On Re-Rewatching The X Files: Season One Mulder Is a Creep

So, recently I walked into our living room to find Boyfriend chilling out with The X Files 1×01 “Pilot,” which he’d never seen before. Unwilling to leave him to discover the joys of watching Mulder meet Scully all alone, I settled in beside him.

I’ve rewatched The X Files before, lackadaisically over lunches during grad school. But now I’m closer to Mulder and Scully’s intended ages, and I have new perspective on the life events they experience, like starting a new job and running up against passive resistance from authority. And after just a few episodes, I’ve come to a conclusion 180-degrees from my teenaged thoughts.

Mulder is a total dick, and Scully should run for the hills.

I’m not the first to come to this conclusion, but I’m surprised at how strongly I feel it.

See, as a teenager, I was a hardcore shipper. Sixteen-year-old me crushed hard on both Mulder and Scully and was convinced they were perfect together.

I still crush hard on Scully (who wouldn’t?), but Mulder is… well, a work in progress. In later seasons, his banter-y sarcasm works well. He and Scully have the intimacy of friendship, and their relationship is okay.

But in Season 1, Mulder is such a creep. Here’s why:

1. He has no respect for others’ physical space.

Within the first month of knowing her (i.e. all within episodes 1-3), Mulder is touching Scully in hella inappropriate ways. And not just in the this-is-TV-so-we-both-need-to-be-in-the-frame way. He guides her into a room with his hand on the small of her back. He gets her attention when he’s standing behind her by leaning in around her shoulder until his nose is almost touching her face and waiting for her to notice.

Sure, there was that bit in the first episode where Scully panics over mosquito bites and knocks on his door wearing only a robe and underwear, but that wasn’t an invitation to feel casual ownership of her body. That was her asking for an expert’s opinion on what she thought might be evidence of a pathology.

Let me put it another way. I have plenty of male coworkers, and I’ve shared an office with some of them for a couple years. We laugh and chat and are pretty comfortable with each other. And some of the women in my work have worked with them much longer than I have. But each of us knows that it would be completely inappropriate, even as friends, for anyone to touch any of our colleagues, regardless of gender, on the small of their backs. In a professional environment? That’s just Not Cool.

Let alone Not Cool if you are a man who does that only to attractive women. You don’t need to guide Scully into the room, Mulder. She’s already on her damn way.

2. He has no respect for others’ feelings.

In episode 1×02, “Deep Throat,” Mulder, the Oxford Psychology grad, refers to a mentally ill guy who pulls out his own hair as “Uncle Fester.” Wow, okay. I guess this is the 90s, and even someone who studied mental illness might not have come across the idea that mental illness is no more its sufferer’s fault than physical illness–this was the era of “retarded,” after all.

But, like, when the missing pilot shows up and his wife is in tears because she doesn’t believe that guy is really her husband, Mulder doesn’t even acknowledge it. He challenges Missing Pilot to state the names of his children, who are in the next room within earshot.

In Pilot, he completely ignores the fact that the victims of the inexplicable murders that make him so excited are actually, you know, real people who were friends with every single person he interacts with while he’s there. He’s making jokes about the body he’s having exhumed without considering that the people around him probably knew this guy when he was alive.

Jeez, when you consider the trail of emotional damage Mulder’s insensitivity with victims and relatives of victims probably leaves behind him, no wonder hostile-local-authorities is an X Files trope.

3. He has no concern about other people’s safety and comfort.

Okay, I get some of this: part of what Mulder does is force authority to face uncomfortable facts. He can’t do that if he’s worried about the consequences. And his way of pushing people away is to be sarcastic and take them out of their comfort zone.

But there are some times when he pretty much gives zero shits about the physical wellbeing of the people around him. In 1×02, shady government agents threaten first him and then him and Scully together. Not only does Mulder not tell Scully about the first time until it’s too late, but he ignores the second warning and runs off like a spoiled brat, forcing Scully into non-compliance too.

In Pilot, he runs out in the rain more than once and forces Scully to come out and get soaked with him to try to figure out what the hell the stranger who has the keys to their only car is doing.

And when the Shady Bad Guys (we assume–they tend to be responsible for most things in this show) burn down the motel he and Scully were staying at in order to dispose of evidence, the first thing out of his mouth is how angry he is that the photos and samples are gone. Not, like, to ask if everyone’s okay? The inferno is still raging when he arrives, and there are plenty more guest cars in the parking lot. You’d think he could at least spare even a second thought for “oh shit, is everyone staying here accounted for?”

Seriously, Mulder?

Sure, I can see the case that maybe this is intentional, that we’re supposed to root for Mulder to grow instead of condoning how he gets stuff done. But it’s hard to trust that the showrunners were doing this on purpose, given what seems to be their initial strong feeling on the importance of Mulder vs. Scully.

I like the screw-the-Man character as much as the next person–hey, that Man has done some pretty awful things, and what Power doesn’t need someone to speak truth to it?–but as I get older, part of what I’m looking for is characters who force themselves to challenge their own power as much as they confront that of others.

And season one Mulder? Can barely recognize his own power in a mirror, let alone criticize it.

ETA: Right before posting this, we watched 1×05. Mulder, you are an HR nightmare. Skin mags and porn are fine things to enjoy, but you can’t look at them at work, especially not in your shared office. OMFG.