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Nineties Flashback: Jewish ‘X-Files’ Agent Mulder

A look at David Duchovny’s paranormal-obsessed character

by
The Editors
April 12, 2013

Over at Jewcy, Eric Thurm revisits The X-Files’ Special Agent Fox Mulder, played by a pre-Californication David Duchovny, for this week’s installment of Network Jews. Mulder is a Jewish action hero, Thurm argues, whose Jewish identity is subtly revealed throughout the show’s nine seasons:

Though his partnership with Scully has been picked apart repeatedly, Mulder’s Jewish qualities are one of the less examined, but still critical, aspects of his character. His Judaism is only hinted at in a few places, most notably Season 6’s “Drive.” Violent anti-Semite Patrick Crump (played by TV’s Bryan Cranston, in the role that convinced Vince Gilligan he could play Walter White) accuses Mulder of being Jewish based on his last name and rails against supposed Jewish control of the FBI. Mulder takes offense at Crump’s anti-Semitism and sarcastically apologizes for the “international Jewish conspiracy.” Though “Drive” doesn’t confirm Mulder’s Judaism, the hints are in line with The X-Files relatively subtle early approach to doling out information, like the early appearance of crucial alien “black oil” in the first-season classic “Ice.”

Read the rest here.

From the editors of Tablet Magazine.