======================================= FEAR OF FEMININITY. A CRITIQUE OF XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS IAXS Project #263 By Joe Guy (joeguy@idirect.com) Copyright 1997 held by author 1826 words ======================================= [1] Do not get me wrong -- I am not "dis-ing" Xena. I would not dare. She would kick my b*tt. It is not Xena's fault that part of her show is lacking. It is our fault. We let it happen. We indulge a modern superstition and the result is a paradox that drives me nuts every time I watch the show. [2] Xena is supposed to be a celebration of womanhood. Xena has fan clubs, LOTS of fan clubs. Women everywhere love the show, and do you blame them? But to men - Xena is juvenile. She fulfills a fantasy for women, a fantasy that guys grow out of after age 10, or whenever we stop reading steroid funnel superheroes. [3] Yes, that's right folks - I am claiming that men are NOT like bonds - they DO mature, in some ways. One way is in the use of force. [4] Force is our business. Once males go through puberty, it is no big deal for them do develop enough upper body strength to kill another man by accident. Force is not woman's business. Women never need to learn to handle it. [5] Woman today complain that men are maladroit in relationships. It is proven that we are not as articulate as woman. It is also policy (proven through horrible experience) that in terrorist hostage situations, the female terrorists are to be shot first by invading SAS, Delta Force, GSG-9 type teams. This is because the male terrorists will usually hesitate to kill hostages for the few critical seconds needed to kill them, but the females will not hesitate to shoot anything immediately. [6] I believe that this is because the brain wiring women use to relate to men with for love, etc., is used by men to relate to other men in violence. This is important because if we did not do this, the human race would be extinct due to no, or very few, men. If you think we are violent NOW... [7] In my opinion, men grow out of tough guy fantasies early in life, usually after their first good fight. But women do not. They do not have a clue. [8] Here is a typical Xena story. The bad guys commit some atrocity or another and Xena comes along. She punches out the bad guys and puts matters to right. Ring a bell? Which episode was that? Was that like my favorite HOGAN'S HEROES episode, the one where Hogan out-maneuvered Col. Klink? Or the Classic STAR TREK episode where Kirk wooed the alien woman? How about STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION where Picard pondered the Prime Directive? That one was my fave! [9] Here is the paradox: XENA IS A CELEBRATION OF MASCULINITY. Xena is afraid to be feminine, in any way. She despises it. [10] Here is the episode that put me over the edge, CRADLE OF HOPE (04/104). (Two days later I discovered IAXS, lucky for the reader -- no?) Xena and Gabrielle meet Pandora III, who still has THE box. She has to reset the lock every 24 hours (and only she can) or it will open and HOPE will escape. The box gets captured by the bad guy de jour and Xena has to infiltrate the palace AS A DANCING GIRL! Oh me! Oh my! How sexist! But, the creative powers that be took care of that alright. They blew a MAGNIFICENT opportunity to show Xena is an excellent dancing girl. [11] There is a raucous party. It is men behaving badly'. The girls enter dancing, and right away you know which one is Xena. She is the one showing no flesh AND jeering broadly. She cannot even be bothered to conceal her politically correct contempt. (Yes, that will teach US all right! She will show THOSE bad guys!) [12] But, in this disguise, she is supposed to both pass as a dancer AND get picked by the Big Evil Guy to spend the night in the palace. He is her ticket in. That is why she is doing this to begin with. However, to be frank, she stinks. She made my skin crawl. In real life she would have been pelted with rotten vegetables by these men. The main reason is the stupid costume, but the attitude reeks too. The dancing is actually not so bad. [13] The show does not work for me after this. As a viewer, I am supposed to suspend disbelief, not hang it by the neck until it is dead. They just plain wimped out. I HATE that. [14] WHY is she afraid to show some flesh? Are her abs lame? Probably not. In fact, they are probably washboard. So why? [15] (As an aside - here's a blown opportunity to show a part of the body where a trained woman is the peer of any man. The male is at least 3 times stronger in the upper body and twice as strong in the legs as a female. But in the ABS, where all power in the martial arts comes from, woman are as strong as men! That's right ladies! Equal at last! So, here's chance to show some washboard abs as good as ANY guy's, and they blew it! Clueless!) [16] Is it a fear of political incorrectness? Folks, you cannot pass as a warrior if you are afraid to offend. There is no room for fear in a warrior. But Xena is not really a warrior. She is some writer's IDEA of what a woman warrior is supposed to be. [17] The PROPER way for her to have infiltrated the palace would be to come in wearing the silk bikini thingy like the other girls, smile and be SOFT and YIELDING and DOE-EYED and all that GIRL stuff (ewwww), do the dance, be OH SO flattered to be picked by the great Bad Guy (Who, ME? I am so happy!) and KICK THE STUFFING OUT OF HIM LATER. THAT is the way to do it. (Actually, she should take him to bed and LOVE HIM TO DEATH. That is even better. When the guards try to awaken him later: "Xena's on a rampage, sir! Sir?" They cannot wake him up! They cannot even wipe the smile off his face! That is the way to do it. But this IS TV, so OK.) But no - Xena had to handle it like a man. [18] When Bad Guy actually picks the "Jeering Jezebel", she is so disgusted, she is trembling. Of course, she clobbers him in bed later, just after he touches her. But folks, she never would have gotten there. We are NOT THAT STUPID. [19] The thing is - Xena is acting like a man. Classic female behavior is given no opportunity at all. When you think about it, this is the most sexist thing imaginable. What the XENA creators are saying is that only the masculine has merit. [20] Another boy mistake she makes (boy being someone who is learning to handle masculinity) is that her sword is too heavy for her. Her wrists fold over when she swings it. It is a macho guy mistake to pick a baseball bat or bow (in archery) too heavy for him. It has to be explained by the coach that better results are achieved by the best fitting tool. He can grow into a heavier one later. No one has explained this to Xena. She has not got the wrist strength to handle the sword she has now, and she never will, yet she will not change it. This worship of upper body strength is a total denial of femininity, yet Xena is held up as a female icon. [21] I keep hoping that someone will beat her, just to teach her this stuff, but if that happened a lot of women would get their hearts broken, and I would not like to see that happen. (On the other hand, maybe she would stop that incredibly irritating war cry...) But honestly ladies, you are making some of the same mistakes we guys made when we are teenagers and younger. [22] I will now offer some examples of female power as evidenced by my own personal experiences, and you probably will not like them very much as they involve strippers -- two of them. [23] I encountered the first in the 80s when I was training with the Canadian Militia Airborne. Her name was Jane Jones. There was a strip joint north of Moss Park Armories called "Filmores", and I went there for lunch. Jane Jones was on stage and, after two minutes, I knew she was in better shape than me or any of the paratroopers I was training with. She was rippling all over the stage like a leopard. I was extremely impressed and not just a little turned on. Her strength and grace were incredible. I was in awe, and so were a lot of other guys in that building. [24] The second stripper was built more like Xena. Her performing name was "Sgt. Brittany, The Forces Secret Weapon". She was the opening act for Ginger Lynn or some other porno star stripping for bucks. This was some years later. Ginger Lynn turned out to be another attractive blond dancing nude. This is not so bad, but Brittany... [25] Brittany was like when Van Halen was opening for Scorpion. Van Halen got fired because they, as opening act, were blowing the "name" act away. "Sgt. Brittany" completely blew the star away. This girl was heavier-set than Jane Jones. She was not a body builder. She had muscles like a pit bull, yet she was totally feminine and sexually attractive. [26] She had this HUGE girl power and strength, I don't know how to describe it except to say it is like a tire. Really, it is like a tire on your car. A tire is a very tough thing, yet it's soft and it yields. Still, it's not weak, is it? That's what she had. No guy can have this strength. It's a female thing. Male strength is to NOT yield. [27] I can still see her dancing nude across the stage. It was magnificent. We were barking at the moon. She had 200 guys on their knees, helpless in the presence of her GIRL POWER. If Xena had done ANYTHING like that, I would have been in awe. But they WIMPED OUT. [28] No guts - no glory. Biography Joe Guy (joeguy@idirect.com) http://www.thirdstory.com/whoosh/pictures/guy.jpg I am a computer consultant in my early forties - i am single; all the good ones are married. I have a background in computer science, advanced geeking, martial arts, the militia, and BBSing. Favorite episode: THE QUEST Favorite line: Autolycus: "I paid for an hour." THE QUEST First episode seen: THE GAUNTLET Least favorite episode: CRADLE OF HOPE