Lucy Lawless was not a particularly burly woman, but somehow she made Xena seem like a fucking tank and I donāt understand how.
Donāt get me wrongāshe was strong, and certainly not a waif, but more than almost any other female superhero actress Iāve ever seen, Lucy Lawless exuded physical power and weight that I actually believed (when she wasnāt somersaulting in front of a ridiculous greenscreen).
thatās a damn good point
INTENSE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS
COSTUME EMPHASIZING BREADTH OF SHOULDERS
THEM THIGHS
WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS IS ABOUT HOLY SHIT
JAWLINE
EVERYTHING. ALL OF IT. I DONāT KNOW IāM JUST FEELING EXCEPTIONALLY WARM RIGHT NOW.
I LOVE HER
This is because the tank is not concerned with muscle or endurance. Tank is purely a matter of 60% attitude, 30% mindset, and 110% fuckaroundandfindout.
I've also seen another version of the commentary on this post speculating that she was also SHOT like male action star at the time - which has nothing to do with size, but with posture and staging and yes, attitude. š
it's easy to forget this in 2021, the year of the filler, the ass implant, and the BBL, but at the time Xena was on tv she was literally larger than most other tv actresses and certainly more muscular. Lucy Lawless was 5'10" with visible biceps in the same era that every cast member of Friends had an active eating disorder
i mean shit was pretty dire
the most popular porn actress in the world at the time, Jenna Jamison, has spoken and written extensively about her anorexia. 20 years later the awareness of this heroin chic culture is almost gone for everyone younger than 30 which is probably for the best but it really bears keeping in mind just how fast body norms have changed. i mean callista flockhart was just on tv looking like that and all the articles were like "is she too thin? no it's fine she's just an Audrey Hepburn type :)" and it did turn out she also had a pretty bad eating disorder. Fiona apple. the Olsen twins. Pam Andersen. Anna Nicole was considered chubby! the list goes on and on. so at the time 5'10" and idk, 130-160lbs on lawless was gigantic in American television and contributed heavily to the shows outsider status as well as its queer status. because lawless was considered to be possessed of an outrƩ beauty at the time, not designed to appeal to the hetero mainstream. it was a bizarre period of body culture. I'm the same size and shape I've always been and at the turn of the century i was considered to have a larger than mainstream acceptable ass. now it's considered flat. i weigh the same!























