By Ilaria W. Biano, Religious and Cultural Studies Scholar and Historian, Italy

In a 1995 commentary piece in the Washington Post, William F. Powers, introducing season three The X-Files, which was already a “cult hit,” highlighted how at the core of the series’ success resided a specific way of scaring people. According to Powers, the series made viewers “think about some of the conundrums of existence,” delivering a “paranoid romance” that suggested “that the universe is not the indifferent, chaotic blob it appears to be, but a brilliantly throbbing grid of schemes.”¹ In this sense, continued Powers, Chris Carter’s show realized its magic by building on a terrifying and yet soothing thought, holding out “the hope that maybe in the end things really do fit together.”²

The search for meaning, in other words, had always been a central theme of The X-Files, which ran for nine years. Over the course of its original run, the series won 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. It not only developed a long and structured storyline and fostered an affectionate fandom, but also created an entire universe and a unique imaginary. Moreover, The X-Files embodied distinctive features of its era, engaging in a mirror game in which the show itself fueled and became part of those same cultural trends of its time. If Fox Mulder’s mantra is “I want to believe,” the counterpart to that desire is not only Dana Scully’s rationality, but also the shared certainty between the two that “the truth is out there.” This ambiguity, which centers on these alternative and yet coexisting approaches to life and meaning, are not only the core of The X-Files’ plot, they also reflect the tensions present       throughout the 1990s, both within and outside of popular culture. While much has already been said and written about The X-Files from various perspectives, watching it from a two-decade distance allows us to refocus and recontextualize some crucial aspects of its cultural context and legacy, connecting them to certain emerging trends of that time.³

During the 90s, in fact, a vast cultural and intellectual debate emerged around shared concerns related to the secular-religious divide, catalyzing what would become radical changes in narratives about belief and unbelief. While  it has become commonplace to talk about the ‘return of religion’ and to situate its peak and acceleration—whatever its meaning might be—at the beginning of the new century, often explicitly identifying 9/11 as the main turning point, it is possible to trace the roots of such debates and contextualize their different narratives back to the 90s. In Life between Two Deaths, Phillip E. Wegner defines the 1990s as “the strange space between an ending (of the Cold War) and a beginning (of our post–September 11 world).”⁴ Wegner writes that this decade both anticipated and was partially overturned by the impact of 9/11 and its aftermath. In this sense, as Wegner and other scholars focusing on 1990s culture such as Palmer and Laist have highlighted, the nature of reality itself became a matter of debate and interpretation.⁵ Amid phenomena that pushed the boundaries and definitions of known reality—such as the growth of both globalization and counter-globalization movements, the explosion of communication and information technology, and the increasing power and pervasiveness of the media and the entertainment industry—we witnessed a gradual shift from the modernist master narrative of secularization to postmodern fragmented narratives of reenchantment and postsecularity. For decades, in fact, it was believed that modernization would inevitably lead to a decline of religions and religiosity. However, it became clear that more complex dynamics were at play. While traditional religions may have lost relevance for individuals, they became more politicized and visible in the public sphere. At the same time, personal beliefs did not completely secularize but instead diversified and multiplied in different directions and paths.

In this context, The X-Files found itself at the very center of US popular culture, which, as noted by Lynn Neal, “provided people in the 1990s with a wealth of resources for the increasingly dominant ‘do-it-yourself-kind-of-religion.’”⁶ The 1990s has been defined as a decade of spiritual awakenings and reenchantment of popular culture. However, when considering specifically US television and TV seriality, many studies have demonstrated how religion did not necessarily find a place on the small screen until relatively recently.⁷ Nevertheless, spirituality, magic, occultism, and the supernatural slowly became widely popular during the 1990s. A TV series like The X-Files represents a text in which the tensions between different cultures of beliefs and unbelief, articulated both as religious or skeptical, emerge in all their varieties and complexities. The X-Files, in fact, reignited within an investigative story about aliens and weird phenomena, a more complex narrative about enchantment and the search for ultimate meaning, whether it be a religious quest, a spiritual journey, or even a skeptical faith in conspiracy theories. 

Already in 1998, Westerfelhaus and Combs identified The X-Files as a “spiritual quest,”⁸ aligning with what scholars such as Heelas and Woodhead would define in the early 2000s as a “spiritual revolution.”⁹ Themes such as the relationship between faith and science in the search for meanings, the struggles between reason and rationality on the one hand and truth and meaning on the other, as well as the exploration of an array of alternative beliefs and spiritualities, are constitutive of the show’s narrative, adhering to its protagonist’s mantra “I want to believe.” This will to believe is central to The X-Files, not only in its two opposite protagonists (the rationalist and yet devout Scully, and the nonreligious and yet in a way true believer Mulder), but also in many of the stories told in the episodes, refracting the spiritual effervescence of the 1990s. Partridge has described this climate as “the ‘I want to believe’ phase: a creative, anti-structural, liminal period in which many westerners find themselves as their worldviews are gradually re-enchanted.”¹⁰ The underlying conspiracy narrative of the show also mirrors a relevant, rising trend in 1990s culture. As authors such as Harambam and Aupers have highlighted, conspiracy culture is closely related to reenchantment, meaning-seeking beliefs, and ultimate truths: “Nature may (or may not) have been disenchanted by science and technology, but for conspiracy theorists, society itself has become a mysterious and unpredictable force.”¹¹

In this context, it is unsatisfying, as some scholars have instead suggested, to interpret The X-Files and particularly Mulder’s experience (but also Scully’s) merely as a “metaphor for the search for God.”¹² The show’s message is more nuanced and complex, and it is, we could say, stably rooted in the unstable terrain of 1990s cultures of belief. Talking about cultures of belief or unbelief involves understanding that both belief and unbelief (religious or otherwise) do not exist “in a vacuum” but are integral  “parts of culture.”¹³ This perspective emphasizes  “belief as a cultural practice” that is passed on, enacted, and debated.¹⁴ It requires considering cultures of belief as historically specific and asking not only what people believe (or do not believe), but also how they believe it.

So, what does Mulder believe (or desperately want to believe)? Or Scully? Or the myriad of people—true believers, fanatics, just pious— they cross their path with? And how do they all believe? We could say that they most of all believe in believing itself and little more. 

Mulder is driven by the need to find out what happened to his sister, whom he believes was abducted by aliens when they were children. His entire existence is thus built on two seemingly antithetical pillars: the firm belief that the abduction—and extraterrestrial life—was real (a faith necessary for him to maintain hope that his sister is still alive somewhere) and the relentless need to pursue his quest, searching for whatever truth lies behind what he does not and cannot know. Scully embodies the difficulties of reconciling scientific and rational mindsets with a personal and deep religious faith. One of the symbols of the show, alongside Mulder’s poster, is Scully’s cross necklace. Subtle references to Scully’s efforts to find balance between science, rationality, and her faith emerge in the dialogues of the show. For example, in the 13th episode of the second season, Scully finds herself losing her ‘faith’ in her ability to help people through her scientific skills and she says “I want that faith back,” paralleling Mulder’s “I want to believe.”     

In his 2007 edited volume, The Philosophy of The X-Files, Kowalski defines the already mentioned show’s key claims as “credos”: “The truth is out there”; “Trust no one”; “I want to believe.”¹⁵ For the characters, these credos serve as profound assertions of meaning. However, as it clearly appears, they are fundamentally rooted in ambiguity and uncertainty. As these phrases articulate and affirm their beliefs, they also reveal the inherent fragility of those same beliefs. These credos, the characters invested with them, and the stories that revolve around them, all explore, in the end, the blurred boundaries between belief and unbelief, the secular and the religious, the religious and the spiritual, rationality and irrationality, science and faith, and so on. Chris Carter himself has emphasized how “the idea of faith is really the backbone of the entire series,” clarifying, however: “faith in your own beliefs, ideas about the truth.”¹⁶

Examining issues of secularization and religious change in the last three decades from a sociological and historical perspective reveals a nuanced picture that defies simplistic narratives. Traditionally, there has been a perceived linear decline in religious affiliation and practice particularly in Europe, while the United States stood out as somewhat of an exception in a consolidated trend for modernizing societies. However, such linear and teleological explanations      have proven overly simplistic and lacking empirical consistency. First of all, the proportion of religious “nones” has steadily increased in the US. Additionally, other Western societies have witnessed religious diversification and the emergence of various forms of belief. In this sense, the 1990s emerge as a crossroad, not only between the multiplicity of processes mentioned but also in terms of how they were perceived and culturally received. As mentioned at the beginning, during the ‘long Nineties,’ we saw a shift from the modern idea that society would become less religious to a postmodern view where people’s beliefs became more varied and complex. This epochal structural change, as it appears from today, arose through a variety of decade-long processes in the narratives and cultures of belief and unbelief, with popular culture playing a crucial role. While aspects of The X-Files related to paranoia and conspiracy may have fuelled contemporary post-truth trends and have been explored with reasons, nevertheless they stand alongside more profound concerns related to meaning and belief, as we have suggested.¹⁷

In this sense, The X-Files remains a fascinating and timely reflection on life, the universe, and the many meanings everyone may search for and eventually hope to find in them.

Ilaria W. Biano, PhD, is a Cultural and Religious Studies scholar and historian from Italy. She holds a PhD in Political Studies, History and Theory, and an MA in Religious Studies. Since 2015, she has been a fellow at high-profile Italian research institutes. Her work has been published in several edited collections and scientific journals, such as South Central Review, Feminist Media Studies, and Journal of Religion, Media, and Digital Culture. She has edited several volumes for the Fantastic Religions Series at Quasar Publisher, Roma.

Her research focuses on modernization, secularization, and postsecularity; non/religious representations in pop-cultural texts; posthumanities and philosophical posthumanism in cultural and pop-cultural fields; trauma and memory in literature and culture. Her work can be found at unito.academia.edu/IlariaBiano

Works Cited

1.  William F. Powers, “’X-Files’: Signs of Intelligent Life,” The Washington Post, September 17, 1995. Link. ↩︎
2.  Powers, “’X-Files’: Signs of Intelligent Life.” ↩︎
3.  See for example David Lavery et al (eds.), Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-Files (Faber and Faber, 1996); Dean A. Kowalski, The Philosophy of The X-Files (The University Press of Kentucky, 2007); Fenwick James and Diane A. Rodgers, The Legacy of The X-Files (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). ↩︎
4.  Phillip E. Wegner, Life Between Two Deaths, 1989-2001: U.S. Culture in the Long Nineties (Duke University Press, 2009), 9. ↩︎
5.  William J. Palmer, The Films of the Nineties The Decade of Spin (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Randy Laist, Cinema of Simulation: Hyperreal Hollywood in the Long 1990s (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). ↩︎
6.  Lynn S. Neal, Religion in Vogue: Christianity and Fashion in America (New York University Press, 2019), 182. ↩︎
7.  Wade Clarke Roof, “Blurred Boundaries: Religion and Prime Time Television,” in Religion and Prime Time Television, ed. Michael Suman (Praeger, 1997), 61–67; Thomas Skill et al., “The Portrayal of Religion and Spirituality on Fictional Network Television,” Review of Religious Research 35, 3 (1994): 251-267; Diane H. Winston, Small Screen, Big Picture: Television and Lived Religion (Baylor University Press, 2009); Charlotte E. Howell, Divine Programming: Negotiating Christianity in American Dramatic Television Production 1996-2016 (Oxford University Press, 2020). ↩︎
8.  Robert Westerfelhaus and Teresa A. Combs, “Criminal Investigations and Spiritual Quests: The X-Files as an Example of Hegemonic Concordance in a Mass-Mediated Society,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 22, 2 (1998): 205-220. ↩︎
9.  Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead, The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality (Blackwell Publishing, 2005). ↩︎
10.  Christopher Partridge, “The Disenchantment and Re-enchantment of the West: The Religio-Cultural Context of Contemporary Western Christianity,” The Evangelical Quarterly 74, 3 (2002): 249. ↩︎
11.  Jaron Harambam and Stef Aupers, “Conspiracy Theories,” in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, eds. George Ritzer and Chris Rojek (Blackwell, 2007), 6. ↩︎
12.  Amy M. Donaldson, We Want to Believe: Faith and Gospel in The X-files (Cascade Books, 2011). ↩︎
13.  Grace Davie, “Belief and Unbelief: Two Sides of a Coin,” Approaching Religion 2, 1 (June 2012): 4. ↩︎
14.  Davie, “Belief and Unbelief,” 4. ↩︎
15.  Kowalski, The Philosophy of The X-Files. ↩︎
16.  Brian Lowry, Trust No One: The Official Third Season Guide to “The X-Files” (HarperPrism, 1996), 139. ↩︎
17.  Walter Jones, “Pre-Millennium Tension: How 90’s Paranoia Paved the Way for QAnon,” Medium, November 12, 2021. Link. ↩︎