Reply #59: Michael Barkun thinks so

[salvorhardin]

Specifically he thinks that there has been a progressive destigmatization of these sorts of beliefs in recent years based on their positive portrayal in the media. The X-Files, especially the X-Files movie with its' near perfect synthesis of far right wing NWO paranoid fantasies and UFO mythology, have helped pave the way for the a similar synthesis happening in real world conspiracy culture where UFOlogists are adopting the rhetoric of the far right and the far right is adopting some of the beliefs of the UFOlogists. This is why Barkun sees the rise of what he terms super conspiracies in recent years.

Here's an interview with Michael Barkun for an Australian radio program:

Rachael Kohn: Well for the past few years, I must say I’ve had an eerie feeling that more and more films and television series were based on conspiracy theories, and of course The X Files is the most notorious of this kind. Does the pop culture phenomenon reflect an actual growing belief that we are the victims of conspiracies perpetrated by governments and evil cabals?

Michael Barkun: It’s hard to know what comes first, whether the conspiracy theories generate the pop culture programs, or whether the pop culture programs generate belief in conspiracy theories. I think it’s certainly partly both. I don’t think, for example, that a major motion picture like the picture ‘Conspiracy Theory’ with Mel Gibson, would have been made, had there not been a belief that there was an audience out there for it.

Rachael Kohn: And what’s interesting about that film is how it ends, when all the time you think Mel Gibson is a loony, he turns out to be right in the end. There really are people out to get him.

Michael Barkun: Yes, that I think is the most striking thing, and the element in the film that I found quite astonishing when I saw it the first time, because as you say, he gives every indication of being delusional. Up until that final scene when the camera pulls back and you see a sky filled with black helicopters which of course in a sense have become emblematic of contemporary conspiracy theories.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/spirit/stories/s1045973.htm