XF:TNG, or How a Strong Female Character Gets Trashed in a Manly World: The "Patience" Rant

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Title:	XF:TNG, or How a Strong Female Character Gets Trashed in a Manly World: The "Patience" Rant
Creator:	Fialka
Date(s):	November 2000
Medium:	online
Fandom:	The X-Files
Topic:
External Links:	XF: TNG - Fialka, Archived version
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XF:TNG, or How a Strong Female Character Gets Trashed in a Manly World: The "Patience" Rant is by Fialka.

It was part of a series. The author comments that: "Many of these essays first appeared as discussions on OBSSE, Scullyfic and/or ATXA."

The essay was first posted to The Annotated X-Files Study Guide and is at Fialka's Candybox.

Later, it was reposted:

Sadly, when the old NBCI server went the way of so many really cool, free things on the net, I never could find another free site with enough space to house the whole Study Guide, and it didn't get enough traffic to warrant paying for 250mb on a server somewhere. Not to mention, I no longer have as much time on my hands as I did back then, so like the UFOs...well, it is another UFO. Some of it still appears to be here, if you can wade your way through all the advertising on FortuneCity. I sure won't be insulted if you don't. These essays are from the original site, and appear here unchanged. Unlinked titles got abducted by aliens somewhere along the way. If you find them wandering dazed by the side of the road, could you be so kind as to send them home?

Excerpts

Now before I rip, let me also say something that surprised me: I miss Mulder. I mean, I REALLY miss Mulder. Considering I'm quite far from Mulderist and I can't stand Duchovny, I'm surprised by how much I really miss that crazy guy. If they are going to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars to have DD for an ep, could they please do something besides torture him for three minutes? Yes, Mr Carter, we know that you have Duchovny Issues, but please stop taking them out on the character. There was so much else that could have happened, whether or not these were meant to be Scully's dreams. How about Mulder finally getting to see it all firsthand, the open-mouthed boy wandering around on the spaceship? Then it can all get ugly and painful and torturous and wow, wouldn't that have really been a nightmare? But, onward...

Before I continue, I just want to reiterate that I WANT to go on liking the show. Yes, TXF is over for me, but I'm quite willing to watch The NeXt Files. Or at least I was, when I thought it would be The Scully Show. After last night's ep, I'm a lot less hopeful on that score. Overall, the boys at 1013 weren't kidding about the Manly stuff. The show has always been a boy's club, sure, but it never felt so overwhelmingly male before. It isn't simply because Scully is the only woman surrounded by all those big, tall, manly men. She's always been the only woman and despite heels and boxes she's always looked small. It's something more integral, more subtle than the overdose of testosterone in Doggett/Kersh's Most Manly Man contest or the gang of good ol'cops dissing the lady Fed, or even the Manly Man Doggett himself -- Robert Patrick is no more masculine a presence in and of himself than Mitch Pileggi or Nick Lea ever were. It's something I can't quite put my finger on, but I'm telling you, I can almost smell the sweatsocks. This doesn't, however, have to be A Bad Thing. In W/W, the Manliness worked well to set Scully off, to isolate her even further from the rest of the agents. Only Skinner, that hunky relic of the presumably less-manly past, could be trusted, talked to, dealt with. But in Patience it no longer seemed a deliberate scriptual device, but more The Shape of Things To Come. And that worries me. A lot.

I guess it comes down to whether or not one thinks that Scully publicly floundering in self- doubt is interesting character development or cheap, possibly even misogynist writing. 1013 is a boy's club and always has been, so I have to ask myself if I would even use the word misogynist if it weren't for the media hyping of the manliness of the new character. Quite possibly not, but then this sudden concern with Doggett's testosterone levels does seem to be carrying over into the way this story was structured. 1013 resorted to the easy-out route of knocking Scully's competence out from under her, of having the Manly Man save the Little Woman to prove his Manliness. I mean, uncertain as she might be of her ability to lead the X-Files, would Scully EVER ask for reassurance that the big, bad monster-thingy isn't going to come after widdle her? I also resent the implication that without her man Mulder as her touchstone Scully is suddenly rudderless on every level, showing her vulnerability in ways she never did even as a rookie agent (at least not after the Pilot). Where's the tough, possibly teetering on the edge of breakdown but still Don'tGetNearMeI'mFine!Scully from the premiere eps? That's the Scully I know from Mulder's other "deaths" -- from The Blessing Way and Field Trip -- the Scully who burst into an Artic emergency room and starting reviving her man herself. I don't need my Scully invincible, but I also don't want to see her become a wee scared girl in this new Manly world. Even if she is off-balance, grieving and terrified, would Scully really let everybody know that? And what's with the thanks for covering her back? First, it's another scriptual girlifying of the character that she needed her back covered at all on their first case together. (How about Scully saving Doggett's ass, thus showing him that even if she is actually nuts she's still a good partner?) Second, as far as the X-File goes, where the hell have they been for those two weeks? The conversation smacks of it being the first time she's seen him since that night, since Scully is too forthright not to have offered thanks right away if she felt they were in order. So...did we miss something here? A hint perhaps that Doggett was in the hospital or Scully was off looking for Mulder or *something* might not go amiss.