#FanX16: Actor William B. Davis explains the popularity of 'The X-Files'

I never got into "The X-Files" when it was in its heyday. Maybe I was too young for the original run, which started in 1993. Maybe aliens just weren't really my thing, back in the day; those commercials always kind of gave me the creeps. But when the Deseret News asked me to review the premiere episode of the 2016 "X-Files" revival, I wasn't going to turn that down, despite not previously having watched a single second of the series. I watched the revival and didn't mind it - I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more had I been a long-time Believer - and I reviewed it here in the Underground.

With that minimal knowledge of "X-Files" mythology, I waltzed into the Grand Ballroom of the Salt Palace for the Salt Lake Comic Con FanXperience 2016 press conference. It was at that point that I had the awesome experience of interviewing William B. Davis - the Cigarette Smoking Man of "X-Files" lore - a man who some would argue is the greatest villain in the history of television. And I wasn't going to turn that down, either.

He was a busy guy and the press conference was drawing to an end, but I asked him if he could explain what he believes helped "The X-Files" become on of the most popular TV franchises in the past 25 years.

"How much time do we have?" Davis asked with a smile.

"As long as you want," I replied. I knew this wasn't possible, but we did the best we could.

"I have a whole theory about its original popularity," he began. "I don’t know if you know anything of Marshall McLuhan and his whole idea about the medium and the message, and how you observe a medium…"

To be honest, I remembered learning about McLuhan in college, but the specifics of his ideology escaped me at the time. A quick search on Google this evening led me to Wikipedia, which summarizes:

McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself. ... [I]n Understanding Media, McLuhan describes the "content" of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As society's values, norms, and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to the secondary or tertiary effects in a cascade of interactions that we are not aware of. 

"In the ‘90s," Davis continued, "we were seeing the world for, kind of, the first time through digitization and through pixels, and when you do that, it changes how you see the world. And one of the things it did, it seems, is make us unsure of what was real.

"You know, we used to have a book – it’s in a book, it’s written down, that’s the truth. Now, we don’t know! It’s… and especially in the early days of the internet, you know, your screen would disappear." He laughed as he said it.

"Things would disappear in front of you. So a show about what’s real and what’s not real, I think, was particularly welcome to the zeitgeist in the ‘90s with the coming of the internet – and I could talk to you for another week about that one…”

I wish he could have.

Davis would appear throughout FanX 16, signing autographs and taking photos with fans, and appearing in an hour-long panel alongside his "X-Files" co-star, Mitch Pileggi.

For more information about William B. Davis' career, click here.

For more information about Salt Lake Comic Con or to buy tickets to an upcoming event, click here.