The Tin Foil Hats Are Out There: An Analysis of The X-Files’ Rise to Popularity
by Tessa Squissato
With the fall of 1993 came the premiere of the X-Files on Fox Network, a television show which reflected the fears and beliefs of a nation suspended in suspicion— a reflection found in a tin foil hat, perhaps. To understand the initial popularity of The X-Files, this essay will analyze how the show’s overarching alien abduction narrative drew upon known extraterrestrial conspiracies, the ways in which the “Smoking Man” character catered to the public’s growing distrust in government, and the effects of the series’ concurrent rise with the advancement of internet technology. In post-war North America, as government scandals and cover-ups gained greater public attention, so grew the number of purported alien sightings, encounters, and abductions. The creators of The X-Files weaved known conspiracies and untrustworthy government figures into the plots of their episodes, understanding that the masses were primed for a piece of media which presented the word of an extraterrestrial abductee as more credible than that of the U.S government. Between 1993 and 2002, the mysteries on the show became increasingly elaborate, and so too did the capabilities of the internet, giving fans more theories to discuss and more spaces to discuss them. The X-Files’ Mulder and Scully, hold the unwavering belief that “the truth is out there”, and the greatest “truth” of The X-Files— evidenced in a nine-season-long original run, two feature films, two modern revivals, and an upcoming reboot— is that audiences’ desire for The X-Files was, and is, insatiable.
In its initial run, The X-Files established itself with a rather unique format which blended aspects of both episodic and serialized television. The show largely consisted of self-contained, monster-of-the-week style episodes, while still weaving an overarching alien mythology into each season; the latter being that for which The X-Files became most known. With UFO sightings and the notion of the ‘abductee’ figure preexisting as widely discussed topics within the pop-cultural zeitgeist of the late twentieth century, the creators of the X-Files were ripe with familiar material upon which to base their mythological episodes. The alien myth arc is first introduced in the pilot episode via Mulder’s backstory, in which he recalls a childhood memory of his younger sister’s abduction by aliens. For audiences watching in 1993, this was a familiar narrative. Post-war America had ushered in the “modern UFO era”, largely defined by the infamous Mount Rainier and Roswell UFO sightings of 1947, after which reports of ‘flying discs’ became abundant. By the mid-1960s however, alien occupants had stepped off their crafts and into the national news. With increased reportage of such encounters, the ‘contactee’ narrative came to dominate the extraterrestrial-themed entertainment produced in the latter half of the century. By the time The X-Files premiered, the media landscape had for decades been oversaturated with these stories of alien abduction, creating in audiences an extraterrestrial fatigue. Yet, The X-Files still managed to elicit mass intrigue with their alien myth arc. This was achieved by avoiding the often overused abduction tropes found in preceding and contemporary television and film— tropes which may have had roots in ‘true’ occurrences but had since been cyclically regurgitated and rendered unrecognizable— opting instead toembed details in their plots derived from well-known, purportedly true reports of alien encounters.
This aspect of The X-Files is perhaps best exemplified by the show’s use of the 1961 Hill case, in which husband and wife, Barney and Betty Hill, claimed to have been abducted by aliens while driving down a New Hampshire highway. The couple specifically noted that they heard “strange beeping sounds” and “could not account for a two-hour period” after their encounter . In the pilot episode of The X-Files, the radio malfunctions in Mulder and Scully’s car, omitting an eerie, high-pitched sound. The pair then realise that nine minutes have inexplicably lapsed since the noise began, yet they perceived the occurrence as lasting mere seconds. This scene bears a striking resemblance to the details reported in the widely-publicized Hill case; an evidently purposeful choice, as the episode’s opening title reading: “The following story is inspired by actual documented accounts”. This sense of ‘realism’ drew audiences in, with Mulder and Scully acting as investigative conduits delving into the alien news stories which were already present in the cultural consciousness. As an ‘X-Phile’ said in 1994, the stories seem “plausible”, the show was “popular” because it was “daring and intelligent”. These comments reflect the audience’s interest in Chris Carter’s reframing of the traditional extraterrestrial narrative as “speculative fiction”, rather than traditional Sci-Fi. The X-Files would go on to follow the model established in the pilot, developing plot points from other highly publicized reports of extraterrestrial phenomenons such as Roswell, Area 51, the Shag Harbour UFO incident and many others. In a time when nearly half the North American population expressed true belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life, The X-Files— a show which portrayed itself as leaning more towards science than fiction— was bound for popularity.
In the post-Watergate era, American citizens’ trust in government was on the decline as media coverage of government corruption and political scandals surged. Found amongst this news was the latest in alien reporting, the popularity of which had not wavered in the decades following Roswell. Just a few years before The X-Files premiered, one could pick up a copy of the New York Times and find an article on the Iran-Contra hearings next to one entitled: "Group Therapy for the Victims of Space Aliens". Suffice to say, The X-Files’ “Smoking Man” was an encapsulation of the cultural climate of the nineteen-nineties in which bureaucracy and conspiracy seemed intrinsically enmeshed. The Smoking Man was a staple within the show’s overarching narrative, consistently presenting himself as the personification of extraterrestrial government conspiracy. The X-Files went as far as to include a plotline in which Mulder and Scully must intervene in the Smoking Man’s plans to pursue a collaborative relationship with the aliens, and while this notion was certainly far-fetched, the pseudo anti-establishment sentiment behind it resonated with those watching the series as a form of “vicarious resistance”. This aspect of the show revisits the concept of Mulder and Scully as the viewers’ conduits. The characters’ assumption of the underdog role, seeking justice within a system controlled by ‘the man’— The Smoking Man, that is— is a digestible representation of governmental resistance. The popularity of this resistance rests on the fantastical nature of the agents’ strife, as they exist in a world removed from “the reality of oppression”. This, in effect, means Mulder and Scully can reject the government’s mishandling of aliens, but never the AIDS crisis. Thus, it is this palatable illusion of rebellion offered by The X-Files which helped bolster its popularity amongst a predominantly white, middle-class audience who sought out ‘resistance’ within the safe confines of established social norms.
Though some of the more outlandish theories remained on the fringes, conspiracy discourse had certainly crossed into the mainstream by the end of the twentieth century. In The X-Files’ premiering year, 71% of Americans surveyed believed that the government knew more about UFOs than it led on, and it was into this climate that The X-Files’ introduced the Smoking Man— an amalgamation of the century’s most speculated-upon theories in human form. The character is essentially portrayed as the epitome of evil, with a hand in all the schemes that fuel the show’s overarching mythology. Through the seasons, the Smoking Man’s sinister nature grows increasingly exaggerated, becoming satirical even. Perhaps the best example of this occurs in the episode “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” in which it is suggested that the Smoking Man carried out the assassinations of both President John F. Kennedy Jr., and Martin Luther King Jr.; two figures whose murders continue to be the subject of mass conspiracy. As the episode progresses, the Smoking Man’s conspiracy entanglement only grows as he off-handedly mentions his dealings with Saddam Hussein, his meddling in the Anita Hill case and the Rodney King trial, and his fixing of the 1980 Olympics ‘Miracle on Ice’ hockey game. The creators’ choice to acknowledge and play upon the show’s outrageous nature via the Smoking Man set The X-Files apart from other contemporaneous television dramas which lacked comparable self-awareness. By implicating the Smoking Man in known conspiracy theories and inserting him into ongoing cultural events, The X-Files encouraged viewership and fan participation by allowing audiences to feel as if they were in on an inside joke between themselves and the creators behind their favourite program.
On Friday nights during the broadcast season, these self-proclaimed ‘X-Philes’, could be found “behind closed doors in homes across the United States and Canada” indulging in their “ritual viewing” of the show. However, television was not the only medium to which the show’s fans flocked, as the newly popular, rapidly evolving “computer internet” had become a near instant hub for X-Files discourse. Today’s internet contains an unfathomable number of fan communities for every niche interest imaginable, but in the era of dial-up internet, this was not the case. Media scholar and self-identified X-Phile, Bambi Haggins, argues that the early X-Files online fan communities “set the standard” for these “impressive sites of fandom” which now seem ubiquitous on our modern internet. In the premiering year of The X-Files, the introduction of the mailing list and shortly after, the browser and webpage, created an online environment conducive to fan congregation and discussion— akin to the culture of a fan convention but made accessible to a much wider audience by way of technological innovation. These advancements affected fan communities at large, but being an online X-Phile offered a particularly unique appeal, as the internet fan spaces mirrored the goals of and relationship between the protagonists of the show. Mulder and Scully’s fictional persistence in searching for the truth and strengthening their interpersonal bond was not dissimilar to the motivations of the online X-Phile who engaged in “ongoing attempts to decipher meaning and create community”. In such a way, the community aspect of these online spaces allowed X-Philes to find the Mulders to their Scullys, individuals with whom to solve the questions left unanswered by the agents themselves. This phenomenon did not go unnoticed by the show’s creators, with Carter himself acknowledging "the synchronicity between the rise of the internet and the increase in the popularity of the show". The relationship between the show and internet fan culture was a mutually beneficial one; the technological developments enabling the formation of online fan communities aided in establishing The X-Files as a hit series, while the show’s ability to capture the era’s audiences with its mythology furthered the development and evolution of these communities by encouraging mass discourse.
As is the case with any pop culture phenomenon, the argument could be made that The X-Files would not have had the same cultural impact had it aired any earlier or later than it did. The political, spiritual, and technological whirlwind of the nineteen-nineties certainly proved ideal conditions for such a show to hit the airwaves. It is likely not mere coincidence that a show— which centred themes of the paranormal and government conspiracy— became a near instant success in the same year the average young American felt as if they had a better chance of seeing a UFO than a Social Security check in their lifetime. The catchphrases “Trust No One” and “I Want to Believe”, when taken out of context, appear incongruous, X-Philes, however, understood all too well the meaning of each. The series provided a means of exercising cultural concerns, and allowed community to be built amongst the individuals who shared them. Whether a skeptic like Scully, or a believer like Mulder, every viewer longed to learn the answers to the questions that the series raised; those infused with a suspicious, yet undeniably intriguing familiarity. Furthermore, the interconnectivity between The X-Files itself and the participatory fan culture it elicited, is akin to the symbiosis of the Mulder-Scully partnership. That is to say, neither would have been as successful in the absence of the other. Unlike the vast webs of extraterrestrial conspiracy investigated on the series, the popularity of The X-files is not a mystery which requires a pair of federal agents to solve.
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