THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE: THE X FILES, THE 1990S, AND AMERICAN CULTURAL IDENTITY

Abstract

Premiering on September 10, 1993, The X Files offered television viewers an alternative message to the prevailing optimism and triumphalism of the post-Soviet landscape. The X Files shadowed that bright world by questioning all forms of authority. It asked its audiences to question all forms of authority--whether that authority was science, god, or the state--and these questions, though not unique to humanity, were unique to the post-Cold War television set. The program represents an America in transition, and its successes are indicative of the unease that existed in society between the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1993 and the beginning of the U.S. War on Terror in 2001.