The end of history?: Contesting the legacy of the 1960s and 1970s in The X-Files

Frame, Gregory

Abstract

This chapter examines how The X-Files offered a revisionist historical perspective of the political upheaval the United States experienced through the 1960s and 1970s. It shows how in its relentless questioning of the official record on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, its persistent return to the war in Vietnam as a site of trauma, and its references to the Watergate scandal, The X-Files sought to resist the determined political efforts to repress memories of this period. By folding its concern with these events into its broader ‘mytharc’, The X-Files suggests that the nation’s trajectory has been fundamentally subverted by unseen forces of malign intention. Though somewhat historically naïve, this chapter suggests The X-Files’s critique is nevertheless noteworthy for its unwillingness to accept the conservative consensus regarding the nation’s recent history.

Citation

Frame, G. (2023). The end of history?: Contesting the legacy of the 1960s and 1970s in The X-Files. In J. Fenwick, & D. A. Rodgers (Eds.), The Legacy of The X-Files (135-147). Bloomsbury Publishing

• Online Publication Date: Nov 16, 2023
• Publication Date: Nov 16, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 8, 2024
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Pages: 135-147
• Book Title: The Legacy of The X-Files
• Chapter Number: 8
• ISBN: 9781501387630
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/29542615
• Publisher URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/legacy-of-the-xfiles-9781501387630/