Dana Scully, a fictional character from the hit 90s show The X-Files, was one of the world’s first female scientists and career-woman representatives to hit screens worldwide. Her message of female empowerment has inspired generations but is slowly being degraded by women today.
Dana Scully dedicated her life to her career. She is seen sacrificing family time, personal time, relationships, and the opportunity to have a family so she can work on cases. It is portrayed to us as viewers that Scully has had this work ethic for the entirety of her life. First, she studied for a degree in Physics, then became a medical doctor before leaving the profession to follow her dream of working for the FBI. At the FBI, she worked as a forensic pathologist before being assigned as a special agent on the X-Files. Dana Scully is one of the first women working in the stereotypical male of science to reach our TV screens, and she is undoubtedly the most widely known of her time.
The character of Scully has left a legacy for women and girls; you can do whatever a man can do, even if it means you have to work twice as hard for twice as long. Young women who have watched the X-Files are 63% (found in a study by Geena Davis Institute in partnership with 21st Century Fox) more likely to enter a science-based career, inspired by Scully and everything she achieves and therefore creating ‘the Scully effect’’. The release of the X-FILES was one of the first times a woman was portrayed as someone with power and intelligence who wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, even in a male-dominated field like science and crime investigation. Such empowerment was mainly derived because it broke away from a stereotype that was – and still is – enforced worldwide: that women were created to be mothers and caregivers. While Scully goes against the idea that being a mother is all a woman is suitable for, she does not discard the concept altogether, which brought understanding between her audience, which we will explore in this article.
Scully is one of the only realistic career-woman characters shown on TV and in the media; she lives in an average apartment, is from a perfectly average family, and writes reports on her living room floor in her pyjamas. However, in the modern day, we are shown a more glamorised version of a ‘career woman’. She is often divorced multiple times, with several children she never seems to spend time with, a lot of wine, and a mansion – far from civilisation – which she probably inherited from some distant relative. Although she might also be a detective working for an organisation similar to the FBI, she is an unrealistic example of what life is really like.
For women and girls, an unrealistic character becomes an idealised role model that they will never be able to attain for themselves because it simply doesn’t happen in real life. This undermines Scully’s legacy because she built her life by herself, achieving everything she did through her hard work and dedication rather than being handed to her, as seen with other female representatives in the workforce who are often descendants of wealth or simply good fortune. Scully encourages women and girls to follow their dreams rather than their boyfriends and the paths society believes they should take, even through her struggles of being a pioneering woman in a predominately male-dominated field, which are occasionally portrayed in the X-FILES.
But what sets Dana Scully apart from modern portrayals of the working woman is that she didn’t just want her career – she also wanted love and children. She had issues other women struggle with, like infertility, even if this was caused by her ova being extracted by the US government after they abducted her! But because of this, Scully is not just a powerhouse of hard work; she also shows vulnerability with her battle with contradicting beliefs within her Christian faith and scientific career, her complex emotions after being kidnapped and assaulted by a crazed serial killer, and the guilt deriving from the murder of her sister. Being in contact with her feelings, as well as being a practical and innovative thinker and – as previously established – an incredibly hard worker, makes Scully one of the ultimate feminists and, therefore, a role model who rises above those of modern television.
Yet Dana Scully inspires women and girls through her realistic nature and relatability. In contrast, modern female characters in televised productions today degrade Scully’s strong work ethic by inheriting success while living an unrealistic lifestyle. This makes these modern career women unrelatable to their audience by painting a picture of an idealised life that, rather than fulfilment, will only lead to disappointment.
‘Follow your dreams, not your boyfriends’ – Gillian Anderson 2021 (Letters Live).
By Ariana L
Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar, Alford, Newsroom