Why Dana Scully Has Such An Interesting Family Tree:
The Evolution of the Female Lead in American Television
by MarVell71

Whether by original design or not, The X-Files is about both Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The show needs both of them to be complete. To examine Gillian Anderson's popularity, we must first separate Gillian from Dana and then examine Dana Scully's place in the evolution of television characters.

While Mulder is a time-honored archetype (the lone questing hero), Scully is something new to television. In the past, there have strong, capable, female heroes: Laura Holt, "Mrs. King", Emma Peel, even Jaime Sommers for us old timers. There are any number of other examples. The problem was that, in nearly every case, the woman never received the same creative attention that her male co-star/counterpart did. This was usually not intentional, it was just the way things were.

The series Hunter provides a good example. In that show, Stephanie Kramer's character, D. McCall was quite strong by the standards of the time. She was originally written as strongly as the male lead. Soon the male lead (and the NBC executives) noticed this, and took steps to move things back into their "proper" position. This occurred frequently. NBC folks didn't care for Laura Holt being the one to solve cases, rather than Remington Steele. He, after all, was the title character, as was Hunter. Still, Remington Steele was a step forward. Pierce Brosnan apparently did not share his bosses' misgivings.

Stephen Boccho started to put an end to this way of thinking. On his first series, Hill Street Blues, the female characters were written primarily as characters rather than as female sidekicks. On such a large ensemble show, though, it was difficult to give any one character special attention. Joyce Davenport was a strong character but she often appeared for only 5 minutes of an episode. (It's interesting to note that the Davenport/Furillo relationship was one of the first modern "couplings" of two strong, well realized characters who showed that falling in love could change the form of Sexual Tension rather than destroying it.)

Unfortunately, rather than adopt a similar "character first" policy, most producers/executives drew a hard line between ensemble shows and all others. Action-adventure shows, in particular, ignored it. Moonlighting tried to turn the expectations of the genre on its ear but overcompensated. After a time, both characters were written as being so unpleasant that the audience found it impossible to have any real interest. Maddy Hayes and David Addison were not fully realized characters; they were snarling participants in a never-ending argument. As a consequence, the show died.

What The X-Files did differently was to adopt the "character first" approach with both characters upon creation and continue to use this approach as the show progressed. In a bit of luck, Fox executives made only minor attempts at control. In the beginning, they didn't want Gillian Anderson, who didn't look like the standard "starlet" of the times. Rumor has it that they wanted the characters to "get together" (have sex) as soon as possible. Chris Carter was able to resist both ideas. Another bit of luck was that David Duchovny was more interested in acting than the usual power trips. The Scully character was allowed to grow, albeit slowly. As Gillian Anderson grew more confident, it became clear that she is a phenomenal actor.

For the first time, here was an action-adventure show with two equal heroes, one of whom happened to be female. Since it was not an ensemble show, attention could be paid to both characters. Scully swiftly became the most fully realized female character on television. Not perfectly realized, of course, since the writers were on new ground. Carter tended to romanticize her into an almost superhuman character. At times, Morgan/Wong wrote her in a feisty, almost Moonlighting style. Other writers covered nearly every point between. Somehow, Anderson was able to shoehorn all of the different "takes" on the character into a cohesive whole. (To be fair, Duchovny managed to do the same with his character, who was a lunatic one week, a genius the next. It was no easy task for either actor.)

For the first time, what was billed as a science fiction/adventure show had two characters who seemed very human, as opposed to the heroic archetypes that abounded on such shows. Mulder and Scully bled, felt pain, and had rotten days, just like their viewers. It was a strong draw. Women admired Scully's strength, and were drawn to Mulder's vulnerability which was unusual for such a character. Men fell for Scully like a ton of bricks, drawn to an intriguing mixture of strength and compassion.

Almost on its own, a gothic romance began to take form, driven by the undeniable chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson. Resisted by some of the writers, and by some of the fans, the romance has continued to gain strength, almost like an offshore hurricane, to the point where it is now an accepted part of the show. Never had holding hands meant so much. Fans scrutinized every detail of the show, looking for any extra sign of either the romantic angle or the overall UFO story.

This kind of attention was a little hard on the actors. Gillian Anderson was regularly asked when she was going to marry David Duchovny, regardless of the fact he was already married to someone else, or that she was. She was labeled as cold (a tag stuck on Scully by the show's critics) by talk show mavens who seemed unaware that five years ago she had been waiting on tables. Leaving the characters on the lot became more and more difficult. Still, this is someone who came out of nowhere, and got both rich and famous by doing a good job. The American Dream. It's hard to resist a story like that.

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