I am a huge fan of
The X-Files, so you had to know my favorite FBI agent was going to show up sometime. Sooner rather than later. You may recall my reviews for the series were once dubbed love letters to Gillian Anderson. Inspired by Clarice Starling from
The Silence of the Lambs, as fully demonstrated by her heated interactions with serial killer Luther Lee Boggs in
“Beyond the Sea,” quickly grew into her own character. She was a patriot who gave up a career in medicine to work for the FBI. Relegated to serving as a foil for outcast "Spooky” fox Mulder in a basement office, Scully dedicated herself to fining the truth, no matter what she had to sacrifice. She even kept going after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. What I liked most about Scully is the character did not fit expectations. Whatever your expectations were. She was independent, but not an in your face feminist. She was sexy, but did not have to cavort around in her underwear passed the pilot in order to show off her desirability. Sometimes she was the damsel in distress, but she was just as likely to pull Mulder back from the brink. She was feisty, yet caring. There are not many characters around like her these days. In an era in which genre characters like Hermione Granger are forever stuck in the shadows of the main male protagonist, or worse, like Bella Swann constantly searching for a man in order to justify her existence, Scully stands out as maybe the last of her kind in a genre that normally produces great female characters. Scully's importance can well be summed up with this quote from X--Phile Rebecca Traister:
“In an entertainment world where women are disappearing from multiplexes, where men bulk up as superheroes while women don’t eat but sip pink drinks, we need to remember that there was once a very short heroine who hunted monsters and talked about Einstein, who kicked ass and questioned her faith, who went to work with a man she loved but didn’t rip his shirt off over lunch, who didn’t want to believe, but opened herself nonetheless to possibility. We need Scully back, even for a moment.”
Indeed. Come back soon, Scully.
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