Friday, August 28, 2015

X-Files: Shapes

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 18 – Shapes

I suppose one might critique the way that indigenous tradition and mythology is utilized for the spooky storytelling of the series, but the episode certainly makes an effort to portray Native Americans with empathy and nuance.   Significantly, we get a mention of the conflict at Wounded Knee in 1973, when armed Native American activists faced off against U.S. Marshals and F.B.I. agents.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_incident)

A Native American man at the bar growls, “What I learned fighting the F.B.I. is… you don’t believe in us, and we don’t believe in you.”  It’s a poignant framing of a history of conflict and oppression that goes back centuries.  Mulder has a rather sweet reply: “I want to believe.”  It’s his trademark line of course, normally indicative of his quest for the supernatural.  Yet, here, it’s a sign of good faith and respect.  The exchange seems to suggest that the brutality and tragedy of settler colonialism can be somehow transcended or mitigated by openness and communication.  “I want to believe.”  It’s not quite belief – it’s a hope and a yearning.  It’s a place to start.

Yet some are not so optimistic.  Joe Goodensnake – evidently a werewolf of some kind – was shot by a local ranchman.  Joe’s sister, Gwen, is hostile towards Mulder and Scully: “I hate suits who are always here when they want something from us, but when we need help, they’re nowhere to be found.”  Later, the son of Goodensnake’s killer shows up at the funeral.  “I just want to show my respects,” he insists.  “I don’t want your respects,” Gwen replies.  “I want your heart to grow cold.  I want you to feel what I’m feeling!”  She spits at the ground in front of him.


In God is Red, Vine Deloria, Jr. writes, “Until the occupation of Wounded Knee, American Indians were stereotyped in literature and by the media.  They were either a villainous warlike group… or the calm, wise, dignified elder sitting on the mesa dispensing his wisdom in poetic aphorisms.”  Even if Native American mythology is here appropriated for mere television entertainment, at least it pushes the viewer beyond the most blatant stereotypes and encourages them to think more about a history that many have forgotten.

Eventually, Mulder gets the full story from Ish, though the Indian still calls him “F.B.I.”  The problem is a Manitou – an evil spirit that can change people into dangerous animals.  Curiously, there is speculation that the creature can be inherited.  There’s something intriguing about an evil spirit passed down through bloodlines, for it mixes the tangible and the ephemeral, the physical and the abstract.

The cinematography is stunning, particularly during the funeral preparations.  Bodies seem to melt into the mist like ghosts.  The close-up shots of the taxidermy specimens feel a bit forced at the beginning of the show, but they really pay off by the end as Mulder panics and shoots a bear’s stuffed head in the claustrophobic house, a place now filled with teeth and shadows.

This is a case where the simple title really adds something to the episode.  Shapes.  Obviously, it’s a reference to the shape-shifter werewolf.  Yet the word invites us to think more broadly about form and transformation.  Tooth and claw and gun.  Corpse and flame and mist.  Human and beast.  The shapes of the world.

Image: Kano Tomokazu (Getty Open Content)

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