SMNTY Classics: Digging into the X-Files

In a very special classic episode, guest host Lauren joins Anney in Vegas to discuss the impact of the X-Files from shipping, fandom, pantsuits and women in STEM on the 30th anniversary of the show.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. No you stuff. I
never told your productive. I heard you, and today we
are bringing back an interesting one. I'll get into why
it was interesting in a minute. We have done several

(00:27):
episodes about The X Files on the show. I have
talked about it, even in episodes we weren't talking about
on The X Files.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
They could talked about it with Bridget.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Even Yes, we've talked about it with Bridget. But there
was a specific reason you were thinking we should bring
this one back, right, Smantha.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's true. So if you're all up in the entertainment
world news like I am, you may have heard the
news that Ryan Coogler of now Centner's award winning like
I think it's going to be historical level of cinematic features,
that he has been given the green light to do

(01:07):
a reboot of The X Files. I'm very excited about
this take, which is really funny because I did not
watch The X Files. I was not a fan. But
according to this news, not only has he started this project,
but Jillian Anderson has also given her stap of approval,
as she actually talked about I believe she's read the

(01:29):
pilot and is very excited about it, and I think
they've already cast a lead for it as well, so
obviously people are excited.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yes, I mean me included. I've talked about it before,
I'll talk about it in this episode. I love The
X Files. I do think it had a resurgence recently
where people discovered it, rediscovered it on streaming services because
it came out in nineteen one around there, and it's

(02:03):
had a couple of movies and stuff as well. But yeah,
as I've said many times, it was my one of
my gay awakenings.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Because I had a.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Lot of people.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Many were like, oh, oh that makes now I know.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Yes, exactly, now I know. I like Mulder and I
like Scully. This was also a big start of internet
fan fiction, so I salute the show for that. But yes,
the reason I said this was interesting this episode is
because Lauren and I Samantha couldn't go on this work

(02:40):
trip to Las Vegas. It was her birthday and she
had plans. I kind of personally think you didn't want
to go.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
But originally I was like, yeah, I'm down, and then
when I heard about after, I was like, I'm good
with it, y'all. I'm glad y'all had fun.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
We did have fun, We did, but it was a
it was a chaotic time and Lauren very graciously stepped
in to be a co host on this episode when
Samantha was not there. But we were recording from a
small glass box outside of a huge stadium wherein bands

(03:19):
like the Foo Fighters were playing and just you could
really hear it. And the point of the Cube was
that we were recording an episode that people could stop
by and put on soundproof headphones and listen to whatever

(03:42):
we were saying as we were recording it. So just
so you know, even if you hear like snippets of
bands in the background, the point wasn't this cube was soundproof.
The point was the headphones were. But Lauren and I
workshopped a lot of before we did this, and she
is a huge X Files fan, and so I'm pretty

(04:05):
sure that's how we landed where we landed, which is perfect. Yes, absolutely,
and it was. It was a wild time, listeners, but
it was a very fun episode, so please enjoy. Hey,
this is Annie and welcome to Stefan. Never told your

(04:26):
production of iHeartRadio, and today we have a very special
recording for you for a couple of reasons. First off,
Samantha is away. I'm going to talk about it more

(04:47):
in a second, but she is on a birthday trip.
She is better from COVID, but she's on a birthday trip.
But that means that my good friend Lauren and coworker Lauren,
who is on the same a podcast with me, is
filling in on what is quite an interesting experience we're
having right now. We'll talk about it in a second,

(05:09):
but welcome Lauren to Sminty.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Oh, thank you, yes, hi, Hello.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
I am so glad to be here in this bizarre
circumstance with you.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
You you stepped up because we got asked to go
on this work trip to Las Vegas where we are
recording live from the iHeart Podcast studio powered by Bows
at the House of Music at the iHeartRadio Music Festival.

(05:42):
And it's like a booth in the middle of a
music festival. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
So yeah, and we have.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Like this cool just just just plexiglass door so it
feels like an action figure box. It does so pass
away can just kind of like stare at us and
take pictures. Yeah, which makes me as a podcaster who
does this in my house with my cat. Yeah, very comfortable.
This is completely natural, right.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Very natural. I mean, yeah, I'm looking out right now
and trying not to think too much about it. But
we are very excited to have you. Thank you so
much for volunteering to talk about this. And we're gonna
have fun. We're gonna have fun.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
Oh, we certainly are. If it had been any other topic,
I might have been like, you.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Know, you do that one fire sol But yeah, So
we're here for the iHeart Music Festival and we've had
a good time. We've had a cat yeah, but it's
been a whirlwind. And yes, Samantha is away. Her birthday
is September twenty sixth, which happens to be the last

(06:54):
of us day. She always makes fun of me when
I point that out. But that got me thinking, like,
what could we talk about that would be in that
kind of horror realm?

Speaker 4 (07:04):
All right?

Speaker 1 (07:05):
You know I don't need an excuse to talk about
stuff like that, zero percent, right, But I was like,
what could it be? And then I was thinking, what
could it be that would fit with you and it
wouldn't be too much research? And then I realized the
thirtieth anniversary of the X Files.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
Oh, which makes me feel very old but in a
really fun way.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, well, I'm glad for that. And so I was
just like, I feel the X Files and we're going
to talk about this has come up in so many
of our episodes when that wasn't the topic, that wasn't
the case that was really looking into, because.

Speaker 4 (07:47):
You've done a couple on purpose, like you did one
about Scully like in general as like a fictional lady human,
and then you did one with Bridget about yeah, the
Skully effects of.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Science expect Yeah, yes, and we will talk about that
a little bit. But it just kept coming up, and
I was so intrigued by that. I was so interested
in why it is that I'm looking into the history
of shipping and I'm learning about X files, or I'm
looking into the history of fan fiction and I'm learning
about x files.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
And as your listeners probably know, you're not talking about
like ground to air shipping, like you're talking about like
fan fiction shipping.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, But hilariously enough, Samantha did think that's what we
were talking about, the shipping. So Samantha, I love you.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
That's amazing, that's so cool.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Oh geez, She was like, what are we talking about ground?
Like no, honey, No, So I thought it would just
be fun when we're here in Las Vegas, we're in
this very interesting setup if we could have a conversation
about both how this show impacted the Internet, because, as

(09:03):
I've said a million times, I'll say it again in
this probably when we're talking about fan fiction, when we're
talking about fans spaces, a lot of that is women,
non binary people, yeah, queer people. So I think it
is if anyone's like, why is this on a feminist show?
I think that that is enough to be worth talking about. Yeah,

(09:26):
but also the impact of Skully specifically. But I just
think it would be fun for you and me who
liked the show but have different perspectives, to discuss this
thirtieth anniversary.

Speaker 4 (09:42):
Yeah, that's fine, I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, excellent, excellent. Also, Samantha made it very clear that
we have a book that we're trying to sell. Oh yeah,
stuff Love Never Told You book, And there is a
bunch of stuff about Scully in there.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
So oh heck, yeah, okay, yeah, yes, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
But all right, let's just I feel like, sometimes do
you ever feel this way, Lauren, where you know something
so well you feel like you don't have to explain
it absolutely, but you're not sure if maybe no one
else knows what you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
I yes, I feel that exact way about the X Files, Okay,
and so I kind of try to. I feel like
I overcompensate by overexplaining it. Actually, yes, yeah, yes, I
am in the same boat. But so that being said,
I am not going to give a big.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Explainer of the X Files. That would take way too long,
and that's not really what this is about. But I
will tell you a brief summary.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Great, short, perfect.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yeah, let's ground ourselves in reality before we go completely bonkers.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
The truth is out there. The X Files is a
sci fi paranormal television show that debuted in nineteen ninety three,
and it follows the believer Fox Molder played by David
Duchovney and the skeptic Danas Scully played by Gillian Anderson,
their FBI agents that are assigned to the X Files,

(11:15):
which is sort of a catch all for weird, paranormal
and strange cases that pretty much know when else what
Molder wants to work on. Would you add anything to
that description.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (11:27):
His nickname around the FBI campus is Spooky fu spooky Molder.
So that pretty much tells you what you need to know.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, and he's like in a basement, like in the dark.

Speaker 4 (11:39):
Oh yeah, yeah, it used to be the copy room.
Yes and yeah, and then Scully gets called Dana. Scully
gets called in to basically like tattle on him.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Right, that's how it starts. She's supposed to be the
one that's.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
Like, yeah, and she is a skeptic.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
She is, she is. And again, if this was a
different episode, we could talk about she has doesn't she have?
She wears she wears a cross? Yeah, and there's a
whole arc examining absolutely her faith. Yeah. Yeah. But when
this came out, I read a lot of articles that
were like, it was not set up to be successful.

(12:22):
It was it was coming out of Friday Nights, I believe,
which is sort of known as the death Sway. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
Yeah. Even the creator Chris Carter definitely didn't think it
was going to get more than one season. He was
epically unprepared for that happening and was kind of like scrambling.
He was like, oh more, really, I wasn't This plot
arc doesn't make any sense really.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Okay, sure Wolf.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
So if you've ever thought that the mythwark. If you
if you're a watcher of The X Files and you've
ever thought that the mythark is very silly, that's that's
maybe the reason why.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, what if fascinating mindset to be
like this is definitely gonna fail. Oh whoa, oh no,
what do I do now? But one of the interesting

(13:18):
things the Xiles came out during third wave feminism, and
it was very there was a lot of stuff happening, yeah,
in this sphere. And one of the interesting things about Scully,
who we're going to talk about a lot in this,
is that she was the skeptic. She was playing against
kind of stereotypical gender type.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
And according to Chris Carter, who was the creator of
the series, he was like immediately he wanted to cast her,
but the network was like, they want they wanted a bombshell,
and apparently they wanted Pamela Anderson.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
I love this.

Speaker 4 (13:54):
I love this alternate universe in which that happened. No,
I mean, okay, first of all, I am personally offended
that anyone would say that Gillian Anderson is not a bombshell, right,
she is a beautiful lady.

Speaker 3 (14:08):
There's that episode.

Speaker 4 (14:09):
There's an image that lives in my mind permanently, and
thank thanks the universe for it for living there is
that the moment in an episode of Hannibal season three
when she is swaning through an Italian palazo and she
is just a divine creature, just absolutely hecking gorgeous, and
I'm just like, so.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
So a.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
But b yeah, what a gift that the network was
that wrong and the Chris Carter fought back.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Also, Carter said he didn't want romance between Molder and Scully.
We are going to be talking about that a lot.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it didn't turn out that way, I guess, but.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Uh no, And so this is one of the interesting
things and we're about to get into this. I have
seen all the X Files, if you've listened to the
other episodes we've done of the X Files, though my
memory is not great. Lauren is here to help me.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
A little bit.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Yeah. Well okay, so so I've I haven't watched past
season six with any regularity. There there are there are
what nine original seasons, and then they came back and
did two shorter ones ten eleven, like twenty years later.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Yeah. Two movies.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Two movies I saw the first movie. I don't think
I ever bothered seeing the second one. So up through
season like six, I have a near like photographic memory
because I watched these episodes over and over and over
and over and over again, hm in a way that
only like an eleven year old with no job can do.

(15:51):
There's nothing but like a VHS and nothing else going on,
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Interesting, did you record them? Oh?

Speaker 3 (15:59):
Yes I did? Okay, yes, I heck and did.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Okay, Well, I'm gonna pick your brain about this in
the second Okay, yes, I would love to talk about that.
But yes, there was this whole idea of Scully being
kind of the more logical skeptical one, which was nearly.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Yeah yeah, and and her being right, like her being
the scientist like Molder is kind of the like impassioned
creative ideas guy, and she's the one going like really Molder,
but yeah, like she's the one constantly having to to
like check him and like be like could we bring
logic to this conversation literally at all, and him usually
going we you know, but but yeah, because like Molder

(16:42):
is an absolute mess, like and this is known from
like the first episodes, like he is just Zany is
putting it kindly and like he definitely I think within
the first season he's like observed to have a little
bit of a like poor an addiction. What yeah, Yeah,

(17:05):
he's like calling sex lines like his yeah, like he
is completely incapable of having a relationship with a real
human woman. He's frequently through these episodes the damsel in
distress that Scully has to come save. Uh, and like
Scully has her heck in life together like like she is.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
I mean until she meets Molder and then she kind
of gets Drek.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Is Molder?

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Is Molder a manic pixie dream boy?

Speaker 1 (17:32):
Oh oh, okay that that warn'ts some thoughts? Uh? Now,
something else you said, because you when I gave you
this assignment, if you kindly stepped up. You have been

(17:53):
rewatching some old episodes I have.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
I've been watching like all of my favorite like he's
in one through season three episodes this week and it's
it's honestly holds up. It's okay, I'm biased, Like I
have no I have no way to be unbiased about
this show because I loved it so hard and so
much when I was a tiny child, like it like
a teenager, which is the same thing. No offense to

(18:18):
any teenagers out there right now. I was certainly a
tiny child during that time. But but yeah, I feel
like it holds up. I feel like it really like
the writing is sharp. David Pevney and gillianators And are
both doing a bang up job. All of the random
side characters are doing interesting things, like they're making interesting
choices and and some of the like, yeah, like I

(18:41):
was picking and choosing episodes very carefully, Okay, my favorite
My favorite are four that were written by this one writer,
Darren Morgan. He's the little brother of Glenn Morgan, who's
one of the director producers of the series. And from
the beginning, he was like, please let me write for
this show. This seems so cool, it's right up my a.
And Glenn was like, nah, but if you want to

(19:04):
get in this rubber Flukeman costumes and sit in a
pool for ten hours to film the Flukeman episode, then.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
You can do that. And he said yes.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
And then and then either later later in the first
season or maybe in the beginning of the second season,
he's got to start writing. And he wrote my four
favorite episodes, which are humbug hosehns from outer Space, Wore
of the Coffer Phages and Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose. Oh

(19:39):
great titles, right, Yeah, and they're like they're like the
funny episodes, like they're they're definitely making fun of the
tropes that X Files has already set up, right and
and like really playing with like how silly and funny
these situations can be.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, And that was another thing you pointed out, was
that this is a if you haven't seen it, and
I'm always interested when people discover things late or they're
younger and they discover it after it's long been off
the air, that it's a genre show where like you
get all kinds of things in it. Oh yeah, it's

(20:16):
like one is very scary, one is funny, one is
a cops like sad time.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
Yeah, and it's not I mean like right, like like
there's usually some kind of supernatural paranormal kind of kind
of element to it, but other than that, they're really
allowed to be either dramatic or funny or right or
horrifying or horrifying in different ways. Like you might go
body horror one episode and then have a totally different
like jump scare kind of horror in another one, and

(20:44):
it's just like what they're up to. And I love
the idea of that writer's room being so open and
so free to be able to do that, and I
think that's part of why it was such a good show.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
It was and it resonated with a lot of people,
and we're going to talk about that, and it resonated
with meeting Lauren. So I thought we would go into
sort of our personal experiences here.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
Okay, y yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
So yes. As I've discussed before several times, I have
a very bad track record of not listening to my
parents when they would tell me not to watch something,
and then it turns out they were right. I probably
shouldn't have watched something.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Uh huh, they knew you.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, they were like, yeah, you just shouldn't do that.
So I had been told I shouldn't watch it, I
really wanted to watch it, and I snuck in and
watched it, and I would like watch it. I would
time it because it would come on there would be
reruns on Sundays at like three am, and I would
like play it really low when I get close to

(21:46):
the TV. And yeah, they found out because I started
having nightmares and they're like, what where is this coming from?
And I was like like, oh, how did you hear
of Killer B? I was like the news terrible liar
of a terrible liar. Wow, there is a killer Yeah.

(22:09):
So I was banned for a while, but eventually the
band was lifted and I was allowed to watch again.
And I would watch it with my friend over the phone.

Speaker 4 (22:18):
Oh yeah, yeah, totally, totally in the day of like
corded phone.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, like yeah, yep, and.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
We would cheat. Her satellite connection was a little bit
better than mine, and she I would hear her gasp
and I'd be like what And then a second I'd
be like, oh, well, it was so fun. Yeah. And
this is also I've told the story a million times.
I didn't have the language for it at the time,
but this is when I realized probably gay, oh.

Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, that
wasn't I didn't realize certainly at the time, right right,
Like I was eleven, it was nineteen ninety three. I
didn't have the linguistics for this yet. But in college
when I realized I'm by, I was like, oh, Molder

(23:07):
and Scully, of course, why didn't I see this before.
It's like in retrospect, I'm like, duh, like what like
But but that was like the one example that I
would like people would be like what really, like like
what I had kind of like my coming out to
my friends. I think this is actually the first time
I've ever come out on a podcast. So welcome, welcome

(23:29):
to welcome.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah yeah, but right, like like I like, people would
be like, what are you talking about? And I would
be like Molder and Scully, right, yeah, yeah, and it
would be like really, I'm like, yeah, I don't know, man,
how I feel.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, it was I just remember because I think I
was in seventh grade when I realized and I was
just watching it, and again I didn't have the language.
I was just like, I have an interest here something.
I feel the same way about these two characters.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
And we're not alone.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Because that there is essay. There are essays you can
find about how quote Jillian Anderson Danis Scully made me
gay From the nineties, She's jaking jokingly referred to as
the Gateway lesbian of choice.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
She's a good one.

Speaker 4 (24:30):
Come on, yeah, in those pantsuits, let's go.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
I know she made them look very sharp.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Oh she did. I have a whole theory about this,
and we can't get into it, but I feel like
it's sort of the when people are not conforming to
their stereotypical genders, where people are like like, wait a minute, interesting, Yeah, yeah, yes,
but that was my experience, what about you, Laura?

Speaker 4 (24:56):
So right, So so this show started coming out when
I was eleven, and I was immediately hooked. My dad
didn't want my dad didn't like spooky things, so he
never wanted to be watching it, Like I couldn't watch
it with him in the room. But which is part
of why I started videotaping it. But but yeah, but
I was.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
It was.

Speaker 4 (25:14):
He was totally like, yeah, do whatever you want, kid,
But no, I was. I was obsessed. I was very obsessed.
I was like it it was sort of my whole
personality for a while, like that level, and it.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
Was very intense.

Speaker 4 (25:31):
It was an intense love but like like to like
to the point that I definitely I was. I was
on the yearbook staff, if that wasn't already clear to anybody, uh.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
And.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
Because I was on the yearbook staff, we could have
basically whatever we wanted printed on the front of the
book instead of our name. And I defin my my height.
My senior year yearbook definitely, says Lauren to Coveney.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
On the cover.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Wow, I'm so happy to have learned this.

Speaker 4 (26:04):
I am very embarrassed. But it's okay. It's just okay,
it's okay. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
You know about my first email Nils Angel come on?
So I love Neo from the Matrix. It's all right.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Also Neo and Trinity come on.

Speaker 1 (26:21):
It's right there. Oh gosh, you're so right.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Anyway, yeah, yeah, so so right.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
So I kind of fell off watching around season six
to seven. I think partially because like I went to
school and I didn't have a TV access really anymore,
but partially because like the show was going through these changes,
like the first movie had come out between seasons five
and six, and David Coveney had the show moved to
la they had been previously filming in Vancouver, and just

(26:51):
the whole palette of the show change, and like a
lot of the crew was different, like I don't know,
the feel was different, and then yeah, the Coveny took
time off and they had different characters in there, and
I was like, I don't care about this, which is
sad or I mean it certainly was at the time,
like it kind of broke my heart.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, when you love something so much and then it's
just it either because you don't like the how it's
going anymore, it's just move on. It's sad, I hear you.
I watched all of it. I was definitely sad when
David Ducopany left.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
Yeah, I mean I love Robert Patrick, who played agent Doggett,
who stepped in as a skeptic to Scully's believer.

Speaker 5 (27:35):
Yeah, interestingly, Yes, Oh my gosh, I did want to.

Speaker 1 (27:52):
Tick your brain about some plot point stuff because oh gosh, Okay,
just a couple of specific things, because, like I said,
you have been watching stuff, and I my memory, even
though I've watched it all, I have very specific, clear
memories of certain things and nothing else. Sure. Yeah, but
one of the big things I do remember is the

(28:13):
pregnancy arc with Scully, and you know, there was like
kind of a real life thing going on as well.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yeah, okay, So what happened with this was in season five,
it's revealed that Scully had had a baby while she
was alien abducted. Back in season two during the episodes
Dwayne Berry and Ascension, which are two of the episodes
that I just watched. Oh gosh, research this is like

(28:43):
extra nerdy for me.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
I love it. You're in a good place.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
But but right, the whole abduction thing was written in
because Jillian Anderson was pregnant in real life and she
had to go have a baby. In the episode leading
up to this, like her coats keep getting bigger, and
like her costumes keep getting Billowyer.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
And like yeah, and then and then she had she
she goes, she has the baby.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
She's off the show for like maybe like one episode,
and then she comes back and you know, the plot
of this is that she's coming back from being from
having disappeared for a period of time, and she's like
lying in a hospital and I swear to heck, they
must have like built up her boobs to like hide
the pregnancy stomach, like and because because she's a slight

(29:32):
little lady, yeah, and those booms are huge. I mean
it could be it could be her milk could come in.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
I wasn't there, but it definitely looked hilarious. Okay, anyway,
uh yeah, so so so right, so they bring in
this this this plot arc in season five. It turns
out that the baby had been adopted out, and then
I think the child died.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Shortly after that.

Speaker 4 (29:57):
Scully is at the time pronounced infertile, but then definitely
has a baby in season eight, some kind of like
miracle baby that I guess has psychic powers.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
I didn't watch that part. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
I guess it's I guess it's Moulder's child. I thought
it was, but then I thought it was an alien chap.
Maybe it's all.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
Maybe it's both.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, she has that smallpox
be alien thing going on, so she could have weird
DNA in there.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
I don't know her life.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
That's true. I actually am fascinated, and I want to
come back to at some point the depiction of pregnancy
and horror.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
Yes, yes, yes, I love this. I love this. I
will come back and talk about this literally anytime. I
love so much that like the one admittance that we
get from dudes in Hollywood that being female might suck,
is all of these horror pregnancy troops.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
Yes, yes, anyway, in every horror you're like, oh pregnant,
oh no, oh no.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Or when like a dude is pregnant in whatever way,
like an alien or something like that.

Speaker 3 (31:08):
How completely horrifying.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
It's it's horrifying, yes, exactly, exactly, well another day. Yeah,
but something else you mentioned that I didn't pick up
on when I was watching this is how Scully is
kind of depicted as a foil. There's other women that yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:30):
Yeah, so okay, so so like the principal cast of
the show is really like Scully and a bunch of dudes.
It's basically all dudes and Scully. But like, like there's
there's lady characters in like episode to episode, and and
I remember them all being you know, if anyone has
watched more of it more more recently than me, like
check me if I'm wrong, but I remember them always

(31:51):
being written as like people like imagine that like whoa,
I know, right, you know, like occasionally episodes would be
center around yeah, like like using speculative fiction to create
metaphors around lady issues of one kind or another, which
we're probably a little bit too on the nose, but yeah,
but that's okay.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (32:11):
Certainly one one standout side random lady character for me
is doctor Bambi Barrenbaum, the name alone, who is an entomologist. Okay,
I'm saying the right one. It's bugs, not words. Yeah, entomologist, yes, great,
and yeah she her parents were both naturalists. That's why

(32:31):
she has the name Bamby. Oh okay, okay, but she
is this lovely, kind of bucksome woman who Molder meets
in one of my favorite episodes, Where Are the Copper
Pages in season three, and he has he's he has
a total crush on her.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
He's like goofy, hard eyes.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
Yeah, oh yeah, the whole thing, the whole thing, And
she's talking about cockroaches and he hates bugs and like,
so it's very funny but like but like also like
Scully is like trying to get a whole with him
while he's trying to get his game on. And at
one point he just answers the phone and goes like
not now and hangs it right back.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
So when Scully finally meets her, like Scully is very snippy,
which I which I didn't, which I get, was like funny,
but I don't appreciate the writing if I hate the
trope of like ladies hate other ladies, especially when there's
a love interest possibly involved, right, especially because they were

(33:31):
not even in a relationship at that point. Except in
my mind, right, oh my gosh, we're going to talk
about this in the shipping part.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
But I feel like that's yeah, that's what are you
doing at that point?

Speaker 4 (33:42):
Right, yeah, come on, But that was that was the thing,
like like that I was certainly noticing going back through,
Like they start acting like an old married couple pretty
much immediately, and certainly when she gets abducted in season two,
like it is clear that Mulder would kill or die
for this lady, Like he is just completely it's sort

(34:06):
of like a Zara fl In Crowley and yeah.

Speaker 5 (34:10):
Yeah, yeah, that's so.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Again, Lauren, you have you. I'm so glad you're here
because you're bringing such knowledge to it because I, like
I said, I don't want listends will be hearing me
and be like, what, she doesn't know anything about this.
I didn't watch it all, but I think I was
just too young, oh sure to pick up on a
lot of it. But uh, that is definitely interesting that
they were already especially since Chris Carter, as we already said,

(34:42):
was saying I didn't want a romantic relationship, and then
it seems like.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Yeah, it's also like it's so difficult to you know,
you have two attractive people together, and I think the
reaction is like, oh, they're in a relationship. Yeah, especially
if it's if it's two people who are supposed who
are like attracted to that sex a person right for
that desert yeah, right, and so like so like, part

(35:09):
of it is just that we have so few examples
in media of people who aren't in relationships, So people
who are just friends and who that is a sustained
long term friendship. Yes, which is borked. That is completely silly.
That happens in real life so many times.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yes, Yes, And I've been talking about this too, because
since I'm not into romance, I identify as grace sexually
as sexual. Uh, I don't know why I'm always looking
for romance and stuff like why is this happening? I
don't even like it. Yeah, but but it feels like

(35:50):
we've made it into a more important relationship absolutely than
a friendship. And that should be it shouldn't know, but
oh my goodness that we're we're almost getting to the
shipping part of this.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
We are, we are, we are. One other lady that
I wanted to point out from the show is starting
in season four, there was a lady informant. We had
previously had uh a deep roat and mister X and
now this lady informant came in.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
By the name of Marita.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
Core core cor corvit nikes, Yes that's her name.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
It's Russian.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
But she was just like very ice cream stereotype and
so and so. She was also in contrast with Scully
being so much goofier and warmer, and like, yeah, fans
hated her, hated or yeah, well this is.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
I mean, going back to your point, is she's the
only woman in the show. I feel like every other
woman that comes on is going to be pitted against
her totally, which is we've talked about that before. Shouldn't
be the case that like there's one spot and then
everyone everyone has an enemy.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
Of Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, Like if your entire principal cast
is white and then you necessarily only have room for
black people to be a villains, and it's just like
that is so wrong. Why is this a thing? Yes, oh,
Supernatural and Buffy, what the heck were you doing?

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Anyway? Yes, anyway. One of the reasons I really wanted
to talk about this is because since it's the thirtieth anniversary,
there have been a lot of headlines about how the
X Files shaped the Internet.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
Right, Yeah, and this is actually not a thing that
I realized until you, until you brought it to my attention.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yes, and it's wild how much of an impact it had.
And again, as I said, with fan fiction, this is
a this is a space that has a lot of women,
a lot of queer people, a lot of them marginalized
people in it because perhaps they're not represented and the
thing they're watching or the thing they're enjoying. So I

(38:08):
wanted to go into a couple of those things and
talk about our maybe experiences with that. But one of
the big things is communities like fan communities online. And
when the show came out in nineteen ninety three, that
was when a lot of us in the United States
were getting access to the Internet regularly for the first time.

(38:31):
It might not have been good.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Oh no, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
That that was definitely during dialogs. Oh yeah, that that
modem sound lives in my brain forever.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yeah, Oh my.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Gosh, it's the sound of nightmares younger listeners. You don't know,
you don't even know. But the interesting thing too, I
was thinking about this is that kind of dovetails with
how I feel like the Internet allowed a lot of
these like here's this picture of Bickfoot, here's this like,

(39:03):
oh sure, it kind of proliferated a lot of things
that the X Files was talking about.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
Oh absolutely, And I mean and right right, it really
made possible because previous to that, like anyone who is
who was talking about those kind of mysteries and real
world lore and fringe theories like had to do it
by zine and and like mail and you know, and
so you might you might write letters back and forth.

(39:27):
But the Internet let people connect like that. It did,
I mean not instantly, like you had to go make
a cup of coffee while page loaded.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
But I would take a shower later it might beloaded,
who knows, but yeah, it really did. And that is
part of what shaped our Internet as it is. So
people who loved the X Files called themselves x files

(39:55):
p h I l e Yep, yep.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
That is a moniker that I fied by.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Oh my gosh, yeah to hear about jeez. So here's
the quote from CNN about this. Oh my gosh, yes,
Dann wrote about it. The show's peak popularity in the
mid to late nineties coincided with the proliferating use of
the Internet, where fans self proclaimed X Files gathered to

(40:23):
debate theories and behind the scenes gossip while posting fan fiction,
fan art and more.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
Oh wow, this is from a twenty twenty three article. Yes,
this is from like recently.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Yes, wow, I'm telling you, Lauren, there's a reason we're
talking about this.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
That's great.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
Yeah, and yeah, like like in addition to I really
do think it dovetailed with the internet because the show
lent itself to fandom so much, because it raised so
many questions and did involve all of these mysteries and
little pieces of lore and bits of canspiracy, and you know,

(41:02):
like it was a little less niche and and sexier
than other NERD dramas of the era, like like Star Trek.
The next generation like people who would not be caught
dead watching Star Trek, right, thought X Files was cool.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Right, And I think part of that was maybe they'll
get together. I mean, I mean, which Liza's defand fiction.
As you know, I love to talk about listeners. I
am shocked. I never read X Files fan fiction.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
Really.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Oh wow, you know what I started on?

Speaker 4 (41:42):
What? Oh god, wow, Wow, you are younger than me.
That's great, that's bonkers.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
I was probably like Sailor Moon and the X Files
were two of my earliest Like.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Was there some good X Files fans? No? But it
filled me?

Speaker 3 (42:05):
It did?

Speaker 1 (42:05):
It?

Speaker 4 (42:05):
Did?

Speaker 3 (42:08):
I definitely.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
I don't think I ever wrote any particularly like I
did write a class assignment like that featured Molder because
you had to like describe someone in detail. So I
was like, I can do that and it's not a
real person. So I'm not going to insult anybody.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
That's great.

Speaker 4 (42:23):
Yeah, but yeah, yeah, I wasn't into the writing part
at that point.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
Okay, I should check it out because it's I'm sure
still there. I'm positive it is and the community is
still there. I wrote a lorther Rings fan fiction and
I had a friend read it and she was like,
they kissed for four minutes. I was like, is that
not normal? She was like no, and then I didn't

(42:49):
post it all. No, it was good.

Speaker 4 (42:55):
Well I'm sorry that you were discouraged, but I'm glad
that it was for good reasons.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yeah. Yeah, I just love that she was like no.

Speaker 4 (43:03):
Yeah, I mean, but but like definitely, I yes, Like
I it was clear to me and all of my
friends that Moulder and Scully wanted.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
We're yeah, we're gonna get together.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
We're gonna get together.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
I was rooting for it for a very long time
until it happened, and.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Then I was mad, Oh, I can't wait to talk
about it. Yes. So my friend who discouraged me from
posting this fan fiction, she also was a huge She
was the same one I listened to the phone with.
She was like, they're gonna get together. She was giving
me all these clues and like see this look and
all of these things. I was like, oh, I don't know.

(43:49):
As I've said many times, the X Files was one
of the first large fan fiction communities online, and uh
it was so big that uh the Scotland Yard investigated
because they thought that it was a cult and perhaps
they should feed.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
Wow, yeah, I mean sort of a cult. They did
not need to intervene.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
No one knows like they looked intensely at each other,
Which brings us to shipping at last. Yes, you can
see our episode for shipping we did recently for more
about this. But shipping or relationshipping is what it sounds like.

(44:35):
It can look a million different ways anyway you can imagine,
but it's essentially putting people or peoples into a relationship.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Or not canonically.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Yes, yeah, and even in real life people. Oh yes,
that creeps me out, but yes, that does happen. And
it involves often like fan works, uh, fan fiction, music
and art videos. Sure, like a community around like again,

(45:08):
did you see this look? Or did you see this?

Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah? And and very right and especially with the internet,
very immediate and very intense.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yes. Yes, And they are also anti shippers, I would
I was going to say, or no romos, but I
actually think they're different. Okay, So anti shippers, I would say,
are somebody who are like I don't want this ship
to happen and I hate this ship. I would say, no,

(45:38):
romos are more like I just don't want romance. Okay,
all right, that's my experience again. You can listen to
our shipping episode where we talked about how that went
really wrong on Tumblr. But uh oh yeah, but the
in either case, they can be just as passionate as
shippers and like, I really don't want this to happen.
And some of the earliest on my no romos felt

(46:02):
like they lost when Moulder and Scully their relationship became canon.
They were like, oh, this war. Yeah, we have a little.

Speaker 4 (46:12):
Yes, I have been defeated by their smooches.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Yeah, As it turns out, like I guess, I just
wanted the unresolved sexual tension.

Speaker 1 (46:24):
Yes, that's what I does.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
That's what I enjoyed. I didn't actually want it to
happen on the show I liked.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
I liked the tension, right, So I talked about this
in our shipping episode. Sometimes I think you can ship something,
but by shipping it, you don't actually want it to
ever happen, right, You kind of just like the idea
of what it might be.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Absolutely, mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
And also there are plenty of examples of yes, when
the ship becomes canon, it did not go how you too?

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Oh oh that too?

Speaker 1 (46:55):
That too?

Speaker 4 (46:56):
Absolutely like, which is one of the purposes of fan
fiction is to you know, like eat something that that
that the way that you would do it.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
And once once you've done that, then you can be setting.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Yourself up for failure in terms of like what actually
comes next and what the creators choose to do.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Right exactly. And I would also say there are and
I would put myself in this category there multi shippers
like I could just ship like oh yeah, sure them. Yeah, great,
sounds nice.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah right, that's fun. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
I don't have a particular attachment a lot of the time, right,
in particular, especially in like a like a team up
kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
Like like an Avengers universe kind of thing like that,
I'm like.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yeah, sure, whatever, let's see like in a relationship. Yeah cool.
But I don't ever want it to happen. Usually, I'm
just kind of like I'm interested.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
Yeah right, right, you could read it that way, you
can read it this other way.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Interesting. It's like a fun little science experiment, right, It's just.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Like that's going to go. Yeah, But it is interesting
with the show like Exiles, where you do have like
in a very heteronormative sense, like this attractive woman attractive man,
And it was like, but are they are they? Are they?

Speaker 4 (48:07):
When?

Speaker 1 (48:08):
When it happened?

Speaker 3 (48:10):
Yeah, and so right.

Speaker 4 (48:11):
I had literally no idea that the word shipping was
invented with the X files fandom.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Yes it was. I didn't know that either, Like we
have been doing it since we've been creating entertainment. But
the term shipping relationshipping was first us in nineteen ninety
three in X Files fandom and the fun part of
this is. It's all online. You can see all these
old posts. They've been archived.

Speaker 4 (48:40):
Oh dear, that makes me suspect that probably some of
my very embarrassing like thirteen year old like like like
fan theories about stuff are out there somewhere.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
The truth posts are out there.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Yes, oh they're great. It is. I recommend looking it up.
But yeah, interestingly to me, because shipping has gone mainstream
now people use it all the time, But at this
point it was viewed as something strange. People did like

(49:17):
what are you doing? You don't you don't think this
show was perfect. You're trying to do your own thing.
Oh you're not a real fan, And there would be
email attacks, they would get harassed, like it was very
so some of the posts you'll see were like, hey,
I'm doing my shipping thing, but I'm not bothering.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
You, like yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like like like you
can feel however you want to about it. This is
just how I feel exactly, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
And even some of them said like I don't I
don't even want it to become a romance show. That's
like like the last thing I want. Yeah, I just
am kind of exploring this sure aspect of it.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
Yeah, I'm just saying that they want to bump.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Because I just want to smush their faces.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
Yeah, they're both attractive faces that it would look nice. Yeah,
kind of.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Exactly. I did read. I don't know if this is true.
I haven't really looked into it, but I did read
that ust unresolved sexual tension, as you said, was also
from X files. I also, yeah, heard MSR Molder Scully
romance was the whole term.

Speaker 3 (50:30):
Okay, I don't remember that one.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
But sure. And then I want to read this quote
again from CNN. But there's no denying how much the
online discourse revolved around the Molder and Scully pairing, whether
it involved shippers and no Romo's good naturally good naturely
or in all seriousness flaming each other in online forums,

(50:52):
or Molder slash Scully fan fiction. Our fan videos set
to schmaltzy love song.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
Oh yeah, yes, oh yeah, oh dear fan videos man
fan video.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Oh I would watch them when I was younger. The
proof I needed. But I also forgot about flaming. Yeah yep,
oh yes, all right, well, let well we're going to
get into the impact. But again, just so you know,
if you're hearing anything around us. You are listening to

(51:27):
stuff I've never told you. With Lauren Vogelbaum guest host,
Thank you so Much, live at the iHeart Podcast Studio
powered by Bows at the House of Music at iHeartRadio
Music Festival. It's fun to be talking about the X
Files with all of this going on outside. I wish

(51:47):
we could showcase what's happening.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
There's just people walking by and kind of kind of
kind of waving or just sort of staring, being a
little bit confused that. Yeah, I'm just talking about my
unfic feels about modern Scully.

Speaker 3 (52:02):
It feels right, yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Why yeah we are. We are the in the nineties,
the weirdos that are quarantined from people going to do
other things. Heck, we did. We did want to talk
about the impact that this show had and Scully had.

Speaker 3 (52:23):
Oh sure, right, because like all right, like like when.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
X Files really uh in general, just paved the way
for other genre fiction in television like it like it did.
It did dovetail with the launch of the Sci Fi
Channel in nineteen ninety two, but like without X Files,
I don't think we would have had Lost or Buffy
or certainly fringe or supernatural or like Rick and Morty

(52:49):
or you know, on and on. It kind of created
its own genre of what we were talking about earlier,
like long running TV series that have main recurring cares
and like an overall plot arc ish, but are also
allowed to play from episode to episode within the broader
realm of what genre fiction is or what it can be.

(53:12):
And yeah, like like even in the same episode, sometimes
bouncing from horror to mystery to drama to comedy.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah, and if you haven't watched this, listeners like some
of the episode, they'll stay with you.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, some of them are very hecking upsetting.
I did not watch Home ever again.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Yes, that one's well, yeah, we talked about that one.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Did the Bridget episode, right, I think I might have
watched it, like one other time. I was like maybe maybe, Nope,
still very upsetting. Nope, still don't like that.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Okay cool?

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Yeah. Yeah, and that was one of those episodes that
was like, eh, there's no supernatural part to this one, really.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Just people, just people.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (53:53):
Yeah, that episode got banned from ever being aired again.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Yep, sure did. Sure, But yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
Like some of the some of the images and some
of the I still think of that.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
There was one episode where Scully got a tattoo and
started tripping out and like there was all of this
bad stuff happening, and I.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
Still think about that one.

Speaker 6 (54:15):
I'm like little, yeah, yeah, and it has had I
was reading a list of like all of the instances
The X Files has appeared in, like songs or other media,
and it's just.

Speaker 1 (54:30):
It's a huge list. They had this really big impact,
and Scully did too. She people loved her, like, she
was really critically acclaimed, and she's stuck around. She has
a Barbie, which I love. She's always on these list

(54:52):
of iconic heroines that have often inspired other iconic heroines
in media, and she the legacy of her a lot
of people, right is she encouraged a whole generation of
young women, of young girls to think about a career

(55:14):
in stem, whether they pursued it or not, like yeah,
just to think like, oh oh yea, I want to
do that.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
Yeah I can do that.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
She's doing that so well, she's so professional and good
at this job and maybe yeah maybe I could yeah
why not?

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Yes? Yes, And let us talk about that a minute.
So we did do the episode with Bridget where she
really broke this down really well. So check that out.
But just just in case, since we're doing kind of
a like round up of all X files news. Yeah,

(55:51):
so the skull effect is essentially something that has been
studied by the GENA. Davis Institute, which I love.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Yes, absolutely, Yes.

Speaker 1 (56:03):
Two thousand women they surveyed, they found, quote, among the
women who are familiar with the character, fifty percent say
Scully increased their interest in STEM, and forty three percent
say that they considered working in STEM because of her. Wow.
Ninety one percent that knew of her said she was
a good role model and it was great reading the

(56:24):
stories people wrote, and they were they would talk about
like just sitting around and watching the show with friends
and being like inspired, Like okay, Lop, maybe I want
to go do that isnt but so cool.

Speaker 3 (56:38):
It kind of had the opposite effect for me.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
I was like, I definitely couldn't do an autopsy. I
could never do an autopsy in my life. I'm not
going to go into that one.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
But but but appreciate still appreciate the role model of course.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Well, I mean that's also fair. Sometimes you gotta recognize
that I could do it, but it's not for me. Yeah, yes,
and I do love When Jilly and Anderson was asked
about this, she said, we got a lot of letters
all the time, and I was told quite frequently by
girls who were going into the medical world or the
science world, or the FBI world or other worlds that

(57:12):
I ranged that they were pursuing those pursuits because of
the character of Scully. And I said, yay, Oh that's
so sweet, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
That's really cool.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
I love it so much. Oh oh, and that's that's
the importance of representation. Representation isn't everything, but it is important.
Like if you're watching something as a kid at three am,
your huddle, your friends of the TV, you're like, oh,
I want to be like her. Oh I could do it, Yeah,

(57:44):
she can do it. Like that's important.

Speaker 4 (57:47):
It is important, absolutely, absently. More of that, more of
that place.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yes, yes, But this brings us to our final note.
And I wanted to put this in here because I
love it, but also because Samantha did threaten me if
I don't talk about the book. We do mention Scully's
pantsuits in Okay, okay, yes, so one thing people love

(58:14):
about this character are her pantsuits. Oh yeah, there are
tumblrs justus.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
That's amazing.

Speaker 4 (58:24):
I'm so proud of the Internet for that.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
That's beautiful.

Speaker 4 (58:29):
Yeah yeah, so okay, So so if you're if you're
unfamiliar with the show, she she was always wearing or
most of the time, like her professional business attire was
these big suits, like these big puffy suit jackets and
long trench coats and tapered pants and uh. And that

(58:55):
evolved over time, is style evolved, But yeah, certainly in
the beginning in nineteen ninety three, it was that very
boxy concept of the early nineties. And then as third
wave feminism really hit pop culture and we started getting
you know, the Buffy Summers and the share Horowitz's and

(59:20):
the Spice girls of the world, then you know, like
like outfits started changing, and business attire for women started
becoming hyper feminine in some ways, and like certainly more
sleek but less based on men's wear and less.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Giant shoulder pads.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
Right yeah, right, And you can see her the profile
we did on Danas Scully for more about that, because
I do love talking about her pants suits, but they
are very popularly a lot of people call it competence
core yea and you can trace kind of what you
were talking about how her costuming changed and and there

(01:00:00):
is an interesting narrative of like fitting into a male
space by wearing more male clothes and then more traditionally
male clothes and then moving away from that and what
does that mean? But it is fascinating. I'm a big
let's talk about cosmetic person.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:20):
And as a character too, you know, like like she's
going through all of these changes and she's getting a
lot more.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
She kind of rediscovers.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Herself throughout the course of the show.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
And what she wants that to be and what that
can be.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
Right. I have the most epic shoulder pad. It's a
dress suit. It's not a pants suit.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
I think it's my mom's, but it might be one
of her sisters. Okay, but it's it's magenta goodness and
it has roses like embroidered and it is the most
like feminine business power dress suit. Wow, you can imagine.
That's amazing and I still have it because you do it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
You should never let that go. That's that sounds beautiful
and very intense at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:01:17):
I word it adds like showlder.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Yeah, okay for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
So I graduated high school in the year two thousand
and while this show is still very much a thing
and for sure, the like interview suit that I went
out and bought was a double breasted pinstripe suit.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Yes, with it's a Scully suit. That's what it is.
That's just what I yeah, oh absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
Yeah. And I've I've never I've never actually done a
Scully like a full Scully cosplay, but the.

Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
Suit's right there.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
I mean, I know, and we talked about, well, I
said I might cosplay as scullyon and I just.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Did it, right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
It was so sad when I heard that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
I was like, I'm going to show up to this
and then I was like, but my backpack is minutes
from breaking, which it really is.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
But yeah, maybe maybe someday.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Yeah, and we can always just casual cosplay some Scully
like true, we could just show up to the next
like work meeting or whatever it is, like it both
in our.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
See if anyone realizes what it is, I love that game.

Speaker 3 (01:02:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're good at that game.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
I am good at that game. It's a strange sense
of accomplishment when no one realizes it. Sure, then it's
also like appreciation when someone does it's a strange, totally
am well, any closing thoughts on the Miles.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
Lord, you know, uh, it gave us the gift of
Jillian Anderson. She did write and direct an episode in
one of the later season and I want to say
season eight ish maybe, And you know, like, I'm so
glad that she's been able to have a lovely career
and because I enjoy watching her. It's so fun whenever

(01:03:14):
she's in anything. Yeah, and her British accent is so
on point. I think you guys talked about that too,
and yeah, yeah, I like, what a what a weird
thirty years ago. That's fine, that's great, that's great, that's fine. Yeah,
a lot of things Jurassic Park as well. Oh wow, heck,

(01:03:37):
which I also.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
Got troubled for watching this n It was a risky
year for me. Yeah, a lot of groundings happened, I heard. Yeah.
I mean, I think it's it's fascinating to look back
at the impact it's had, especially now, And we didn't

(01:03:59):
know what the Internet was going to be. We share,
you know, it's going to become this thing, and the
creators didn't know, We didn't know the X Files was
going to be such a big part of that and
how much it did impact fan communities who are largely women,

(01:04:19):
and then like the Scully the Scully effects, Scully effect.
That's amazing, that's so cool.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
That is the coolest thing about this weird genre television
show from the nineteen nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
I would love to hear from listeners if you haven't
watched it, Oh my gosh, go and watch it and
let us know what you think.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
Yes, yes, yeah, let us let us know maybe maybe
maybe do it in two parts, like let us know
what you think it's going to be based on this episode.
If you've got all the way through this episode having
no I have never watched it, yes, and then the after.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
The after yes, oh my gosh. If anyone wants to
just constantly updated is like what yeah, sorry, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:05:02):
Just giving you homework. But yeah, yeah, that would be fabulous.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
It's great homework, though. It is good. Well, thank you,
thank you, thank you so much, Lauren for guesting on this.
This was so fun.

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Oh, of course, in this wild environment, we're gonna try
to get some pictures.

Speaker 4 (01:05:24):
Yeah, it's pretty weird, yeah, but lovely. Thanks so much
to to iHeart and DeVos for having us here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
Yes, absolutely absolutely If you want to let us know
about your X files watching, yes you can. You can
email us at Stephanie You mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram and TikTok and stuff Wh've Never Told You.
We have a tea public store, and we do have

(01:05:51):
a book oh where we talk about Dana Scully. You
can get it at stuff you Should read books dot com.
Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our executive
duser Maya, and our contributor Joey. And special thanks to
Paul who is here helping us out friend of the
show at this event, and thanks to you for listening.

(01:06:16):
Steffone Never Told You's production by Heart Radio. For more
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