THIS WEEK IN XENA  NEWS...  
TWXN 90
07/23/97
Wednesday

The advance sheet of XENA MEDIA REVIEW (XMR):
http://xenafan.com/xmr

Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future
issues of XMR.


From the editor:

1. XMR #23 will go out late tomorrow. We are still
working on converting the old mailing list data to the
new webmailer format, so...we are still using the old
mailing method with only about half of the subscribed
people in the system. That means I will run a test
mailing Thursday morning with whatever addresses I have
to see who bounces. I apologize for how annoying this
all is, but I am determined that this system will
someday work!!!

2. The first substantial ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY article
on XWP was released 03/07/97. Mike Flaherty went wild
by flying cross-country, hitting a con, dropping in on
Meow Mix, and interviewing everyone he could find on-
line! In true EW exploitative practice, the article
highlighted a picture of Miss Artiphys kissing Xena
without a caption explaining that Miss Artiphys was a
guy in drag (you have to read the text for THAT
information).

3. Friday's TWXN will either go out late Thursday night
or early Tuesday morning, you see...I am spending a
long weekend in L.A. in celebration of the 3rd SoCal
XenaFest. YES!!! I will be there, schmoozing and taking
down names. If you see me, be sure to come over and say
hi. I will be asking people about what they like and
dislike about WHOOSH, XMR, and TWXN (yes!!! it's
demographics weekend!), and also just generally
socializing. Also, I am making myself available to ANY
dinner, lunch, or breakfast party if the inviting party
pays! After serious thought and consideration, I have
decided to start playing the internet webpublisher
leech scene (Andy Warhole is my rolemodel), so book
early and book often!


And here is the amazing article:


[    ] 03-07-97
   ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. Page 38. 3171 words.
"Xenaphilia. Fans of 'Xena' Have Fomented a Cultlike
Passion for Tv's Most Ferocious and Fetching Heroine.
But Is Their Devotion Enough to Cut a Swath for Future
Female Action Stars?" By Mike Flaherty, Additional
Reporting by Tricia Laine
   COMMENTARY:
   REPRINT:
   In a time of pop-savvy adolescent couch potatoes,
urbane camp addicts, and postfeminist professionals, a
land in turmoil cried out for a heroine: She was Xena,
a mighty princess, forged in the heat of prime-time
syndication.
   Striding through the TV landscape in truly mythic
fashion, our heroine has dealt a decisive blow to her
competition in record time. Midway through its second
season, the Universal Television fantasy-adventure
series Xena: Warrior Princess (check your local
listings) regularly beats syndication champs Baywatch
and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, not to mention the
sibling lead-in from which it was spun off, Hercules:
The Legendary Journeys. Earlier this year, the show
even won its Saturday prime-time slot against network
competition in New York and L.A. 
   Xena's weapons? A snarky, kitchen-sink warping of
one of TV's most notoriously formulaic genres---the
superhero odyssey. And the introduction of a lead
character (played by Lucy Lawless) who has
single-handedly upped the ante on women's place on
television. As Xena, the Amazonian Lawless traverses
the known world--with faithful sidekick Gabrielle
(Renee O'Connor) in  tow--defending the defenseless,
righting wrongs, and vanquishing anyone who gets in her
way. Each episode affords a plethora of ass-kicking
opportunities, in giddily absurd, hyperkinetic action
sequences equally reminiscent of Jackie Chan and TV's
Batman: See  Xena vanquish foes with her trusty
chakram, a razor-sharp metal circlet she hurls with
ludicrous accuracy and force! See Xena vault into
multiple midair somersaults! Hear Xena's
"Yi-yi-yi-yi-yi!" battle cry, a bansheelike wail her
fans avidly ape!
   Lately, those fans have become legion. Like Star
Trek and The X-Files before it, Xena is speeding toward
that most oxymoronic of distinctions, mainstream
cultdom. Evidence includes the first official
convention (in Burbank, in January), numerous
Xena-fests (organized by fans), Xena-themed apparel,
trading cards, fanzines, action figures, CD-ROMs, and a
Web presence of more than 60 sites and counting.
Perhaps more indicative of Xena's pop-culture
infiltration are the increasing homages on network
television: Both Roseanne and Something So Right have
featured Xena doppelgangers.
   What separates Xena from its cult predecessors is
its ability to reach a variety of rabid audience
segments on totally different levels. There's
something--and something quite different--for everyone.
For the married-with-children set, the show offers
nearly bloodless action and a morality tale in which
good triumphs over evil. Feminists like Dana Eskenazi,
a 37-year-old schoolteacher from New York, see a
take-no-crap grrrl breathing fresh air into an
estrogen-deprived genre. "There hasn't been a female TV
character who is totally independent of a male figure
in her life," says Eskenazi. "This is a woman who can
fight--and beat--men, who walks the world like so many
male adventurers have." 
   And Xena's invasion of a staunchly male domain, by
the way, doesn't offend straight guys. Hardly: "What's
not to like? The show is a scream. Xena's a total babe.
Not only that, she's a babe who likes other
babes...it's a babe-fest," says 20-year-old George, an
online devotee. "I watch her in action and think, 'Wow,
she could kick my a--,' and I kind of dig that." Gay
females, ironically, are hooked for much the same
reasons.
   At Meow Mix, a New York nightspot, all eyes are
glued to the TV screen over the bar, where Xena is
about to plant The Kiss. As she leans in and locks lips
with those of Gabrielle, her fresh-faced charge, the
distaff horde packing the bar erupts in a cacophony of
whoops and whistles. A few rapturous seconds later,
Gabrielle opens her eyes only to find she's not been
kissed by Xena at all but by a man--albeit a man
carrying Xena's soul in his body. Disappointed moans
erupt at this typically tantalizing sleight of
hand--followed, seconds later, by a full-throated cry
of "Rewind!"  
   A fixture of Gotham's downtown lesbian scene, Meow
Mix has also become a sort of pulse point for the
burgeoning cult. Once a month the club presents Xena
Night, featuring a screening of--and Rocky Horror-esque
interaction with--three episodes, followed by a
toy-sword fight in honor of the warrior princess. "It's
the one show on TV where I don't feel invisible," says
Montana, a 29-year-old library-science student who
appreciates the show's acknowledgment, however
indirectly, of her lesbian lifestyle.
   Though the character of Xena is regularly shown in
the intimate company of men, sexual ambiguity is a
mainstay of the show--which openly gay Xena producer
Liz Friedman is all too happy to admit: "I don't have
any interest in saying they're heterosexuals. That's
just bulls---, and no fun, either."
   Much speculation attends the Xena/Gabrielle
bond--and the appeal of the relationship is that you
can believe what you want. "They have love for each
other," says Xena supervising producer Steve Sears of
the two women, who teamed up in the first episode (Xena
saved Gabrielle from a wicked warlord). "It's up to the
audience to determine what that love is."
   "It's sort of like the old Star Trek," says Kym
Masera Taborn, chairperson of the board of the
International Association of Xena Studies--no
kidding--a Web-based think tank of sorts. "It's so
off-the-wall and seems so cut off from everything that
you can do some pretty controversial things."
   Truth be told, the show is more slyly teasing than
downright naughty, which, smartly, keeps it family and
advertiser friendly. During a recent episode, Xena,
masquerading as a contestant in the Miss Known World
beauty pageant, pastes a lingering kiss on the winner,
Miss Artiphys. The miss is really a mister
(natch)--and, in typically envelope-pushing fashion,
the producers cast drag queen, gay rights activist, and
recent inductee into the Adult Video News' pornstar
hall of fame Karen Dior, a.k.a. Geoff Gann, in the
role.
   Sexuality isn't the only thing Xena plays fast and
loose with. In chronicling the exploits of the
babelicious leather and metal-clad crusader, executive
producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert adopted the campy,
irreverent signature they used to comic effect in their
Evil Dead film trilogy. In the Xenaverse--the name
given to the show's timeless sense of place by its
devotees--history is bunk. Characters spout
Shakespearean platitudes one minute, Brooklynese
wisecracks the next. Plotlines don't so much careen
across eras as commingle them, creating a milieu that's
primeval, classical, medieval, and surfer dude all at
once. One episode finds our heroine plunked into the
middle of the Trojan War (turns out Helen was an old
acquaintance); in another, she's visiting 1940s
Macedonia. Somehow, hilariously, it works.
   But while the show might be a goof, Xena's power is
not. "In the past, when a woman had been inserted into
a basic male archetypical story, [TV producers] made
the female almost too female," says Taborn, who also
edits the online Xena 'zine WHOOSH! (a reference to the
show's omnipresent sound effect). "With this one,
they've kept her pretty serious." Friedman agrees,
contrasting Xena with a TV predecessor: "Wonder Woman's
nails were always perfect, and she really looked like
she cared about it. If Xena were in the middle of a
fight, and a guy accidentally yanked off her top, she
wouldn't go 'Aah!' and cover her chest. She'd punch the
crap out of him."
   The aptly--and truly--named Lawless (Flawless to her
fans) debuted as Xena on Hercules in a three-part arc
that aired in the spring of 1995. In her original
incarnation, Xena was an evil warlord and foe of the
mythic strong man. When overwhelming viewer response
led Tapert and John Schulian to create a spin-off, Xena
underwent a transformation to become a force for good,
though one still plagued by the sins of her marauding
past.     With her severe good looks, Xena evokes a
long line of pop-cult visages--Barbarella, Vampirella,
even '50s pin-up queen Betty Page--as she rapidly joins
that pantheon. To embody this uberwoman, Lawless, an
Auckland, New Zealand, native, has made good use of her
comedy background (she appeared on the New Zealand
skit-com Funny Business at age 20), her training in
music (the former opera student will sing her own songs
for an upcoming straight-to-video Xena/Hercules
cartoon), plus a self-assuredness in storming
traditionally male strongholds (during a brief stay in
Australia, she was one of the country's few female gold
miners). And as the separated mother of an 8-year-old
girl, Lawless, 28, is sympathetic to young women's need
for a role model. "I hope it does become the next great
TV phenomenon," she told the Baltimore Sun in January.
"I think it has caught a wave, a need of some kind for
a stronger female hero." But the actress quickly added
that Xena's greater purpose is to make you laugh. "It's
mainly a hoot."
   Still, Xena represents a refreshing divergence from
the mawkish, movie-of-the-week brand of female heroism
that has proliferated in the '90s. And Raimi wouldn't
have it any other way. In fact, he's cashed in on
postfeminist heroism before, in his depiction of Sharon
Stone's strong, silent gunslinger in the 1995 film The
Quick and the Dead. That role, along with an evil
hell-raiser portrayed by Hong Kong actress Brigitte Lin
in The Bride With White Hair (1993), was to some degree
a forerunner of Xena. With Xena's success, Raimi
believes, the people have spoken, and he's hoping his
new action series, Spy Game, starring Allison Smith
(see review on page 56), will benefit from a growing
taste for kickboxing chicks. "The audience is not
afraid of watching some women break out of the
conventional mold," says Raimi. Unfortunately, he adds,
"the Hollywood establishment may not be aware that the
audience really wants that."
   Currently, next to Lawless' Xena, the most
conspicuously empowered female leads in prime time are
The X-Files' brainily alluring Dana Scully (Gillian
Anderson), Kate Mulgrew's Captain Janeway on Star Trek:
Voyager, and the USA Network's La Femme Nikita
(starring Peta Wilson and based on the 1991 movie of
the same name). Since three out of those four are very
popular (Nikita debuted less than two months ago), why
do meaty female action roles continue to be such a
rarity?
   "I think that television in particular is a medium
of the familiar, not of breathtaking new changes," says
Xena's Friedman, who points out that in TV's 50-year
history, only a handful of successful, rock-'em
sock-'em female leads have emerged--Emma Peel (The
Avengers), the Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman, Cagney and
Lacey--and most of them in the more politically
strident '70s. 
   A predictable target of blame: the
still-male-dominated ranks of TV execs. "It's a bias of
the TV industry, [this belief] that women will watch
shows about men, but men won't watch shows about women,
and therefore half the audience will be lost," says
Susan Douglas, author of Where the Girls Are: Growing
Up Female With the Mass Media. The Xena audience proves
that theory wrong: About half of its adult viewers are
male. Granted, they're watching as much for Xena's
pulchritude as for her pluck; nevertheless, it's
sending a message.
   For the most part, though actresses playing forceful
women must navigate a tightrope between strength and
femininity. "I'm often cautioned not to cross a certain
line one way or the other--'Don't be too butchy, don't
be too vulnerable,'" says Kate Mulgrew of playing
Janeway. "But I'll tell you, I'd much rather have this
set of challenges than play some bimbo on Melrose
Place."
   Kay Koplovitz, founder and CEO of USA Networks--a
rare female network head--maintains that the balancing
act is in deference to viewers of both genders. "I
think when you develop this kind of role, you risk
having a strong action figure who is not sympathetic.
It can be intimidating, it can be off-putting. Women
who are too strong can be overbearing to men and
women."
   Friedman believes that Xena has figured out a way to
solve that problem. How? In a word, subversion. "I've
always been a big believer in the power of popular
culture," she says. "The best way to convey more
challenging ideas is to make something that functions
on a mainstream level but that has subtext that people
can pick up on--or not." Add a Trojan horse and you've
got an episode of Xena.
   (Additional reporting by Tricia Laine)
   GRAPHIC: WOMEN UNDER THE INFLUENCE: Now that Xena's
Lucy Lawless has butt-kicked her way to femme-fatale
fame, here's a salute to her sisters in arms: (1)
Wonder Woman's Lynda Carter, (2) Goldfinger's Honor
Blackman, (3) Police Woman's Angie Dickinson, (4) The
Bionic Woman's Lindsay Wagner, (5) Aliens' Sigourney
Weaver, (6) Barb Wire's Pamela Lee, (7) The Avengers'
Diana Rigg, and (8) Barbarella's Jane Fonda 1 [Lynda
Carter in TV show Wonder Woman]; 2 [Honor Blackman and
Sean Connery in movie Goldfinger] 3 Angie Dickinson in
TV show Police Woman]; 4 [Lindsay Wagner in TV show The
Bionic Woman]; 5 [Sigourney Weaver in movie Aliens]; 6
[Pamela Lee in movie Barb Wire]; 7 [Diana Rigg in TV
show The Avengers]; 8 [Jane Fonda in movie Barbarella];
Lucy Lawless as Xena, Warrior Princess; [Lucy Lawless
in TV show Xena: Warrior Princess]; BEHIND THE XENA:
From left, Lawless with O'Connor; kissing Dior's Miss
Artiphys; putting her best foot forward at the first
official convention [Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor in
TV show Xena: Warrior Princess]; [Lucy Lawless and
Geoff Gann (Karen Dior) in TV show Xena: Warrior
Princess]; [Lucy Lawless karate-kicking]; LEATHER
QUEENS: Following in Xena's boot steps at the Burbank
convention are Laura Wolfe, Daryl Bartosh, and Olivia
Joncich, 3 [Laura Wolfe and Daryl Bartosh dressed as
characters from TV show Xena: Warrior Princess; Olivia
Joncich dressed as Xena]; IT'S REIGNING FEMMES: The
X-Files' Anderson, Nikita's Wilson, and Voyager's
Mulgrew are TV exceptions, not the rule [Gillian
Anderson in TV show The X-Files]; [Peta Wilson in TV
show La Femme Nikita]; [Kate Mulgrew in TV show Star
Trek: Voyager]

Because of the size of the article, I have forgone the
end of the newsletter notices. If you wouldlike to read
them, please refer to TWXN #89. Thank you.

