DIFFERENCES: THE X-FILES, RACE AND THE WHITE NORM
2002; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 53; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-6018
Autores Tópico(s)Contemporary Literature and Criticism
ResumoIn War of Worlds, H. G. Wells presents Martian invasion of London as an allegory for colonial expansion. The book was first published in 1898 during time of Scramble for and western expansion of United States. London, heart of empire, becomes target of Martian's colonizing force. Through this reversal, Wells critiques imperial project, at same time as he evokes those same fears of Other that were used in racist discourse to justify colonial violence. Wells' Martian colonization is effected through extermination and eradication-the violent removal of humans to make room for Martian invaders. This reflects nature of turn-of-the-century colonial expansion, when European and European-American territorial wars swept away with genocidal force native inhabitants of Africa and Americas. A century later, The X-Files uses a similar generic science fiction metaphor of alien colonization to evoke fear of difference. The X-Files also represents a reversal of power axis whereby Europeans and European-Americans are primary potential victims of colonizing forces. However, whereas Wells' turn-of-the-century fiction represents colonizing threat as one of extermination and eradication, The X-Files colonization metaphor is expressed as hybridization. In late twentieth century, when relations of race and difference are more ambiguously represented than they were in Wells' time, assimilation, hybridization, and blurring of boundaries characterize contemporary racial identity and experience. The X-Files's colonization metaphor represents this shift: colonizing forces of The X-Files represent invasion of human body in an endeavor to take over Earth. It undermines integrity of individual identity, producing an ambiguous invasion in which human identity and purity are no longer assured, lines between us (the human) and them (the alien), no longer clear. Wells' aliens are defeated by the putrefactive and disease bacteria (171) that are Earth's only effective defense against colonizing force he envisions. In both a reversal and an extension of Wellsian scenario, extraterrestrial invasion in The X-Files is frequently presented, and resisted, on level of microscopic disease and bodily penetration. At center of The X-Files narrative is fear of colonization and invasion, fear of both invasion of planet by extraterrestrial aliens and fear of human bodily occupation by disease of extraterrestrial organisms, that is, colonization by hybridization. The colonization metaphor is assured as both texts centralize white Europeans as representative agents for humanity. The X-Files presents conventional white, middle-class characters who are menaced by unknown forces, that compromise their self-contained (white) bodies-threatening disease, hybridization, and ultimately, physical colonization. Through conventions of representation of difference, these themes are racially coded. The codes are determined by a process of racial marking that is accomplished through conceptual framework of Whiteness: normative white subject's fear of and desire for Other. Thus, in The X-Files, colonization fears are significantly represented through anxieties around boundaries that maintain Whiteness as a purely defined racial category. Despite reversal of colonization scenario, The X-Files relies on assumptions that associate Whiteness with certain positions and manifestations of power that are threatened by difference. White power is directly represented in The X-Files through consortium of white men who are human participants in colonization conspiracy. It is also through important constructs of purity and normativity that white power is evidenced and differences that endanger white power are resisted. The association of Whiteness with anxieties about pollution and racial boundary control evidence an investment in concept of racial purity. …
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