THIS WEEK IN XENA  NEWS...  
TWXN 96
08/06/97
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. I just realized I am getting very, very close to
TWXN #100 and I am still 4 months behind...XWP is
clearly doing too much press. 

2. What's on the plate for today??? Denver and Dallas!
The two "D" cities published significant articles about
XWP on the same day...coincidence? You bet! The
articles, however, each take different approaches to
the subject matter. Denver's is a tradtional 'let's
talk about the show' article while Dallas decides to
delve into the historical predecessors of the warrior
princess. 

3. Friday...yes, Friday, we will go back to piecemeal
articles. Dallas opines about the people who are most
likely to go to hell. We discover who Lisa Berlin is
and why she is so important to our perception of XWP.
Little Rock looks at how monsters in Xena may affect
younger tykes. The Times-Picayune has a little blurb
about ELLEN vs. XENA. An EW letter writer calls up the
spirit of Xena to help her cope with freeway
frustrations in LA. There are more snide comments from
the British press (are they made uncomfortable by the
warrior princess or what? they sure wear THEIR neuroses
on their sleeves!). Toronto conjectures how a young
boy's thoughts turn from toy trains, toy cars, and toy
planes to THE WARRIOR PRINCESS. XWP compared favorably
with ER! AND MORE...


But nonetheless. here are Wednesday's stories:


[    ] 03-23-97
   THE DENVER POST. Sunday. Page F02. 660 words. "Xena
slaughters the entertainment stereotypes" By Susan
Estrich
   REPRINT:
   She is being hailed as the "post-feminist icon,"
gracing the cover of Ms magazine, winning role-model
contests among seventh- and eighth-grade girls, and
handily beating "Baywatch" in the weekly television
syndication ratings. 
   She is Xena, and she is a feminist challenge.
   Xena is a warrior princess, dressed in a leather
bustier and armed with a chakram, a razor-sharp discus
weapon she hurls at her enemies.
   Xena is smart and fearless and strong and powerful.
She takes lovers across racial lines, she kills
enemies, and she is forever loyal to her sidekick,
Gabrielle.  
   "She really appeals to younger, post-feminist women
and girls," said Sarah Dyer, editor of Action Girl
comic magazines. "She wears a skirt, and she proves you
can fight really well in a skirt. She has cool-looking
hair, but she kills people."
   If good hair and wearing a short skirt make you a
post-feminist, then let's all sign up.
   Why shouldn't women embrace their own sexuality as
power - and use it?
   If feminists of earlier generations shied away from
that most traditional source of female power, it was
largely because they had more experience with sexuality
as a route to the bottom than to the top. When Xena
walks into the room, men look, but they don't dare
touch. As for the atrocities people have seen her
commit, most of the violence these days is aimed at
rapists and marauders, but Xena is not above slugging
even Gabrielle when pushed to her limit. 
   Early on, many local TV station managers were
reluctant to air the show, according to Robert Tapert.
"They thought no one would want to see a woman hitting
men." Not so. Tapert and his partner, Sam Raimi,
created Xena after building their careers with male
fantasy thrillers. The genius of this show, according
to its creators and staunchest supporters, is the
extent to which gender is not an issue.
   "I believe, in the basest and crassest of ways, that
there's a formula to stories about heroes, and no one
had ever tried to do this before with a woman hero,"
Tapert explained. "Or if they did, they made excuses
for her being a woman."
    Kym Masera Taborn, chairperson of the board of the
International Association of Xena Studies and editor of
the on-line Xena magazine WHOOSH! (there are dozens of
Xena-related websites), offers essentially the same
assessment: "In the past, when a woman was inserted
into a basic male archetypal story, they made the
female almost too female. With this one, they've kept
her pretty serious."
   Liberal feminism has been much criticized for buying
in to the notion that equality consisted of the chance
to beat the boys at their own game, while sending the
message to more traditional stay-at-home moms, wives
and volunteers that what they did was less valuable.
Notwithstanding the efforts of feminist law reformers
like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to represent men as
often as women, feminism's earliest and greatest
success has indeed come in allowing women to cross over
into a man's world and compete on men's terms, with all
that implies about whose world is better.
   The pendulum of current thinking has swung so far in
the other direction that the view that women can be
just like men is actually being labeled
"post-feminist." Retrofeminism is more like it. Of
course women can be as strong and tough and powerful as
men. When do we get to stop proving that?
   In her autobiography, Katharine Graham recounts a
moment when she told Warren Buffett, the largest
investor in the newspaper company she had just taken
over, to be unsparing in his criticism but to deliver
it gently. Xena would never say that. But I would, and
so would many women I know - and even some men.
   Xena's way is fine. But so is Graham's. She's my
"post-feminist" superhero, and judging from the
best-seller list, I'm not alone.
   Watch out, Xena. Susan Estrich is a law professor
and a contributing editor of the Los Angeles Times. She
was national campaign manager for Dukakis for President
in 1988.
   GRAPHIC: Lucy Lawless plays the fierce and fearless
warrior princess Xena.


[    ] 03-23-97
   THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Sunday. Page 1F. 1946
words. "Warrior Women. Images of strength are capturing
the imagination of '90s females" By Colleen O'Connor
(Dallas Morning News)
   EXCERPT:
   Women warriors, both real and fantasy, are hitting a
nerve with '90s women. From a North Dallas grandmother
to a California scientist, they're mesmerized by images
of female strength and daring.  It's like John Wayne
for women: stiffens the spine and squares the
shoulders.
   Women on war horses, thundering into battle with
mighty screams - big, raven-haired and terrifying. 
Quivers of arrows on their backs, daggers in their
belts, they fearlessly defended their families and
their land, avenging murder and rape and pillage. 
   Such visions capture the passion of modern women
because they realize, often with surprise, that this
really is their heritage.     "As Texans say, they
don't take anything from anyone," says Jo Wharton.
   Leader of a local women's circle, she's a big fan of
women warriors, from TV's Xena, Princess Warrior to the
historic Queen Boadicea, who rode into battle against
the Romans during the first century to avenge the rape
of her daughters. 
   This fascination with women warriors galloped into
public attention with the recent discovery that Amazon
women were perhaps not just a nice myth for storybooks. 
A few bones and weapons found in graves halfway around
the world have raised eyebrows from here to England...
   ...In Dallas, the news spread fast.
   Many women say they've clipped the story from
newspapers as evidence of a distant past of power and
might.  Jo Wharton is one such woman....
   ...The TV warrior
   * On television, there's Xena, Princess Warrior. 
Like the Amazon women, Xena is an avenger.  Surrounded
by enemies, barbaric tribes, slave traders and a slew
of other evils, she fights to help people free
themselves from tyranny or injustice.  The popular TV
character has spawned a popular warrior-woman doll.
   "I'm probably the only grandmother in Far North
Dallas with a Xena doll," says Ms. Wharton, who got the
doll as a Christmas gift from her daughter. "She's
about the size of Barbie, but what a difference!"
   Her feet are firmly planted wide apart, and much of
her strength is in her powerful legs. 
   "I think Xena touches me and so many women because
she can take care of herself so well," says Ms.
Wharton.
   "You always know Xena will win in the end, just like
the old cowboy serials at the movies.  She has immense
strength and confidence, but she uses her strength to
do good. . . .  I like it that millions of girls can
see Xena take care of herself."
   Like many women, Ms. Wharton seeks out images of
women warriors - Xena, Boadicea, the Amazons - because
they speak to her heart, even over centuries of time.
   Their message?
   "If women used to be able to change their lives,
then perhaps I can change mine," she says. 
   Or as Dr. Nutt says: "Women can be a warrior in all
kinds of ways, not just on a horse with armor.  It's
about how you live, the way you take power and use
it."...
   ...TELEVISION AND BEYOND: In addition to Xena,
Princess Warrior, newly discovered women warriors are
popping up in discussions on the Internet and
elsewhere.  They include:
   Tomoe Gozen of Japan, who wore armor, rode a horse
and fought along with her master and lover in the 12th
century.
   The Aztec women of Tlatelolco, who tucked up their
skirts, dressed in war regalia and shot arrows at the
enemy. 
   An Islamic woman warrior named Nusseyba bint Ka'b
who defended the prophet Mohammed in a battle with
saber and bow and arrows.
   Lozen, the Apache woman warrior who was often
photographed with Geronimo. She sang war songs, plotted
battle strategy and was a fierce fighter...
   ...GRAPHIC:...Jo Wharton's Xena doll, given to her
by her daughter, symbolizes the time when women were
respected for their power....



Notices:

All back issues of XMR and TWXN are available at
(http://xenafan.com/xmr). We herein give praise and
thanks to Tom Simpson for the space he has graciously
donated from his spectacular, TOM'S XENA PAGE
(http://xenafan.com). If you have never been to TOM's,
you are **not** a xenafan!

TWXN is the advance sheet for XMR, an annotated world
press review of reports regarding the internationally
syndicated television show XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (1995
- 2000+?) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee
O'Connor. TWXN is not available for subscription,
however it is posted Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on
the XenaVerse, Hercules-Xena, and Chakram Mailing Lists
(thank you Lucia! I am greatly indebt to you), the MCA
NetForum (when it isaccepting posts), the Xenite
Message Center (when I can figure out where it is), and
alt.tv.xena. I also would like to thank
sirvin@law.wfu.edu for assitance in collecting the
newstories. For a free e-mail subscription to XMR
subscribe by e-mail to ktaborn@lightspeed.net by
stating somewhere in the subject or text "sub xmr". 


