Circus Season: Humbug (The X-Files)

Continuing a series of posts about TV shows related to the circus.

This post contains a plot spoiler.

It was impossible not to include this X-Files episode about a town where the population are all circus side show freaks, of course. It's a bit difficult to say anything about it when it is perhaps one of the most loved episodes of The X-Files and has been extensively written about.

The episode tends to be seen through a particular interpretive lens, perhaps best expressed by M. Keith Booker in the first part of this quote:

'...it is the ultra-normal FBI agents who are the real oddballs, while the difficulty in distinguishing between the normal and abnormal in Gibsonton is highlighted when Mulder, noticing Mr Nutt's small size, jumps to the conclusion that Nutt, too, is a sideshow performer, provoking an angry response on the part of the manager, who reminds Mulder that he is a trained professional with a degree in hotel management, not a freak. [...]

'Nutt's helper at the trailer court however, is a freak indeed. In addition to being a prodigious drinker, Lanny [...] has a partly-formed twin bother growing out of one side of his abdomen.' (M. Keith Booker: Strange TV. Greenwood Press, Westport CT, 2002, p. 130)

I quote a bit, not merely to show that I went away and looked up the primary source, but because the episode's Wikipedia page refers to the Mulder-and-Scully-as-the-weirdos interpretation alone from this source without picking up on the other, obviously very complex matters, mentioned here.

Of course this is not to say that interpreting this episode as a reversal where the freaks become the norm is an invalid way to interpret this episode. It obviously is.

However it is unfortunate that this is listed as a Monster of the Week episode, which as we know means that it is an episode of The X-Files not immediately of relevance to the core X-Files mythology. Personally I am not very happy with this idea. While there is nary a mention of aliens, government corruption and abduction in this one so that it obviously isn't in the core mythology, nonetheless it picks up on a very important thread of The X-Files's mythology. This is the theme of the American dream, which is shown to be hollow or a nightmare in The X-Files. It does this not only with fictional government cover-up of a planned alien invasion, but also by weaving in aspects of real cracks in the American Dream. And so we have the government hiding people with leprosy before killing the lot of them, we have unethical medical experimentation, we have troops who are prevented from sleeping for the rest of their lives, and so on. If it's on the list of things the US government really shouldn't have done, it's probably inspired an X-Files episode. I think it may be downplayed somewhat because so much of the commentary on the show is by Americans, but the significant cracks in America's self-image are a significant thread in the show's mythology, woven among the core mythology, and this episode is no exception. Here, we have a special community for (presumably) American citizens who couldn't just live anywhere and also make either a menial living or a living by exhibiting their abnormalities. This episode is holding up a mirror to America and saying 'With liberty and justice for all? Really?' It *should* be painful, or at least very mixed, viewing.

One of these days I might start a series of posts about these episodes where the American dream has gone sour.

Another aspect of the episode which tends to be downplayed is the emotional difficulty of living with being different. And so we have the alcoholic man with a parasitic twin, who in a monent of real pathos, comments that he is now free of being exhibited in a circus and instead carries other people's luggage. Frankly, the stress of being an outsider because of a body you can't help, is enough to make you alcoholic. 

This is the irony, that this town for circus sideshow people is of course based on a real place, Gibsonton in Florida, although apparently part of the reason it exists as such is that it has laws which allow you to keep your elephant at home. Supposedly this isn't allowed in a lot of places. 

I find the solution somewhat dissatisfying because Lanny is obviously an accessory to his twin's murders, but conveniently dies before he can be arrested. It is too easy when the murderer just dies. It also means that Lanny is a fraud because he is just carrying round a twin who can be detached. It messes with the intended light tone and also messes with the portrayal of the circus people as mostly morally neutral or good, if weird. In this it draws on the negative portrayal of circus people which has popped up in these posts now and then.

If I have a criticism of this episode (purely going by the online reviews) it is that it really tries to deal with some complex, painful human matters, but it comes across as merely entertaining to the majority of viewers. It was intended to be entertaining, so perhaps leaving out the more heavy human issues would have been a good idea? I think the solution has to be ambiguous, or at least off the wall, because otherwise how would you try a parasitic twin. 

For me personally, the overriding impression left by Humbug is plain envy that I have been tattooed by Andy, Mark and George, rather than by Katzen the Tiger Lady, as The Enigma has....