more re: conspiracy, with added geek
the main reason I was thinking about conspiracy to begin with is that I’ve been watching shitloads of the x-files lately — possibly the most paranoid tv show of all time. one thing I really love about the x-files — and this may surprise you — is how utterly incoherent the conspiracy/mytharc/whatever becomes over the course of the series. I started watching it when it was already incoherent so I was never disappointed, which may be a factor. anyway, it’s just thing piled on top of contradictory thing. often it doesn’t even gel on a thematic/emotional level. the only way continuity is tenuously held together is by the explanation that there are competing interests within the bodies behind the grand conspiracy. there’s never really any clear or consistent reason given for what exactly they’re doing or why they’re so keen to hide the truth of paranormal happenings.
but the slogan flashed at the start of every episode is still “the truth is out there” and the characters are still searching for absolute truth and talking about truth and lies all the time with passionate sincerity. so it’s not really postmodern. it’s more like, failed modernism. it turns out that the conspiracy isn’t a well-oiled machine at all. it’s messy and chaotic and full of shifting, competing allegiances and its ultimate goal and nature is massively unclear. but it wasn’t intended to come out that way by the writers (mostly). and I kind of dig that on a meta level. that the cabal of writers in control of the show’s narrative couldn’t fucking get their shit together any better than the conspirators they were writing, and even the grand narrative about the grand narrative splintered and fell apart.
I am really really into failure, especially failed art and communication. lately I’ve been thinking a lot about derrida and iragaray (I know, and I swore up and down blind that I would never be seduced by those flightly continental theorists). chiefly the idea that the trace, the lack, the flaw in communication carries its own meaning, an underground subaltern kinda meaning which is sometimes more revealing than the surface meaning. like how kitsch is most effective when it’s unintentional — sure, there’s an element of hipster snobbery in finding something authentically kitsch (and probably vintage too), but what we’re reacting to in kitsch really is much more than the manifest content. there are few things more dire than those retro-style magnets with 50s illustrations of women coupled with snarky slogans about housewives on valium. there is no polysemy, no room to move there. it’s all laid out for you. when you see something that seems intended to evoke one feeling and instead evokes something different — that’s a much more interesting experience. it’s unsettling. it makes you question your culture and yourself. (this is one of many reasons why I would argue that the post-modern prometheus is actually a terrible episode.)
like I said, I’m into failure. but the only way you can truly fail is if you were having a sincere crack at it to start with. that’s why hipster irony is so boring. it’s safe. you’re not allowed to be horrified by it. if you are you just don’t get the joke (the old “I was making fun of racism by being intentionally outrageously racist!” defense). under the guise of a paralysing self-consciousness it deadens your ability to be truly reflexive.
at the end of the series, mulder and scully fail by any reasonable yardstick. they try, sincerely, to uncover the truth and avert catastrophe, but instead they’re powerless, on the run, with no hope in anything but vague aphorisms and one another. it’s fitting. in fact, it’s the only part of the ending that makes any kind of sense, and I sincerely love that incoherence.
