But The X-Files was there, in the background, for that year and for several years after it. In my memory of that time it seems to be running, muted, on every TV in every room I enter after dark.
Brian Phillips,Ā āIn the Dark,ā Grantland
This is one of my favorite pieces of X-Files journalism, in part because it captures what I both knew and did not know about the series before I watched it. I knew the theme song, the grainy monsters, the lights in the woods, the two agents in suits standing by a cornfield and looking into the sky. I knew Mulder and Scully were a kind of love story, even before I understood it. I donāt know how I knew. I just knew.Ā
āI was already used to imagining the series as a montage of empty atmosphere,ā Phillips says, āand in fact I had fallen half in love with it as such.ā Itās a mood. The X-Files is a feeling that we already recognize and an idea that resonates with us before we have the words or the facts to back it upāso it talks to us like Mulder and Scully talk to each other. Itās both the darkness and the flashlight. Itās the part of us that knows thereās something to fear but wants to run toward it. Itās the cozy idea that we might be able to run with someone else. ItāsĀ āyouāll never get thereā andĀ ākeep going.āĀ āTrust no oneā butĀ ātrust this person.ā Strain to believe in something youāre not sure youāll ever believe.
The fact that we all know at some unspoken level the FEEL of The X-Files makes everything nostalgic, even for those of us who arenāt lucky enough to have a 22-year relationship with the show. This is still the return of a story we feel like weāve been hearing our whole lives. Itās affirmation that yes, you were right, there are monsters, even now. But another bedtime story is just as real: There are people who fight the monsters and who are made better and more alive by the fight. And in a way thatās nostalgia brought into the future (itās a nostalgia ouroboros). The fact that The X-Files is still going, and that Mulder and Scully are still going, is proof that no matter how many obstacles itās up against, hope doesnāt have to run out, the truth is still out there, and the passage of time doesnāt have to bring with it the acceptance of easy answers. You can still want to believe in everything you used to want to believe in. Youāre still not alone.
snowghoul
jbbartram-illu
theartofmadeline
2087
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