4x20: Small Potatoes

[wendelah1]

Egad. Day six already. True confession: I have watched "Small Potatoes" several times just for the scene in the X-Files office where David Duchovny is playing Eddie Van Blundht, the human shapeshifter. Eddie, who has locked up the real Fox Mulder in a janitorial closet in the basement of the local hospital, is now practicing his moves in preparation for taking over Mulder's life. Duchovny's a good mimic, and demonstrates a genuine gift for physical comedy. It's a funny, funny scene.



Writer: Vince Gilligan
Director: Cliff Bole
Originally aired: April 20, 1997

Synopsis: After five babies in succession are born with tails in the small town of Martinsburg, West Virginia, Mulder and Scully head down to investigate.

Most Memorable Quote:
Mulder: I have a theory. Do you wanna hear it?
Scully: Van Blundht somehow physically transformed into his captor and walked out the door, leaving no one the wiser?
Mulder: (pleased) Scully, should we be picking out china patterns or what?

Links:
Transcript
A Good Fic Spoiled: X-Files, "Small Potatoes" by Plaid Adder. I recommend all of her meta series on The X-Files.
Autumn Tysko
Sarah Stegall
Confusion of Rape and Desire in the X-Files Universe by fialka. Addresses "Small Potatoes," also "Post Modern Prometheus."
Only Connect: Scully in Season Four - Part 1 | Part 2 by emily_shore.

Fanfiction:
Isometry by syntax6. Wendy's note: Touches on the events of "Small Potatoes."
Summary: The story of a man, a woman and their lucky pickle. Season 4 cancer era. Rated NC-17.
Small Fries by Kel. Written for Virtual Season X.
Summary: Mulder and Scully investigate the case of some six-year-old shapeshifters.

Comments

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I would have to answer no, because I'm a heartless, soulless monster with no regards for human kind, because let's face it, that's the subtext isn't it?

First I would like to bring some nuance to this statement: So you aren't bothered by the portrayal of rape, torture, or death.

I am not bothered by the portrayal of FICTIONAL rape, torture and death. Show me a documentary on those same topics, on the other hand, depicting real life events with real people and I will react with horror and disgust like everybody does (or should).

I'm not sure how to phrase this right but it's like this big concrete wall between subjects matter that are used for a joke and reality - a complete disconnect between the fictional state of the joke world and what happens in the real world. I guess this is what allows me and other French people to find humour in topics that are taboo elsewhere.

I looked at the various things you named and I could find an example of jokes I've heard at some point for nearly all of them - mostly in France tbh - though I can't say I've heard rape jokes per say. I guess this is where the line gets drawn.

Infanticide: check, when that dead baby was found in the freezer of a French woman a few years back, we had jokes about that on national radio.

Genocide: check, at some point Nazi jokes were quite popular at Uni, mostly because they used terrible puns. The same people who laughed at those jokes went on to loudly protest when Faurisson came to give a lecture on "Gas Chambers never existed." IIRC he had to find another place to give his speech to avoid riots.

Pedophilia: check, the Catholic Church gave a lot of fodder to many French stand up comedians.

Torture, I can't recall, though, I would bet there are many a Guantanamo jokes around.

Suicide bombers. Check. A few days after 9/11, the satyrical puppet news on Canal +, posted this fake Sport newspaper headline: "Allah 1 - God 0".
I did feel bad for finding it funny, but I did because it was so outrageous. And yet, I will always regret watching the documentary of the event done by those French rookie Firemen because I can still hear the sound the bodies made when they fell and it still twists my stomach in horror whenever the memory resurfaces.

I'm not trying to prove my humanity here, merely trying to give evidence of this peculiar dichotomy.

Sometimes I find things that are highly innapropriate funny. I am not sure why I do, I just know that I grew up among people who behaved the same way. There is a very strong cultural factor to this I suspect. I guess the bigger the outrage the more disconnected from reality it feels?

Who said rape was an OK topic for screwball comedy? Is this how you interpret my finding Small Potatoes funny?

An entire comedy plot about infanticide or pedophilia wouldn't be my cup of tea because I don't find those subject matters appealing in any way. But it wouldn't be a 'problem' for me if they existed because they would be fictional stories, with characters, not real flesh and blood people.

Nameless characters from a joke have no substance - or named characters that are so removed from the person who is laughing's reality. I guess this is the reason why I have a hard time mustering outrage. Funny is funny. People are amused by different things. The mechanisms of laughter are most likely highly complex and I'm neither a neurologist nor a philosopher.