Xena: Failed Experiment?

A few days ago I posted an article titled "Xena: Cease & Desist?" which provoked some deep thought and very articulate feedback. I proposed the possibility that the apparent going-off-the-rails that has occurred in Season Three may be in response to a policy directive from the show's owners. The reason I suggested was to remove credibility from the pre-Christian world's example of an alternate social orientation, and thus protect the prevailing modern imperative.

But this may not be the case, or at least the whole case, and I would like to offer another possibility, more basic, less specific, but perhaps even more coercive.

In the recent Dutch newspaper interview uploaded on the Netforum, Lucy mentioned that the target marketplace for the series was teen-age boys. We know of course that teen -age boys represent only a small part of the show's actual audience, with both genders and all ages having taken X:WP to heart. And the major lesbian component is probably a market sector they either did not predict or did not rate as quite so likely to be attracted as their other targets. It has been said that Tapert et al. had a lesbian subtext in mind from the very beginning, and this may be true, however it also sounds like playing retrospectively to an established market.

What does X:WP represent? Adventure, humor, romance, all of these things, with, at the outset, a healthy dose of reality, enough to make the stories genuinely compelling. Many would say that this compulsion, the "suspension of disbelief" is what is being eroded. It is impossible to conclude, as discussed in "Cease & Desist," that this trend is not the conscious policy of TPTB, so we must ask why.

The show has come to represent the new female ethos. Whether it was meant to or not is irrelevant, it *has.* The new ethos is the one that promotes strength, independence, equality, all the things that the old "women's lib" movement preached so long ago, and which have matured in the world. X:WP would have been an impossible program five years ago, but the sheer fact it has been made does not mean it will survive. Why? The ethos is dangerous.

Entertainment in the US is said to be controlled by very wealthy, very old, Jewish males. They run the agencies, the studios, the networks, they hire, they fire, they hold the bank books and they make all the decisions. This may be a rude generality, and there are always exceptions, but Hollywood is a town with very strict, but also very murky, unwritten rules. It is the guile and art of producers to navigate those rules and get their shows made within them.

X:WP has become a cult, an icon, a rallying cry for women everywhere, who have been given a magnificent example of what their gender can accomplish if gifted with the physicality, the will and the opportunity. This vast reaction is possibly not what the show was seeking to evoke, but it's what happened. Now we have people from all walks of life thronging to the show, to conventions, to parties. We have families, we have singles, we have straights and lesbians, we have orthodoxy and we have neopagans, all of them mingled together in a cosmopolitan muddle which is more or less peaceful. But a lot of social imperatives are becoming clouded by it, not least the "reality" of the older generations, to whom the notion that a woman can make it in a man's world is utterly ridiculous. Therefore X:WP is utterly ridiculous. But with all that support, all those people who believe, it's also dangerous.

The title of this piece is "Xena: Failed Experiment?" and this refers to the pioneering nature of the show. If the experiment had succeeded, it would have found a male teen marketplace and played to it, returned dividends to its backers, and everybody would be happy. But it has found so much more that the cornerstone is being knocked out of the social homestead for no few people, on the forum as well as in the general community, and the backers, those who own the series and call the tune, may be more than a little worried.

Back about 1980, the old Glen Larson production of Buck Rogers transitioned to its second season. Now, whether it was a good show or a bad one is not the point here, but the anecdote I am thinking of is highly appropriate. The first season featured the classic character of Colonel Wilma Deering, a fighter pilot and senior officer of the Earth Defense Directorate. In the second season, the incoming producer decided that the military aspect of women in authority was no longer necessary, the direct quote (from Starlog) being "the joke has gone far enough." Females in the second season were functionless menials in girly costumes, which clearly was their natural role and position in the eyes of the new producer.

Consider this: X:WP is an experiment in whether females can carry an action show. It succeeded in that respect but spun off the unanticipated event of suggesting to women that they are the equals of males, that the 1990s is a decade ready to acknowledge them as equals in human society. And this assumption may be premature.

When X:WP is finally canceled, don't expect a direct replacement in the genre. When the Australian TV Week previewed the new shows of '98 they proposed that Xena could be knocked off top spot in the public popularity of female-lead shows by -- get this -- Kirsty Alley in just another sitcom, wearing the most ludicrous hairdo of the decade, or maybe some new show about a lawyer with a funny-sounding name.... I don't see the connection, personally. There is no vaguest resemblance in approach or content, in motivation or theme. Where do they anticipate the competition arising? That's because the other shows are the social norm, and Xena is an experiment, which by some criteria has failed.

Joe Loduca recently let slip a rumor that Renee O'Connor may be getting her own show next season. A Xena offshoot, probably, we may assume. (I dunno, she could be the phys-ed teacher at Amazon High...) But this serves the purpose of defeating the undesirable spin-off effect of the subtext. The show is a lesbian icon now, whether it was meant to be or not, so the policy of the Third Season has been to put the gals at each other's throats, create a situation that may be untenable, irresolvable, and thus provide the motivation to part them effectively.

Gabrielle is too popular to simply get rid of, however: before the new season went to air a few months back the forum talked about Gabs almost to the exclusion of Xena, so if she'll sell a show she can have one -- but not the same one as Xena. Xena, meanwhile (my prediction) will get a male sidekick for the remainder of the run, one with whom she can have a nice stable relationship, maybe even get pregnant again. Or a female one with whom she will have no intimate relationship, because the whole experience with Gabs has turned her off completely. Am I off track? Maybe not. A few months ago I predicted accurately that Hope would kill Solon. I oughta write this show, though I'd never have written this! I would never have dreamed of a self-destructive storyline, I would not have schemed to get rid of what was a totally satisfactory format.

But that format was obviously not satisfactory to those who make the decisions, it's as simple as that. Peel away the layers of artistic reasons, the kind of careful statements TPTB can make direct to the fans, and you come back to the kind of policy level that can make the producers change the end of an episode at will.

I suggest that X:WP is contrary to social policy. It promotes independent females who can compete with males, and society seems unready for that. We may have hoped that the making of the show indicated that the contrary was the case, but the radical self-destruction of the show we are observing says otherwise. The owners are in a difficult position, they are coining it with a gigantic success, but whose details are a total embarrassment to them. They love the money, but....

I would be more than delighted to find out that this particular conspiracy theory is totally wrong, and that the show has been wrecked for less sinister reasons, but whether that would make it any easier to put it right again, who knows?

We should be thankful that we have the first two seasons to treasure for ever, so that we can revel in our (minority?) opinion that women are not second-class citizens, and cheer when Xena kicks the living crap out of the bad guys. It could be a one of a kind show, at least until the world grows up and shrugs off the patriarchy-programming that has held sway since before the age when the Amazons really did defy the whole program.

Yours in sober thought,

Whitesword