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I saw the script for the pilot of the canceled 2016 Xena reboot, and I was curious, excited. I'd been very disappointed at its cancellation.
I still would enjoy new Xena coming back to air, but reading the first pages of the script makes me feel better about the cancellation. Relieved that this isn't what made it to screen as the Xena of now.
Xena would not! She would not accomplish a man's feats for him, let him take the credit--all while appeasing his ego and genuinely trusting and respecting him as a hero--and settle for seducing him out of slapping her with promises of them being rulers together!
Xena would partner with men, including bad ones, and seduce them. She would be with them. But she did it from a position of power, which was part of her appeal! She was hot the way dudes are supposed to be hot: strong, well-respected, in command. That steely gaze. The charisma, her presence, her dignity. Her sheer competence. She wasn't stuck trying to persuade men above her to treat her how she wanted as part of her daily life, to escape scorn and a backhand. It was just one of her many skills.
She was a warrior who, in trying to protect her home, grew increasingly bloodthirsty, and then tried to change, all the while never submitting to the authorities that crossed her path. Not the men she worked with, even the ones she loved. Not even Ares, the god who patronized her exploits as a warlord; we don't see much of her time with him, but we're told she always challenged him and that this is what he wants from his favorites. Only Lao Ma, a woman who earned it by showing her compassion.
She certainly never would've respected--let alone trusted and considered a hero--someone who would rather let people credit him with her exploits and threaten her to make sure no one would find out and think him weak.
The script gives the impression that it's doing Xena a favor with this treatment. It says she's smarter, more ambitious, and stronger than the men; it's trying to say she can do better than Hercules (who unlike his previous incarnation in her story, is a villain--he even gets her title, "Destroyer of Nations," in what I read); it's trying to make her morally better and say this is why she's degraded and brutalized into helplessness. It's trying to echo not her origin story on her show, for who she is, but the story of her first appearance onscreen, on Hercules' show, to flip it because it's her show now, only it's not.
This is what constitutes depicting a new Xena for our time, according to the script. It's more regressive than the original.
There would not be anything wrong with telling a swords and sandals story about a woman who's been serving a commander unworthy of her, who breaks away from that. But that's not Xena. Xena is an icon for being a powerful woman with a redemption she seeks on her own terms, living her life according to her standards, questioning them and figuring them out for herself, with the love of her female soulmate, and she didn't need to learn to respect herself. She had the arc a man might have, where she might think little of herself in the moral sense, in that she felt the weight of what she'd done, but in all other aspects she was confident and proud.
We don't need to see her degraded and learning to discover her own worth. There's nothing inherently wrong with that story, or with a female character being its protagonist. That's not every woman's story, and certainly not the only story that can be told with a female heroine. It's an injustice to treat Xena as if it were otherwise. That's not what Xena meant. It's not who she is. (If the show needs a heroine with untapped potential she's on a journey to explore, that's Gabrielle.) She's an icon because she's a powerful woman who takes no shit in any area of her life, while also grappling with her moral dilemmas and what it means to try to be good, a person working for and against her own interests; all the while in a push and pull with a younger woman she both admires and is frustrated by, who admires and is frustrated by her in return as she grows and their relationship deepens. She was supremely awesome, and also vulnerable in the face of the moral questions of life, and in the love she primarily directed at other women. This is where her power comes from.
This is the Xena I'd love to see return.
Battle on, Xena! I hope you'll come back to us one day.
Note: I only read as far as when Gabrielle finds her. I don't know as to the rest of the script. But even if what comes after turns out better, the mistake of what came before is too dire for Xena's character.
Reference:
io9 article concerning the release of the script
Xena Movie Campaign Facebook post with the link to the script
Xena: Warrior Princess pilot script for the canceled 2016 reboot
I still would enjoy new Xena coming back to air, but reading the first pages of the script makes me feel better about the cancellation. Relieved that this isn't what made it to screen as the Xena of now.
Xena would not! She would not accomplish a man's feats for him, let him take the credit--all while appeasing his ego and genuinely trusting and respecting him as a hero--and settle for seducing him out of slapping her with promises of them being rulers together!
Xena would partner with men, including bad ones, and seduce them. She would be with them. But she did it from a position of power, which was part of her appeal! She was hot the way dudes are supposed to be hot: strong, well-respected, in command. That steely gaze. The charisma, her presence, her dignity. Her sheer competence. She wasn't stuck trying to persuade men above her to treat her how she wanted as part of her daily life, to escape scorn and a backhand. It was just one of her many skills.
She was a warrior who, in trying to protect her home, grew increasingly bloodthirsty, and then tried to change, all the while never submitting to the authorities that crossed her path. Not the men she worked with, even the ones she loved. Not even Ares, the god who patronized her exploits as a warlord; we don't see much of her time with him, but we're told she always challenged him and that this is what he wants from his favorites. Only Lao Ma, a woman who earned it by showing her compassion.
She certainly never would've respected--let alone trusted and considered a hero--someone who would rather let people credit him with her exploits and threaten her to make sure no one would find out and think him weak.
The script gives the impression that it's doing Xena a favor with this treatment. It says she's smarter, more ambitious, and stronger than the men; it's trying to say she can do better than Hercules (who unlike his previous incarnation in her story, is a villain--he even gets her title, "Destroyer of Nations," in what I read); it's trying to make her morally better and say this is why she's degraded and brutalized into helplessness. It's trying to echo not her origin story on her show, for who she is, but the story of her first appearance onscreen, on Hercules' show, to flip it because it's her show now, only it's not.
This is what constitutes depicting a new Xena for our time, according to the script. It's more regressive than the original.
There would not be anything wrong with telling a swords and sandals story about a woman who's been serving a commander unworthy of her, who breaks away from that. But that's not Xena. Xena is an icon for being a powerful woman with a redemption she seeks on her own terms, living her life according to her standards, questioning them and figuring them out for herself, with the love of her female soulmate, and she didn't need to learn to respect herself. She had the arc a man might have, where she might think little of herself in the moral sense, in that she felt the weight of what she'd done, but in all other aspects she was confident and proud.
We don't need to see her degraded and learning to discover her own worth. There's nothing inherently wrong with that story, or with a female character being its protagonist. That's not every woman's story, and certainly not the only story that can be told with a female heroine. It's an injustice to treat Xena as if it were otherwise. That's not what Xena meant. It's not who she is. (If the show needs a heroine with untapped potential she's on a journey to explore, that's Gabrielle.) She's an icon because she's a powerful woman who takes no shit in any area of her life, while also grappling with her moral dilemmas and what it means to try to be good, a person working for and against her own interests; all the while in a push and pull with a younger woman she both admires and is frustrated by, who admires and is frustrated by her in return as she grows and their relationship deepens. She was supremely awesome, and also vulnerable in the face of the moral questions of life, and in the love she primarily directed at other women. This is where her power comes from.
This is the Xena I'd love to see return.
Battle on, Xena! I hope you'll come back to us one day.
Note: I only read as far as when Gabrielle finds her. I don't know as to the rest of the script. But even if what comes after turns out better, the mistake of what came before is too dire for Xena's character.
Reference:
io9 article concerning the release of the script
Xena Movie Campaign Facebook post with the link to the script
Xena: Warrior Princess pilot script for the canceled 2016 reboot
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