Xena: Warrior Princess as Feminist Camp

Joanne Morreale

The fantasy-action adventure show Xena: Warrior Princess is now the number one new syndicated program on American television, and among the top ten syndicated series worldwide, regularly beating such mainstays as Baywatch and Deep Space Nine in Nielsen ratings. It airs on some 200 stations across the United States, with a wide demographic appeal. According to the Star Tribune, Grandmas as well as fourth graders, academics along with oafs, feminists and good 01 boys all love this video comic-strip (Tillotson). Xena has become a popular culture phenomenon, with star Lucy Lawless gracing the cover of both TV Guide and Parade magazines, Xena fan conventions held at major American cities, and numerous Internet web sites devoted to Xena.

Xena: Warrior Princess is notable as one of the first television series to place a woman in the role of the archetypal hero on a quest. The Xena character, created by veteran horror filmmakers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, first appeared as a villain on the program Hercules, which they also produce. Critical response to Xena was so great that they decided to create a spinoff, but executives at MCA Universal, the studio that dis- tributes both Hercules and Xena, demanded that they first get her turned around so that shes good (Zurawik). Thus, Xena: Warrior Princess describes the adventures of a mythological character who has renounced her evil ways and pledged to avenge the innocent. Yet, like many of the mythical male heroes after whom Xena is patterned, she retains a dark side, and she constantly struggles with the evil within. Her sidekick and confidante is Gabrielle, the rightful queen of the Amazons who abdicated her throne in order to join Xena. Their close bonding clearly supercedes their relationships with men (which never seem to last more than one episode). Indeed, Xena and Gabrielles ambiguous sexu- ality is a constant subject of speculation both in the press and among Xenites.

The ambiguity and contradictions that define both the Xena charac- ter and the show itself may account in part for the shows widespread appeal. Her character is simultaneously masculine and feminine; the show is both male-oriented action-adventure and female-oriented fan-

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tasy. Moreover, on the level of its story, or content, Xena: Warrior Princess is overtly feminist, yet its discourse, the way the story is told, remains traditionally patriarchal. These contradictions, along with the shows postmodern format, enable viewers from different subject posi- tions to read their own meanings into Xena. As one of these many possi- ble readings, this essay discusses Xena as feminist camp which subverts traditional female stereotypes despite its formal acquiescence to the dis- course of patriarchy.

To begin, I will examine the contradictory representation of Xenas character by placing her within the historical context of warrior queens. According to Antonia Fraser, several themes recur throughout history with regard to Warrior Queens. No doubt because of their masculine characteristics, they are associated with sexual ambiguity. Xena is no exception here. A second recurring theme is the Shame Syndrome, whereby all of the surrounding male figures are described as failing in courage compared to the Warrior Queen herself. The Shame Syndrome is highlighted not only by Xenas ability to defeat the many male war- lords who threaten the stability of the known world, but also in the pro- grams only recurring male character, Joxer. His name is a play on Joker, and he is presented as a buffoon, a warrior wanna-be who is clearly inferior to both Xena and Gabrielle. Then there is the Appendage Syndrome, where historical Warrior Queens typically are connected to the nearest masculine figure, whether as a wife or daughter. The fact that Xena does not illustrate the Appendage Syndrome is a testament to the shows feminist slant. Xena has an absent father and no husband, and although mention is occasionally made of her having a son, he does not appear on-screen. She did learn some of her fighting skills from her (deceased) brother, but her most advanced technique, the neck pinch, was learned from another woman. Her sidekick is female. Unlike histori- cal warrior queens, Xena is dependent on no man.

Fraser notes that Warrior Queens evoke a a specialfrisson-of fear or admiration-primarily because they depart so radically from the notion of the feminine with which women have been associated throughout history (8). Yet, the term warrior princess illustrates the contradictory nature of Xenas representation. Warrior suggests her masculine side, but even though Xena is a mature woman, older and wiser than her sidekick Gabrielle, she is referred to as a princess. This diminution from queen to princess, an attempt to reducefrisson, defines her as stereotypically, even excessively feminine.

Contradictions are also apparent in Xenas dress and appearance, which are simultaneously masculine and feminine. Karen Pusateri writes:

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Xenas outward appearance-leather mini-skirt and boots, bronze breast plates, bare thighs, long straight dark hair, and piercing blue eyes-is part harem girl (feminine) and one part warrior (masculine). Her clothing highlights her femi- ninity while at the same time shielding it. Her sword, a masculine image of strength and power which could be seen as a phallic symbol, is worn at her back or her side. Her chakram, a circular metal disk with a razor sharp edge ... is worn on her hip. Its circular shape is symbolic of the female sex and is her ultimate weapon and source of strength. This duality of feminine and masculine identi- ties makes those around her uncertain. Men are both attracted to her and terri- fied by her. It is this confusion which serves as her ultimate weapon of control and power. (3)

While Xenas appearance and character exhibit both masculine and feminine traits, she most clearly fits into traditional female stereotypes on the formal level of the text. USA Network CEO Kay Koplowitz notes that forceful women characters must strike a balance between strength and femininity. She says: 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 both men and women (Flaherty 6).

This so-called problem is surmounted by the way that Xena is feminized by the look of the camera. Her masculine leather suit is cut to reveal her ample cleavage, and it is not unusual for the camera to linger on her legs, or for the plot to find some excuse for Xena or other women to appear scantily clad. In the Here Comes ... Miss Amphipolis episode analyzed below, for example, the opening scene, shot in close- up and in slow motion, depicts several women being chased down a beach, wearing very little other than skimpy white gauzy wraps. Later in the same episode, we see Xena and the other women enjoying a sauna, barely wrapped only in towels. This traditional shooting style, from the point of view of the male voyeur, along with the programs generic status as a fantasy, keeps Xena from being too threatening, from creating too muchfrisson. She is still available for male pleasure, if not in terms of the story, where she is often in control of the look and her point of view carries the narrative, but in terms of discourse, where she is still made into an object of desire for the male viewer.

What deserves investigation, however, are those moments in the story where Xena does challenge traditional representations of women. One way to read Xena as a feminist text is to examine it as an instance of feminist camp that parodies gender roles through masquerade. Often the plot calls for Xena to disguise herself as a traditional woman in order to defeat the villain. In so doing, the masquerade allows Xena to subvert female stereotypes by highlighting their constructed nature.

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First, I will briefly discuss the relationship between camp and femi- nism as articulated by Pamela Robertson, in Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna. Susan Sontags famous essay, On Camp, written in 1964, defined camp as:

a failed seriousness, a love of exaggeration and artifice, the privileging of style over content and a being alive to the double sense in which things can be taken. (277)

Robertson notes that camp has traditionally been associated with a gay male subculture rather than feminism. Yet, while Sontag still associ- ated camp with gay male practices, the resulting publicity from her famous article disseminated camp into the mainstream. Camp became a commercialized taste, as demonstrated in the works of Andy Warhol. Pop camp later became associated with postmodernism, and equated with what Fredric Jameson refers to as pastiche, or blank parody. Xena, for example, may be regarded as a pastiche in the way it weaves a tapes- try of images and themes from different cultures, mythological and Biblical traditions, and historical time periods. We see characters that range from Julius Caesar to Santa Claus, and plots that borrow from the Biblical tale of Moses to Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. Xena receives advice from Hippocrates and fights in the Trojan War; one episode, the Xena Scrolls, even takes place in 1940. As Mike Flaherty observes:

Characters spout Shakespearean platitudes one minute, Brooklynese wisecracks the next. Plotlines dont so much careen across eras as commingle them, creat- ing a milieu thats primeval, classical, medieval, and surfer dude all at once. (4)

In this case, the result is pastiche rather than parody because these images and themes are appropriated without comment, without a critical point of view towards them.

Xenas production style, too, is consistent with postmodern camp. Visuals predominate over the sparse dialogue. Producer Rob Tapert calls Xena cotton candy for the eyes (Hercules and Xena). There are hyper- bolic sound effects and visual techniques. For example, when Xena throws her special weapon, the chakram, it is accompanied by a loud whoosh, and often a small camera mounted behind it follows its trajec- tory with a close-up shot. There are also extraordinary displays of ath- leticism and prowess, such as Xena doing backwards jumps, flips, and spirals vertically into the air, catching a flying arrow between her teeth, or performing the infamous breast dagger launch where a dagger flies

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out of her bodice without her having to use her hands. Even the dia- logue, laced with double entendres and intertextual references, moves Xenu into the realm of excess that is characteristic of camp.

Recent feminist critics have begun to take note of camps potential for modifying perceptions of the status quo, particularly with regard to sex and gender stereotypes. According to Pamela Robertson:

Camps attention to the artifice of feminine images of excess helps undermine and challenge the presumed naturalness of gender roles and to displace essen- tialist versions of an authentic female identity. (6)

And:

For feminists, camps appeal lies in its potential to serve as a form of gender parody. Gender parody becomes a critical tool, a way of initiating change in sex and gender roles. (10)

Here Comes ... Miss Amphipolis is perhaps the most determinedly campy of any Xena episode produced to date. It is also the most explic- itly concerned with gender. Its surface theme-a beauty pageant for the title of Miss Known World, parodies the most sterotypical manner of presenting women as objects for male desire, and in so doing, reveals the performative aspect of female identity-in the classic words of Joan Riviere, femininity as masquerade. The beauty pageant is the classic female performance. In this case, a group of male sponsors, warlords who had recently signed a peace treaty, have entered their women in the contest, which is being held by a neutral king. Yet, someone is sabotag- ing the contest by injuring or even trying to kill the contestants, and the fragile peace is being threatened. The emcee of the contest, Salmoneus, calls upon Xena to enter under false pretenses-to masquerade as a beauty contestant in order to prevent further violence from being perpe- trated.

Xena, then, a woman who typically wears a male mask, must mas- querade as a woman. It is what Mary Ann Doane refers to as double mimesis, or parodic mimickry, that reveals the constructed nature of both masculinity and femininity (176-83). In the opening scene, even Salmoneus equates the wearing of costumes and femininity. A group of screaming contestants wave their arms helplessly in the air as two men wielding swords chase them along the beach. Xena and Gabrielle save them by throwing clams-a sexual reference?-at the men. Salmoneus yells back at the retreating men, Get away from those girls. Those cos- tumes were not meant to take that kind of abuse. In one sense. he is

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referring to his concern only for what the women are wearing, but in another sense, his comment is metonymic-the women are their cos- tumes. In a somewhat ironic remark, Xena, then, reveals her scorn for the traditional female, as she complains to Salmoneus, You sent word for us to come see some underdressed, overdeveloped bimbos in a beauty contest? Of course, from the (male) point of view of the camera, Xena, too, can be seen as underdressed and overdeveloped, if not a bimbo. Then the story takes on the rhetoric of modem day feminism, as Gabrielle complains, Its just a feeble excuse for men to exploit and degrade women, while Salmoneus replies, Since when do we need an excuse?

When Xena agrees to enter the contest in order to prevent a war from breaking out, her first words are, Find me a disguise. Salmoneus comes up with a blonde wig, to which Xena adds a simpering voice and hyper-feminine gestures. The elderly matron who helps the contestants prepare for the contest sees the completed feminine Xena and acknowledges her constructed nature, If I had your looks, Id fool the world, she says.

The constructed nature of gender representations is also highlighted when Xena crosses paths with another contestant, the appropriately named Miss Artyphys, played by real life drag queen and gay rights activist Karen Dior (aka Geoff Gann). Both stop and give one another a long stare of what, in retrospect, was recognition. Later, Xena is locked in the sauna. After she escapes, she immediately confronts Miss Artyphys. Without hesitation, Xena rips off Miss Artyphyss wig to reveal that she is a man in drag. When Xena asks why she locked her in the sauna, she replies, I knew you knew about me. They both recog- nize the other as someone who is playing a woman. Xena ends the con- versation by implicitly acknowledging that they are both in drag: May the best person win.

When we see Xena dressed in her beauty pageant outfit, her parody of traditional gender roles is most apparent. She dresses in a tight waisted gold lam6 gown, fetishistically adorned with scarfs and fringes. She shimmies down the runway, blowing kisses with exaggerated femi- nine gestures, but she cannot resist rolling her eyes upward as she turns back. There is a dance number, with requisite numbers of feathers and sequins, that mocks the spectacles seen in modem day contests. Instead of smoothly choreographed moves executed in geometric precision, these women bump into one another and bumble about onstage. As Salmoneous sings a womans a natural thing, Xena trips over her gown, ripping the fabric as she tries to hold it up. She sneers as she takes her bow. The visual here contradicts the verbal message that is indicated

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by the song lyrics. The notion that a woman is a natural thing is what the entire show deconstructs.

Xenas masquerade is also apparent when male characters try to approach her. After her first appearance, Salmoneous says, Xena, is that really YOU? and places his hand on her waist. Immediately she drops the disguise and gives him the famous Xena touch, a neck pinch based on Eastern acupuncture techniques that can cut off the flow of blood to the brain. After the dance number, the sponsor of another contestant tells Xena, You move very well, and kisses her hand repeatedly. Again, she gives him the neck pinch, and warns him, You keep your greasy lips off my arm. She switches genders effortlessly, almost despite herself.

Finally, when Xena finds the warlord responsible for sabotaging the contest, they begin to fight. Xena clearly parodies gender here. Still wearing her blonde wig, she smacks the warlord and asks, Are we having fun yet? After a kick, she puts her hand to her face, eyes open wide, and says, Oops. And in an intertextual reference to a classic ad for blonde hair coloring, she pouts, Dont hate me because Im beauti- ful, and then delivers the final blow to her opponent.

As the plot resolves, it becomes clear that Xena is not the only woman playing a role. None of the women want to win for the sake of winning, but all have ulterior motives-one wants to secure food for her village, another to escape, and a third to placate her sponsor/boyfriend. After Xena finds the warlord responsible for sabotaging the contest, she withdraws and resumes her masculine identity. Empowered by her example, the other contestants also withdraw, leaving the contest to Miss Artyphys. Appropriately, Miss Known World is the only contestant who willingly accepts the way that femininity is socially constructed. The other contestants, following Xenas example, break free of the patriar- chal constraints that contain them, and redefine themselves indepen- dently from their male sponsors. And finally, in a gesture that demon- strates the programs willingness to transgress boundaries, Xena plants a long lingering kiss on the lips of Miss Artyphys. Although Miss Artyphys is a man in drag, the visual image presents two women locked in an embrace. According to Xenas openly gay producer Liz Friedman:

Ive always been a big believer in the power of popular culture. The best way to convey more challenging ideas is to make something that functions on a main- stream level but that has a subtext that people can pick up on-or not. (Flaherty 6)

Conclusion Overall, the masquerades in Xena-the drag queen, the warrior

princess, and her doubling as a feminized warrior princess--convey a

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sense of ironic distance from gender stereotypes. Xena is not a feminist text because it portrays a female character with traditionally masculine characteristics. As Pamela Robertson notes in Guilty Pleasures, it is not enough to simply reverse sexual roles or to produce positive, empowered images of women. The credibility of traditional images has to be under- mined. In the words of Mary Anne Doane, What is needed is a means of making these gestures and poses fantastic, literally incredible (1 80). Moments in the text where femininity is reenacted underscore femininity as construction rather than essence. In the more specific case of the beauty pageant parodied in Xena, we are shown the absurdity of womens status as spectacle. Mimickry and parody become politicized textual strategies. It is in this sense that we may regard Xena as a femi- nist text, one that enables viewers to perceive the artifice of both mas- culinity and femininity.

Works Cited

Doane, M.A. The Desire to Desire: The Womans Film of the 1940s.

Flaherty, M. Xenaphelia. Entertainment Weekly. Online Edition, 7 March

Fraser, A. The Warrior Queens. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Hercules and Xena. E! Entertainment Special. January 1997. Pusateri, K. Xena: Warrior Princess: An Analytical Review. Whoosh. Online

Edition, Sept. 1996: 1-4. Riviere, J. Womanliness as a Masquerade. The International Journal of

Psychoanalysis 10, 1929. Reprinted in Formations of Fantasy. Ed. V . Burgin, J. Donald, and C. Kaplan. New York: Methuen, 1986: 35-24.

Robertson, P. Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna, Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1996.

Sontag, S. Notes on Camp. Against Interpretation. New York: Famar and Straus, 1966: 275-92.

Tillotson, K. Xena: Ode to a Grecian Warrior Princess with guts, wits, awe- some moves, and a cult following. Star Tribune, Lexus 12 Jan. 1997.

Zurawik, D. A Cult Cries out for Xena. Baltimore Sun, Lexus 14 Jan. 1997.

Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1987.

1997: 1-6.

Joanne Morreale is an Associate Professor of Communications at Northeastern University.