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Friday, Oct 10, 2008
Ten years ago the Warrior Princess stormed the small screen, leading the way for the "girl power" that followed.
Sep 15, 2005 | I'm not sure when I first heard about "Xena: Warrior Princess," or when I first tuned in to see what it was all about. I remember watching reruns on the SciFi Channel and being drawn by the show's unique balance of dark drama and wacky comedy, the fights that mixed gritty realism with stylized martial arts, the reinvention of ancient history and myth combined with snappy modern dialogue -- and the characters, above all Xena herself.
There was something different about this show and its hero. Eventually, after watching a sixth-season episode that made me curious about story lines I had missed, I went on the Internet to catch up, and fell in love.
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the first time Xena rode onto America's television screens. Actually, not quite the first: the Warrior Princess, played by New Zealand's Lucy Lawless, had debuted several months earlier on "Xena's" parent show, "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," as an evil warlord (warlady?) plotting to kill the great Hercules. This first incarnation of Xena was less a true warrior than a femme fatale who kicked ass. Still, the character appealed to viewers and producers alike: Originally meant to turn good, have a fling with Hercules, and die at the end of a thee-episode arc, Xena got a reprieve and a show of her own. For the next six years, she battled on, conquered the syndicated action/adventure market and changed history -- the history of the world in the Xenaverse and the history of popular culture in real life.
"Xena" is credited by many, including "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creator Joss Whedon, with blazing the trail for a wave of female action heroes: Buffy, Max of "Dark Angel," Sydney Bristow of "Alias," Starbuck in SciFi's new "Battlestar Galactica" (in which Lawless guest-starred last week) and the Bride in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill." (Tarantino is an enthusiastic "Xena" fan: He talks about his love for this "really cool show" in an interview on the DVD of "Double Dare," a recent documentary about Hollywood stuntwomen featuring "Xena" and "Kill Bill" double Zoë Bell.) Nonetheless, the series could have adopted as its own the Rodney Dangerfield mantra "No respect."
"Buffy" largely eclipsed "Xena" on the cultural landscape as the "girl power" show, garnering the critical analysis, the accolades for creative innovations that "Xena" did first (such as a musical episode) and, when it wrapped up, the grand farewell in the media. Too often, "Xena" got written off as campy swords-and-sorcery fare, a kids adventure show or a chicks-in-leather lesbian romp. Yes, of course it was campy, and it was a fantasy action show with gods and monsters that appealed to many children. And it did play unabashedly with lesbian themes. But it was so much more than the sum of all those parts. It had great characters and smart writing; riveting stories that often drew not only on ancient history and mythology but on sources as varied as medieval legends, Shakespeare, Richard Wagner and "The Producers"; and a cool, bracing feminism that was practiced, not preached.
How was Xena a female pioneer? Let me count the ways. She had no male support or regular romantic interest. She didn't, unlike Wonder Woman or the Bionic Woman, have a conventionally feminine day-to-day alternate identity, though on a mission she could pose as a Roman matron, a virgin priestess or an exotic dancer. Xena was not "strong but feminine"; she was unapologetically strong and unapologetically female, sexy and powerful, unafraid to get sweaty and dirty on the job, and all the more beautiful for it. Nor did she care about pleasing anyone: In one memorable exchange, a slick opportunist seeking to enlist Xena as an ally says, "I like you," and she shoots back, "Don't. I'm not a likable person." (As Lawless once said, Xena is "a good person who doesn't think she is.")
A flawed hero haunted by her dark past, even the "good" Xena could be angry, arrogant and, at times, driven by rage and revenge. She could also be vulnerable and tender, capable of caring and feeling deeply -- Lawless did a superb job of capturing this blend of toughness and vulnerability -- but those qualities always felt like aspects of her humanness, not reassurances of her womanhood. Yet while she pushed the limits of how much like a male hero a heroine could be, Xena was the first and probably is still the only action heroine who was also a mother -- not counting warrior moms who fought only to protect their young, like Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor in "Terminator 2." She was, safe to say, the only one who gave birth and breast-fed onscreen.
The show's groundbreaking depiction of women was not limited to Xena herself. Her sidekick and friend, Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), a village girl who had left home to travel with Xena and pursue her dream of becoming a warrior, had her own heroic journey. And there were plenty of other strong female characters: the vengeance-obsessed warrior Callisto, whose family had been killed in one of warlord Xena's raids; the charismatic guru Najara, who was either a noble crusader against evil or a dangerous fanatic; Lao Ma, a fictional Chinese philosopher-empress whom the series whimsically credited with writing the Tao Te Ching; and Boadicea, Britain's historical warrior queen.
Unlike some other female-empowerment shows, "Xena" eschewed overt feminist messages (with occasional exceptions, such as a jab at beauty pageants when Xena went undercover as a contestant). Xena and Gabrielle fought a variety of mostly male baddies, but they were not fighting sexism or the patriarchy. Gender, in the Xenaverse, just wasn't a big deal: No one questioned Xena's ability to fight and command, or Gabrielle's desire to be a warrior, because they were girls. Ironically, one of the few episodes that dealt explicitly with gender issues introduced a man-hating female outlaw just to teach her the lesson that it's not women vs. men, it's good people vs. bad. In fact, plenty of the show's good people were men; its primary male regular, Xena and Gabrielle's occasional tag-along, Joxer (Ted Raimi), was a comically bumbling warrior wannabe -- but also, in his own way, a true hero willing to risk his life for his friends. Meanwhile, the Amazons were not an idealized sisterhood but tribes with their own power struggles, conflicts and tyrannies. Women on "Xena" were simply human, no better or worse than men: feminism as it ought to be.
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