9/11" again it will be too soon. Also, is anybody watching the show Homeland? Super good show, but it actually strikes me as post-9/11 in a way that is a little bit dated, like it would've felt more timely 5 years ago. Like, ugh, really, we're still worrying about terrorists? I'm actually worried about getting a job, but okay.)
4) God, Scully gets a bum deal in this show. (Haha, hilariously I vividly remember arguing on the internet when I was like 15 that Mulder got kidnapped just as much as Scully, it wasn't sexist! Lolol oh young me, there is just so much I need to tell you about, but tragically I cannot.) And riddle me this, internet: why does every single lady ever on a genre show have to get reproductively assaulted in some way? (Subset question: Why does every lady on a procedural or possibly every other genre eventually realize that all she wants in the world are babies? TIRED TROPE, TELEVISION. TIRED.) But ah, Scully. Family members murdered, ova harvested, cancer gotten, abducted multiple times, life threatened, dog eaten, clone daughter found and then dead, mysterious messiah baby, partner leaving you and writing you notes addressed "Dearest Dana" COULD YOUR LIFE BE WORSE? And to add insult to injury we sure see a lot more of Mulder crying alone in the dark than you. Haha, don't burden us with your silly lady emotions, a MAN is sad.
5) In the same vein, sometimes everything on the show is so SRS BZNS that it's hilarious. Skinner is always stalking around yelling for no reason! Take it down a notch, man! Haha and I seem to remember a quote from Duchovny about how when he has to deliver lines about sewer monsters it is diminishing to him as a human and as an actor and lololololol it's so true, I actually feel bad for the actors in those moments when they have to very seriously deliver very very silly lines.
6) When the show doesn't take itself seriously, though, it is SUCH A DELIGHT. Bad Blood, the Dreamlands, Small Potatoes, etc -- all of those episodes are actually even better than I remembered and I didn't think that was possible. Apparently I could not overhype them to myself enough.
7) I have actually been thinking seriously about writing a Parks and Rec X-Files AU while I've been watching, with Leslie as the Mulder, because I am intrigued by the idea of a gender-swap there. So I've been imagining a lady getting to be as big an a-hole as Mulder often is, all brilliant and tortured and driven by the TRUTH, always vindicated, excused for all her nonsense, in a world where her male partner Ben Wyatt gets abducted and his sperm is taken and he gets cancer and the whole focus being on how sad this makes Leslie, the weight of the world on her shoulders, etc, and OH MAN, it is a weirdly satisfying, Mary-Sue-ish fantasy. Like, WAY more satisfying than I ever thought it would be. I can understand why men HAVE this fantasy and put it on TV so much, dude, it's awesome! You're the protagonist, you can be as big a dick as you want! Everything is about you! It's men who are reproductively violated, while you are just sad about how you couldn't save them! Ugh, it's kind of GREAT, I want to live there and roll around in it. You all should try it as a thought experiment, honestly, it is sort of revelatory.
All right, I'm going to use that last point to segue into a discussion of Parks and Rec from last week, because a week late is how I like my episode reactions:
The Treaty -- I think this episode was like the funniest one of the show ever, God, I laughed so hard. Also I find Leslie and Ben way sexier when they're yelling at each other -- I don't know what that says about me. I just want them to angry-bang at some point.
(Also I totally understand where Ben's coming from, but he's being kind of a dick with the mixed messages about whether they can be friends or not. I don't really get why he gets to set all the terms of the relationship -- like, when Leslie asks HIM out in Soulmates, he says no, but when he asks HER out in Road Trip, that's when they start dating. He breaks up with her, he says whether or not they can spend time together afterwards, etc, etc. Also she takes all the risks, with her career and otherwise -- I mean, she asked him out first, not knowing for sure if he liked her, whereas he didn't ask her out until after Ann had EXPLICITLY TOLD HIM that Leslie liked him. Oh, Ben Wyatt, you are no Gryffindor, bless your heart.)
Oh, also I REALLY liked Ann telling Chris off about their relationship. I find Ann kind of boring when she's being a pushover and not that passionate about anything, so I am really on board with this trend of her being excited about things, like fixing stuff with Ron, and her standing up for herself. (Hahaha, remember that time she finally yelled at April in Flu Season, and April's like, "That's the most I've ever liked Ann"? It was the most I've ever liked Ann too.)
ALSO now I desperately want a high school AU where Leslie and April are best friends, so there's that.
I've also been thinking lately about Leslie Knope and her flaws, since some random bloggers have been complaining that she's too saintly or something. (Which is so weird. She totally has TONS of flaws, it's just that the show doesn't think she deserves to be constantly put down for them, unlike how practically every other show on TV treats women. So maybe that's why it's confusing for people.)
I think what I love about Leslie and her flaws is that they are all, like, childlike flaws, in what is somehow a very appealing way -- she's impulsive and passionate and loses her temper very unself-critically. I feel like post-puberty so many women are socialized to not express negative emotions, or at least to be really... what is the word. Like, circumspect or careful about expressing them.
But the way Leslie Knope gets mad -- man, that is the way a little girl gets mad. She is totally not worried about whether her feelings are legitimate, or whether she's being unreasonable, or about anyone thinking she's a bitch. She just scrunches up her face and loses her shit, and threatens to waterboard a teenage boy, or declares war on the country of Peru, or knocks files out of Mark Brendanawicz's hands. I GUESS I'VE BEEN PRONOUNCING YOUR NAME WRONG ALL THESE YEARS, MARK BRENDANA-QUITS.
Basically I feel like Leslie Knope (and, honestly, a little bit Amy Poehler) are what would happen if a girl was allowed to get through puberty with her real self intact, instead of getting relentlessly socialized to be whatever an acceptable woman is supposed to be, and that is kind of great.
(Oh Poehler: "I like that age, where you’re not quite into boys yet and really think you can be an astronaut, a teacher, a doctor and a roller skater. That girl and I live in the same world.” MARRY ME.)