Cigarette Smoking Man

Cigarette Smoking Man (abbreviated CSM or C-Man; sometimes referred to as Cancer Man or the Smoking Man) is a fictional character and the primary antagonist of the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series The X-Files, at least from the second to seventh series, and again in the tenth. He serves as the arch-nemesis of FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder. In the show's sixth season, his name is said to be C.G.B. Spender, but Dana Scully suggests this is one of "hundreds of aliases"; the show's characters and fans continue to refer to him by variations of "the Smoking Man" because he is almost always seen chain-smoking Morley cigarettes.

Although he utters only four audible words in the entire first season of the show, the Smoking Man eventually develops into the series' primary antagonist. In his early appearances, he is seen in the offices of Section Chief Scott Blevins and Assistant Director Walter Skinner, Mulder and his partner Dana Scully's supervisors. An influential man working for the powers that be, he is a key member in a government conspiracy known only as the Syndicate, who are hiding the truth of alien existence and their plan to colonize Earth. His power and influence remained strong, even after most of the Syndicate was destroyed.

The Smoking Man is portrayed by Canadian actor William B. Davis. When Davis first received the role, the character was written as an extra for the pilot episode. He returned for small cameo appearances during the first season, making increasingly more appearances in the seasons that followed. Davis never received an award for his portrayal alone, but he was nominated for ensemble awards.

TV Guide included him in their 2013 list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time.^[2]

Character arc

The birth date, birthplace, and most of the history of the Smoking Man is never categorically confirmed. One possible version of his past is provided during the fourth season episode "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", where the conspiracy theorists known as The Lone Gunmen claim Smoking Man was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on August 20, 1940. In the same episode, he is claimed to have a long history in black ops and American intelligence, was involved in the training of Cuban rebels in the Bay of Pigs, and was the assassin of both John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. ^[3] However, X-Files writer, Frank Spotnitz, has stated that this version of events is only one possibility and is not accepted canon.^[4]

In his first appearance in the series, he oversees FBI agent Dana Scully's (Gillian Anderson) briefing and debriefing, and later disposes of evidence Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully had brought back from their investigation of an alien abduction.^[5] With the Smoking Man hiding truth from the public, Mulder seeks to reveal it to the public and the truth about the disappearance of his sister, Samantha. This leads to a rivalry that lasts until the end of the series.^[6]

In later seasons, it is revealed that he is a member of a group known as the Syndicate, a shadowy organization within the United States government.^[7] The episode "Two Fathers" reveals his birthname or alias as C.G.B. Spender, and that he was formerly married to Cassandra Spender, with whom he had a son, Jeffrey Spender. He recruits FBI Special Agent Diana Fowley to be a subordinate of his because she has a close relationship with Mulder.^[8] In "One Son", Jeffrey finds out that his father, the Smoking Man, forced his mother Cassandra to undergo medical treatments that led to several nervous breakdowns during his childhood years. When the Smoking Man finds out, he seemingly kills Jeffrey. Knowing of the colonization plan, the Alien rebels return to Earth to try to persuade the Syndicate to join their side against their war with the Colonists. Not believing in the strength of the Alien rebels, the Syndicate members meet at El Rico Air Base to be transported to a spaceship to survive the colonization. However, the rebels appear instead of the Colonists and kill all remaining chief members of the Syndicate. Together with Fowley, the Smoking Man escapes the destruction of the Syndicate.^[9] Later in the sixth season, there is more evidence that suggested that the Smoking Man is Mulder's biological father. Eventually in "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati", Fowley comes in disagreement with him. Because of his plans to kill Mulder, Fowley helps Scully in her investigation to locate Mulder, which leads to her death. After the destruction of the Syndicate, the Smoking Man starts to operate as he wishes.^[1] However, his cancer resurfaces, and he begins using a wheelchair and has a tracheotomy. In the end, Alex Krycek and Marita Covarrubias betray him in the episode "Requiem", throwing him down a flight of stairs, where they presume him to be dead.^[10]

Until the ninth season episode "William", the Smoking Man is presumed dead. It is learned that his attempted murder of his son failed, which led him to subject his son to terrible experiments.^[11] In the series finale, "The Truth", Mulder and Scully travel through remote New Mexico and reach a pueblo where a "wise man" reputedly lives: he is, in fact, the Smoking Man. His condition has worsened since his disappearance, and he lives a primitive life in hiding from the "New" Syndicate. After taunting Mulder and Scully, he reveals to Scully what Mulder already knew, that the alien re-colonization of Earth is set for December 22, 2012. Shortly after, Smoking Man is again apparently killed by a rocket shot from a helicopter ordered by Knowle Rohrer.^[12]

For the next 14 years, he is presumed dead. However, he appears again at the end of "My Struggle" (2016), the first episode of The X-Files miniseries, stating that the X-Files have been reopened. In the season finale, "My Struggle II", the Smoking Man puts into motion the conspiracy he had been working on all these years, releasing chemtrails into the atmosphere which trigger immune system breakdowns throughout the American population, which had been infected by the Spartan virus through mandatory flu vaccinations. Out of fondness for Mulder, he offers him the cure to the disease, but is rebuffed. The United States is thrown into chaos as the Syndicate plan for depopulation gets underway. The series ends on a cliffhanger.

Spin-off media

Prior to the tenth televised series of The X-Files in 2016, Chris Carter worked with IDW Publishing in 2013 to produce a comic book continuation of the show. It hints that The Smoking Man is alive and indirectly feeding information to both Mulder and The Lone Gunmen.^[13] Carter later said that the story from these comics would be disregarded in future television productions.^[14]

Characterization

Kim Manners, a director of several X-Files episodes, said that the Smoking Man was the show's version of Darth Vader.^[6] Some X-Files fans have categorized the Smoking Man as evil, making him out to be the villain. Series creator Chris Carter, on the other hand, once called him "the devil", producing a mixed reaction among fans. Some fans, along with the portraying actor, see him as a hero, as he is forced to make choices others are not.^[15]

On the surface, it may seem that the Smoking Man merely tries to hide information from Mulder and Scully, but there is much more to him. He is involved in the Syndicate, a shadow organization which includes members of the United States government that exists to hide from the public the fact that aliens are planning to colonize Earth. The Smoking Man often ruthlessly protects the secrets of the conspiracy, and serves as the main antagonist to Mulder, who has an equally consuming devotion to reveal the truth in the first seven seasons.^[16] His stated justification is a desire to prevent the alien colonization for as long as possible; in the episode "One Breath", he tells Mulder that he is in the conspiracy (which he calls "the game") because he believes that the secrets he keeps could, if publicly revealed, threaten the social order that preserves society: "If people were to know of the things that I know... it would all fall apart". He is at times shown working towards that goal, particularly in connection with developing a vaccine to protect people from the "black oil", a parasitic agent which the alien Colonists use to propagate themselves.^[9]

Development

When first cast for the role, portraying actor William B. Davis thought a show about the paranormal would not last for long.^[18] Before joining The X-Files cast, Davis had not smoked a cigarette in twenty years. For the first two episodes he appeared in, he smoked "real" cigarettes, but later changed to herbal cigarettes, giving the reason that it was dangerous for his health.^[19] In at least one early script draft from the "Pilot", a Special Agent named Lake Drazen is present at the meeting near the start of the episode, having chosen Scully for an assignment to evaluate the validity of Mulder's work on the X-Files. The scene was eventually deleted and replaced, and several crew members have hinted that Agent Drazen became the Smoking Man.^[20]

Kim Manners said that it seemed all the prominent pieces created for The X-Files were created by "accident". According to Manners, Davis was nothing more than an extra leaning on a shelf. At the start, the producers of the show were not sure about making the Smoking Man the main antagonist. Paul Rabwin commented once that he did not know if Davis could handle the role, because he was not sure if he was a "good enough" actor for the role. Manners later commented that Davis knew that the Smoking Man had two different characters, the first being the one played by Davis and the second was the cigarettes. He further stated that the cigarette smoke could tell a "whole story" by itself, thanks to Davis' talent.^[6]

Fans of the series were active in debating if the Smoking Man was actually dead after the events of the season five premiere "Redux". In his first response, Chris Carter said he had left clues in the episode, and he later officially announced that the character would appear in The X-Files movie. In one of his last comments on the matter, he said, "Not that we haven't brought deceased characters back before, in flashbacks or more paranormal ways. The great thing about The X-Files is that anything can happen."^[21]

The Smoking Man is the only character in the series, in addition to Mulder and Scully, to appear in both the first episode, "pilot" and the last, "The Truth" of the series. Portraying actor William B. Davis was listed as CIA Agent in the first season episode "Young at Heart", instead of his usual character, the Smoking Man. Actor Chris Owens for a time portrayed the Smoking Man as a young man in flashbacks. He later plays his son, Jeffrey Spender.^[22] Young Cigarette Smoking Man was first played by Craig Warkentin, with Davis's voice dubbed over in "Apocrypha".^[23]

Reception

While not being nominated for any of his work alone on The X-Files, William B. Davis and several other cast members were nominated in the category "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series" by the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1997,^[24] 1998^[25] and 1999 but did not win.^[26] The character was regularly voted "The Nastiest Villain" on television polls during the 90s. TV Guide listed Cigarette Smoking Man 20th in their "25 Greatest TV Villains" list. According to the portraying actor, the character had garnered protest from "pro-smokers".^[27] Entertainment Weekly writer Jennifer Armstrong cited the character as an example of the old tradition of having only "bad guys" smoking on television.^[28]

Davis was included in Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Biggest Emmy Snubs, the list's author saying that the presence of the "Cigarette Smoking Man" was as important as "black oil, alien implants, and Scully's skepticism".^[29] The Malaysian newspaper the New Straits Times called the Smoking Man one of the most "intriguing" characters of the show.^[30] However, Christianity Today said that the mystery behind the Smoking Man had evaporated by the late season episodes.^[31] Likewise, Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly felt that "the monotonous evil of Cancer Man" had "become actively annoying" in later seasons of the show, being that his lurking presence did not seem as mysterious anymore.^[32] Salon reviewer Jeff Stark felt the show was at its best when you "didn't exactly know the motivations of the Smoking Man".^[33]

References

Notes

Bibliography

• A. Kowalsi, Dean; B. Davis, William (2007). The Philosophy of The X-files. Kentucky, US: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2454-9. 

External links

• Cigarette Smoking Man at The X-Files Wiki