Welcome to Outrage Watch, HitFix's semi-regular rundown of entertainment-related kerfuffles. Not anxious enough already? Get your fix of righteous indignation below, and stay posted for outrage updates throughout the week.
Some scandalous accusations are being lobbed against The X-Files' Fox Mulder: namely, that the staunch believer in alien phenomena and the paranormal is “against life, liberty, and the Second Amendment” as scripted by the revival series' writers.
The accusations in question come courtesy of Breitbart.com writer Warner Todd Huston, who writes in a scathing new piece on the right-leaning website that the character played by David Duchovny clearly reflects the “liberalism” of the show's writers through his clear dislike of Tad O'Malley (Joel McHale), the ultra-conservative host of a popular internet talk show who is openly compared to Fox News host Bill O'Reilly during the revival's first episode.
Here's the relevant portion that kicks off Huston's argument:
“Mulder opens his lap top to reveal…the Tad O”Malley show, and we hear the host saying, '…it comes down to this: It”s the mainstream liberal media lying to you about life, liberty, and your god given right to bear arms.'
“Immediately Mulder asks, 'Why would I watch this jackass, Scully?'
“Presumably we have just learned that Fox Mulder is against life, liberty, and the Second Amendment. But this would make no sense at all considering the fact that agent Mulder spent thirty years being accosted, shot at, attacked, oppressed, and suppressed by any manner of government operatives and agencies, including his own FBI.”
Throughout the piece Huston essentially accuses the X-Files writers of “launch[ing] a shot at Fox News and Bill O”Reilly” with the character and Mulder's reaction to him, despite what he claims is an unrealistic portrayal of a man who has “been made rich by his little web TV show” even though “there isn”t a soul in the world who has made that sort of money based solely on an Internet TV show.”
I don't know how the show will ever recover from this.