Some reviewers felt the violence was excessive.
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Critics were generally complimentary, and praised the disturbing nature of the plot several made comparisons to the work of director Tobe Hooper.
THE X FILES HOME TV
"Home" would be the only episode of The X-Files to carry a TV-MA rating upon broadcast and the first to receive a viewer discretion warning for graphic content if the system had been present at the time the TV Parental Guidelines rating system would be introduced two months later, on December 19, 1996. Watched by 18.85 million viewers, the initial broadcast had a Nielsen rating of 11.9. "Home" is a " Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the overarching mythology of The X-Files. Directed by Kim Manners, it was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong.
THE X FILES HOME SERIES
" Home" is the second episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, which originally aired on the Fox network on October 11, 1996. Sebastian Spence as Deputy Barney Paster.Tucker Smallwood as Sheriff Andy Taylor.“The Role of the Media in Promoting Images of Disability: Disability as Metaphor, the Evil Crip.” Canadian Journal of Communication 18.1 (1993): 75-80. In terms of disability, for The X-Files the truth is still out there.ĭahl, Marilyn. American culture and media remains preoccupied with distinguishing between those with bodily differences and those supposedly without. It’s focus on fears surrounding disabled people reveals broader social anxieties concerning disability. The show’s desperation in enforcement of ableist precepts concerning different bodies threatens to destabilize the certainty of bodily normality. In the episode, the brothers are characterized as having animal-like qualities, as Sheriff Taylor says, “Guess you could call them human.” Even the name, the Peacocks, is a hint towards an ironic othering of the family – not only are they animals, but peacocks are symbolic of physical beauty stemming from their colorful plumage.
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The show appears to desperately enforce the demarcation of the disabled other through the stripping of humanity from the disfigured Peacocks.
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THE X FILES HOME FREE
Horror movies make free use of this strategy.” In an attempt to contain and justify the horrific qualities of the Peacocks, the show uses incest as a plot point to further emphasize and distinguish the differences between people with disabilities and non-disabled people. Again, Dahl notes that, “Research into the relationship between physical attractiveness and crime in various media found that physical ugliness and physical differences are often associated with media depictions of violence and crime. Outward physical characteristics directly translate to villainous and anti-social behavior, suggesting a direct, one-to-one correlation between appearance and character embedded within the logic of the show. The episode uses the Peacock family to embody many modern social anxieties surrounding people with disabilities. While capitalizing on the sensational and gruesome, the show never truly addresses the heart of the most troubling matter: why are we so afraid of physical difference? In fact, it plays off our fears of people with disabilities, using them to scare us rather than considering the consequences for those with disabilities. This is certainly the case for this episode. Disability scholar, Marilyn Dahl, acknowledges this tendency in media towards negative reductions of people with disabilities, saying, “It has been a convention of all literature and art that physical deformity, chronic illness, or any visible defect symbolizes an evil and malevolent nature and monstrous behavior” (1993). Ruthlessly violent and prone to anti-social behavior like incest and infanticide, the Peacocks embody that most prevalent and historic trope surrounding people with disabilities – that is, that they are inherently deranged, lacking in morality, or simply, evil. The episode focuses on the members of the Peacock family, comprised of three disfigured brothers and their limbless mother. Home has gained the distinction of being one of the most disturbing episodes of The X-Files, or of broadcast television in general, for that matter. None, perhaps, has achieved the levels of notoriety as the episode simply entitled Home. The show has its own designation for one-off, self-contained mini-narratives – the so called “freak of the week” episodes – which feature monsters and mutants that seldom make more than one appearance in the series-arc, but which are among some of the most iconic of the long running program. Many of the paranormal entities and cryptozoological creatures featured on the show are employed as metaphors to explore larger societal issues.
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The X-Files, just confirmed for its eleventh season this summer, is thought of as being virtually synonymous with the unsolved, unknown, and misunderstood.