#40. CANCER MAN from THE X-FILES.
Many X-Philes refer to him as the Smoking Man but I’ve always preferred “Cancer Man”. It has a better ring to it and more symbolic connotations. The best part of Cancer Man’s character (for me anyway) is that, in his heart, he’s a frustrated, failed writer. There’s a wonderful scene in his origin episode where he’s willing to give up his global machinations because he’s about to be published under the name Raul Bloodworth (the story brilliantly named “Take a Chance: A Jack Colquitt Adventure”.) The shadow world of invisible manipulation is over, the dream of notoriety in the sun can begin. When he realizes the editors have changed his ending, he realizes there’s no retreat for him (the real him) anymore. I wonder if the fine publishers of Roman a Clef met an untimely end afterward.
When I was young, I believed in conspiracy theories. I liked the big ones, where generations of rich, powerful cabals secretly play the world like a Milton Bradley game while cigars are furiously smoked. Everyone sits in shadows with red drapes in the background, weaving away an ultimate goal of some Big Brother takeover or planetary Apocalypse. This isn’t a momentary power play to manipulate the law for financial gain (like, say, Monsanto), but a focussed long-term agenda for control of our souls and planet. Like THEY LIVE without the aliens.
As I got older, those big conspiracy theories just kind of fell apart. It’s in our genetics to find comfort in storytelling. We root for the underdog, boo at the villain and see things with a beginning, middle and end. They help us cope with the pure chaos of living. It’s more comforting to believe that some faceless organization like the Cancer Man’s Syndicate is forever plotting to circumvent mankind into the abyss. That means we can someday expose them, punish them and inherit our collective destiny back.
I think the world (and us as a species) is way more convoluted than that. Mythology teaches us what we know intuitively (to live together under an equitable social contract), but we still wallow in greed, hostility and childish jealousies that force us to easily corrupt the ideal. I guess, like Fox Mulder, I want to believe — but not in preternatural entities traveling from afar, but that one day we’ll instinctively follow the better angels in ourselves.
Cancer Man: “I can kill you whenever I damn well please. But not today.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0acEl97ZBME
