Dana Scully’s Empowerment as a Bio-Terrorism Survivor Natacha Guyot Since its creation in the 1990s, the science fiction and supernatural X-Files franchise has focused on FBI agents Mulder and Scully, and their journey dealing with unexplainable cases and alien conspiracies. Of the two, the female agent and medical doctor, Dana Scully, has appeared in most storylines. Her character arc has proven to be complex, touching on aspects ranging from science and spirituality to career and motherhood. One dimension of her development that has tied into all parts of her life, both professional and personal, is her experience as a bio-terrorism survivor. This entails Scully enduring an alien abduction, having her reproductive material harvested, being rendered infertile, and gaining a hybrid DNA. The long-lasting arc emerges during the second season of the show and has kept a regularly preeminent role in Scully’s story up to the 2016 revival. While violence against women is a common narrative trope, including but not limited to the horror genre1, it is significant to note that Scully is given space and time to work through the trauma, which is not always provided to female characters. The X-Files thus allowed Scully to have agency in how she struggled and eventually gained power despite the violence inflicted upon her. Although it is not flawless storytelling, Scully’s arc nevertheless gives ground for her survivor experience. Examining how the trauma affects first her professional life and then her personal one permits an in depthanalysis of Scully’s complex portrayal over the X-Files’ numerous seasons and both feature films. Re-evaluating Scientific Evidence Although Scully’s identity is partly shaped by her work as a federal agent, a more foundational aspect is her scientific background and expertise, which establishes her as the rational voice2. The pilot episode3 introduces her medical education, and the franchise often features her performing autopsies – which become a recurring motif – and conducting other scientific tests. She also maintains her work as a medical doctor even when she no longer works in the X-Files department, both at the beginning of season nine and in the succeeding stories. Scully’s rational and skeptical approach to what she encounters proves to be an element that helps her cope with the violence she experiences when she is abducted and later deals with the health issues caused by it, including the terminal cancer she faces
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