When I was growing up, I felt very alone in my SciFi fandom. I saw the first 4 Star Trek movies in an actual theatre (not all first run, obviously). Sunday night dinners were scheduled around Dr. Who. The first movie I remember seeing was Cocoon. Any friends I had in junior high or high school that watched that kind of shit were always dudes. So when my dad and I sat down to watch The X Files my junior year in high school, it was kind of a thrill that there was a strong female lead (and it was ever more exciting that she, like me, was very fair-skinned). But, if Salon's Rebecca Traister is anything to go by, there were fan girls all over, hiding out in front of televisions and loving the fact that the smart character who saves the day more than half the time was the woman of the show — Dana Scully, played by Gillian Anderson.There was a time, like Rebecca and Starski6 over at Feministing, that I was completely obsessed with The X Files. That time was not the Mulder-less seasons, though I never thought of him quite like Rebecca does, as "a walking pheromone, all languid eyes and long-necked eroticism." But I did cut a date in college short to go home at watch the show, a good date, even, with a nice guy, but it was a new episode. Even when the plots had spaceship-sized holes, even when there was not enough Mitch Pileggi to satisfy my Elektra complex, even when she didn't get to kiss Luke Wilson because he was a frickin' vampire, I was still coming back the next week to watch Scully be Scully and be smarter and faster than Mulder. I liked Dana Scully because she was the clear-eyed pragmatist, the nerdy girl done well for herself, strong, self-assured and still willing to learn and to question things even when she was pretty sure she knew the answer. So I am pretty damn excited to see the movie, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going with my dad because most of my SciFi-loving friends are still dudes. Unless Rebecca Traister wants to come with us? I'm pretty sure my dad can be conned into paying for the popcorn. Scully Have I Loved [Salon] Feminism And The X-Files (My Ode to Dana Scully) [Feministing]