My goal last summer was to finish watching 9 seasons (22 one hour episodes per season) worth of X Files dvds in preparation for the second X Files full length film entitled I Want to Believe. For those of you who do not know me during my X Files days, I am a certified X-Phile (what die hard fans of X Files are called).
Anyway, I was in high school when the X Files bug bit me. I don’t know if hormones had something to do with my fanatical devotion to the show, but it got me hooked to the point that no one can drag me out of the house during Monday nights (it was previously shown in RPN 9 before Studio 23 acquired the rights to the last few seasons). Not only that, but whenever there’s a magazine that featured Mulder & Scully on the cover, chances are, I own a copy of that. I was in Greenhills every week, gingerly taking out the allowance I had managed to save in order to buy X Files trading cards, posters, comics and books based on the series. When I had no money to buy the books I wanted, I sold books in Recto and photocopied what I had found in our school library.
I was with Scully and Mulder when they danced together in the Elephant Man-like Postmodern Prometheus, held hands in Pusher, hugged each other and held on for dear life on Requiem, Memento Mori and Milagro, and almost kissed in the first full length feature, Fight the Future, before finally kissing in Triangle (ok, it was not the “real” Scully, but…) My first ever movie premiere was their movie where I laughed and cheered with my fellow X-Philes.
I was THE total FAN. A network executive’s wet dream.
I would sign my name as X in autograph books (what? You haven’t heard of autographs?). My motto was “the truth is out there” or “trust no one”. I looked up what the hell Anasazi, Nisei or Calusari meant. I researched about the Bermuda Triangle, the Philadelphia Experiment, and, of course, Rockwell. I believed that the government was actually wiretapping our phones (we had no telephone then!), that they are monitoring us with bugs and chips hidden in strategic places in our house (for reasons I don’t know), that there is a conspiracy of silence in the government to keep its people from knowing the truth. I believed in Mulder and Scully’s quest. I believed in their journey and in their relationship.
When the X Files went off the air, I was in college and barely hanging on to the series. Mulder left the show on its 9th season and I missed the chemistry that he and Scully had. My devotion to the show was replaced with real life concerns. I realized that I cannot go on thinking of conspiracies and the truth because life is not television and I am not Mulder or Scully.
After X Files, I drifted off. Sure, there were other TV shows that I religiously watched and I also found Buffy the Vampire Slayer (quite late, actually) and had my share of fanatical devotion (mainly because of Willow and Tara), but I realized that the sense of almost supernatural devotion and loyalty I have shown to the X Files was one of the most passionate things I’ve ever done in my life.
Surprisingly, even after six years of being off the air, (re)watching all 9 seasons of the X Files had taken me back in time. My laptop wallpaper is Mulder & Scully, my Friendster shoutout is all about the X-Files, my ringtone is the X Files theme. I had gotten back to writing and believing that “the truth is out there”, and, post 9/11, I now believe, more firmly than ever, that the government is hiding something from us in the guise of keeping the public safe (ignorant is more like it).
In watching the X-Files, I had rediscovered myself not only as a fan, of what I believed to be the greatest show of all time, but also the kind of person that I had almost forgotten- a person capable of passion and devotion to the truth that is out there.
