Doesn’t it feel so great to be validated for once in a main narrative instead of ridiculed? Yes, this was the 90’s and nobody was brave enough to go anywhere near where Xena did.
Until Xena did.
That’s what makes this show and this ship still so beloved in the LGBTQ+ community 30 years later. It was the first TV show to actually have a long term WLW relationship happen.
I know it has its limitations and restrictions due to the severe censorship but the fact is they tried their hardest to represent us regardless when TV shows - even today - would just laugh at us instead or even use us as exploitation. Xena is true queer solidarity.
We owe a lot Xena. A hell of a lot. Because if it wasn’t for Xena and Gabrielle being the blueprint and the greenlight - I dare say we wouldn’t even be as far as we are with any kind of queer representation today. Buffy was only brave enough to go there because Xena went there first. Glee. South Of Nowhere. The L Word. Wynonna Earp. Warrior Nun. First Kill.
All of them have their roots in Xena and we must never ever forget that.
Oh to be a woman and have so much agency and power within TV art/entertainment that you can be the one to deceive the men through sexuality enough to unveil the ugly truth about them and their systemic control over women. I swear the male gaze doesn’t even exist in Xena precisely because Xena uses it to her advantage.
She makes “powerful men” look like pathetic losers and it’s exactly why Xena wouldn’t hold up today. Too many sexist or gender critical people would react negatively to see the one and only time women are the leads in it.
In this episode you have literal male archangels either corrupted by Xena or made to be very cautious of her because her agency and power overwhelms them. They give you what looks to be the same narrative you see in countless depictions of Christianity and Patriarchy in TV and instead they have it be Xena that determines who is evil/good and the conviction that lies between while she gets to play dirty and still be the protagonist.
These double standards are usually only given to men.
This is female representation at its most prominent.
I love it so much. I love this show so fucking much!
Originally the fantasy Xena would have in her head when she’s hanging upside down after being beaten to a pulp in Gurkan’s dungeon was going to be of Xena and Gabrielle riding together on Argo, but they didn’t have time or resources to do it.
But somehow that seems gayer than Gabrielle dancing sexily in her Moroccan “Strong Amazon Queen” outfit.
Maybe it’s just because it’s SO Xena and Gabrielle and it eroticizes something that’s usually quite non-erotic for any other couple in the TV history of anything ever.
But that tends to be the case with Xena and Gabrielle because they couldn’t actually do anything erotic. So often things they do that are completely mundane otherwise are eroticized for them instead. Like riding together on horses or fishing.
And I understand completely how you feel about them killing off all the tribes that are important to this show. However, I don’t quite agree because the show is a love story and therefore it’s not about any of these tribes. It’s about Xena and Gabrielle and how they navigate the world and its struggles, including their own lives and love for each other. It’s all about sacrifice and that’s the story they want to tell.
Apparently when Gabrielle wakes up from that nightmare of Xena being killed and she caresses her hair as she’s sleeping next to her Renee said Gabrielle was thinking about how beautiful Xena was in their last moments together in that scene and they play that physical intimacy so quietly and so nuanced that it completely blows me away. It’s just a short simple action but there’s just so much behind it that I just can’t help but be in awe of it. It’s one of the most evidential moments of the lover affection she feels for Xena and in exemplifying that her feelings for her go beyond friendship. She’s in love.
Don’t you wish WLW/queer representation was like this all the time instead of the easy and lazy sexual intimacy? In some ways I am so glad this TV show was censored because it forced the creators to really dig deep into this forever evolving relationship and really represent such a natural and authentic love between these two amazing women. You can tell they’re in love even without the explicity of sexual intimacy and it just feels so much more real and organic than TV shows today with WLW/queer representation in that aren’t under the censorship radar and have to abide by the restrictions of the censors.
You know the creators/cast/crew ship them just as much as the fans do and that’s what makes all the difference when it comes to TV art/entertainment with lead female characters that are at least coded if not explicitly written and portrayed as queer.
This is where Xena and Gabrielle lives and it’s bloody beautiful to watch over and over again. Even today this level of representation feels far more sincere than anything explicit.
You can watch something like this and you can see that it is canon even if it cannot be confirmed as such because the love between them really does look and feel like a romance. It’s just more emotional. And honestly, I much prefer that. I much prefer emotional intimacy to sexual intimacy.
They have such a profound love story. Regardless of which way you want to interpret it. It still works. It still hits. And to this day I have not come across a WLW ship as great as X&G because of this reason.
When you think about that this is what SuperCorp could have been or SwanQueen or even Rizzles… If they were just as brave as the XENA lot were. Floors me everytime.
Believe me Kassidy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. These ones are on our side. Absolutely.
I like the little conflict going on here with Xena and Gabrielle in disagreeing on how they would approach the situation with Solan. It was very organic disharmony between them that made a lot of sense and showed how much that the characters are both their own people with their own opinions that differ from each other. Resolved it just as organically too. That’s good writing for you.
Gabrielle’s hero-worship is either lessening or she just realizes that she’s not a go-along-to-get-along kind of gal. Not even with Xena. Just makes the character all the more dynamic as a main character.
Appropriate now she had leading credit which was something Lucy Lawless fought for by the way. She couldn’t understand why she was the only one in the main titles when Renee O’Connor had just as much screen-time as she did all throughout Season 1.
She was very adamant that if they’re keeping Gabrielle around for Season 2 that she got main title credit alongside her. Shows how awesome she is. This one doesn’t get a big head. To this very day she is still extremely humble. Not like the other from the other show who is a sad excuse for a human being.
Thank the gods you’ve finally got to ‘THE QUEST’. Xena is many things as a TV show but it’s regarded as THE OG WLW TV show the most. It’s THE FIRST, and in a lot of ways, THE ONLY main characters WLW love story from episode 1 to the last. That’s 6 seasons long.
And the reason why it was able to achieve it?
It was never main-textually canon so it flew completely under the radar of straight people.
But please - don’t let that put you off because I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t matter at all. And even - in a way - it actually really helps it be better WLW representation than anything canon ever will be. Even better WLW representation than WayHaught. And I’ve seen for myself what that WLW couple does but I will always have in the back of my mind each time I watch their scenes or engage in any talk about them, that ‘Wynonna Earp’ WOULD NOT if Xena didn’t do it first. And that’s kind of a catchphrase we Xenites have when it comes to this. “Xena Did It First!”. You can even buy Xena merch that has that caption all over it.
😄
So yes, in a way, Xena did WLW representation in a TV show first because it’s really up to you whether you see it as a WLW love story or not.
I can tell you many do to this day regard Xena and Gabrielle as the greatest WLW love story in TV art/entertainment of all-time, main-textually canon or not. I’m so excited for you.
“So what you’re saying is Xena is inside of Gabrielle?”
Yes, and it does make you wonder why she didn’t just do that in the first place if it was always an option to control her body.
I put it down to that she didn’t want to put Gabrielle in risk of danger but figured it was worth the risk when it came to the high stakes of Velasca getting the ambrosia.
You’ll find that’s a common occurrence. Xena leaving Gabrielle out of the plan in the excuse of protecting her from harm. Cute but condescending. Gabrielle can more than take care of herself now. And this is something Xena would have some struggle with accepting about Gabrielle fighting.
So yes, Xena and Gabrielle are clearly more than friends now. But whether this makes them an official couple is debatable. Now they’ve established somewhat what the nature of their relationship is, the show gets better and better from this point onwards.
What I really like about their dynamic going forward that a lot of people find frustrating today is that even if their relationship is not explicitly sexual, it is overtly romantic. Especially emotionally. And it really works. It works that their chemistry and intimacy is more emotional than it is physical.
