From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V3 #11 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Monday, January 13 2003 Volume 03 : Number 011 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] OT: Calla lilies and $'s [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] RE: Flirty Xena [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena [IfeRae@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 16:57:27 +1300 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] OT: Calla lilies and $'s On Sunday 12 January 2003 16:01, H.J.J. Hewitt wrote: > >Yeah, we got 'em in our garden. I periodically go out and attack 'em > > with a machete, because they're growing like crazy all round and over a > > little pittisporum (native tree) that I'm trying to get established.... > > Move the tree, you aesthetically-challenged Orc!!!!! > > TEXena I didn't say I attacked *all* of 'em, only the ones that are overshadowing the tree. They grow like weeds, y'know. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:06:44 +1300 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena On Sunday 12 January 2003 10:25, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 1/10/2003 9:19:06 PM Central Standard Time, > > fsktl@aurora.uaf.edu writes: > > > << And again, I saw her wanting to make love with Antony as a sign of > > > a healing of some old wounds in her psyche. (Note: For this post, I'm > > > assuming a best friends take on the X&G relationship.)>> > > > Umm, KT, as lfe asked (by implication) later, which old wounds would that be? > > > LOL! I'm not as into all that as you. > > > > No for me that's an important distinction. Because if Xena and Gabrielle > > WERE a monogamous romantic/sexual couple, then in this ep, Xena's a bum. > > And I don't think that she is.>> > > I wasn't clear. I meant that I wasn't into all the psyche stuff -- healing > old emotional wounds and such. Not because I disagree with it. It's just > not my forte. See, that's one of the reasons I have to keep on-screen X&G > separate from my off-screen view. I can't pretend I didn't see eps that > conflict with X&G as a couple. Nor do I want to hurt my brain trying to > resolve those conflicts. I'd rather let other folks 'splain why G would > encourage her spouse to hop in bed with "bad boys." I could assume maybe > that's a version of an "open" relationship, but that would conflict with my > off-screen view of them as dedicated to each other. Hmmm. So, you have the same problem with A&C that I do with OAAA and MWF, I think. All I can do is ignore those eps, which goes right against my philosophical belief that 'what's on screen is canon'. I'd love to find a valid 'internal' / 'narrative' reason to explain away or even ignore those eps, but I can't. So all I can do is override my usual modus operandi and say, in effect, 'the hell with it, I can't make those eps fit so I'll just ignore them anyway'. It preserves the remains of what on a good day passes for my sanity ;) > > > Note: I have some gay buds who have no major problem with FIN but > > LOATH A&C just for this--that Xena was obviously smitten in a very > > serious way with this guy and this is a betrayal of her relationship > > with Gabrielle. > > > > So for this ep at least, it is important to my belief in Xena as a > > noble and honorable person that she and Gabrielle are soulmates but not > > a committed romantic couple.>> > > Wait a minute. I misunderstood you above. It appears we're both saying > we're looking at X&G from two perspectives. But if you saw them as best > friends re: Antony, where'd the "healing old wounds in her psyche" come > from? It sounds like a rationalization for "betraying" G, whereas I'd think > X's attraction to A wouldn't need any explanation in the "best friends" > context, other than the reasons X found A "hot." I agree with your logic there - as best friends, Xena's actions don't need any explanation other than that she finds Anthony hot. And the odd signs of jealousy that Gabs shows are, IMO, quite adequately accounted for by the 'best friends' scenario.... people don't need to be lovers to be jealous of having the attention shifted away from them. Or she may just think that Xena getting involved with Anthony is a bad move, tactically. Or maybe a bit of both. > > LOL! Actually, I think that we've wandered from my initial point when I > > got involved. Which was a response to Thel's comment that Xena didn't > > have as many sexual liasons as one would have expected for such a > > gloriously sensual, sexual and charismatic chica.>> > > > > It now seems to have evolved into a discussion of how many liasons there > > were, rather than how few there were.?>> > > Okay, forget my painstaking reply above. Grrrrrr. Are you agreeing > with Thel or not? KT may know, I have no idea. ;) What did I actually say? :) I *think* I said that Xena had far fewer actual affairs than one would imagine, from an overall impression of the series. Or something like that. In fact, most of Xena's on-screen affairs with guys were either flashbacks or some other form of non-actual romance. I think the 'actual' occasions were limited to the half-dozen or so that lfe mentioned (with question marks around half of them as to whether anything actually happened). It could be that TPTB were very clever about giving us guys our Xena-fantasies while trying not to cause terminal offence to the subtext fans. IIRC, there were plenty of Xena-guy interludes in the last 3 seasons, but almost all of them were either flashbacks, or came to nothing (like Rafe, or Ares in Amphipolis Under Siege, or Heart of Darkness, or The God You Know) or were dreams (like Xena's in Eternal Bonds, or Caesar's in Idea of March), or they were in an alternate reality like When Fates Collide. I guess that's why my impression of the series is that Xena had plenty of guys whereas in fact, Xena had remarkably few. (Waste of time trying not to offend the subtexters, though ;) > > And I just don't see Xena taking on Draco. There just wasn't any > > sexy spark in any of their scenes that I ever saw. Even when in Comedy > > of Eros, Xena is besotted with Draco. Lucy plays Xena as an infatuated > > kid with a mega crush--she sure doesn't portray a grown women seeing > > something she wants and generating heat to or from the object of her > > interest.>> > > I got a definite feeling of attraction in Sins -- the suggestion that they > did or might have been lovers, but that Draco got too bossy or competitive > for Xena's tastes. That's how I saw it. There was definitely some history there. > > > > Six years of show, six boys. You call that a lot? (This of course, is > > studiously ignoring Evil Xena's fellas and girls since they were all ten > > year ago. Or so.)>> > > Grrrr again. No, I don't call that "a lot." I simply meant that these > examples to me *did* reinforce the idea of her as a "gloriously" sensual > creature, and *did not* support the idea that self-disgust prevented her > from enjoying the dalliances we saw or from having others we didn't see. Quite obviously, I'd agree with that. I'm sure Xena, even 'good' Xena, had more than enough self-esteem to dally when she felt like it. The demon of her past that hounded her in to trying to make amends, I don't think handicapped her personal relationships. Of course, this is one of those 'imagine what you want' cases - I'm happy to imagine that Xena had, as you say, others we didn't see, whereas you (lfe), I suppose, prefer to imagine what Xena and Gabrielle were doing off-camera...? > > What do you mean they switched places? Xena was not learning from > > Gabrielle's new lessons/new outlook. Xena was lost and didn't give a > > damn where they went in the physical world. >> > > I disagree. I think Xena was deeply affected by her role in what happened > to Gab in S3 and by Gabs' questioning of herself and of violence. For most > of S1-2, Gab put a lot of faith in Xena's instincts -- indeed, learned from > them and initially wanted to be a warrior in Xena's mold. Xena invested a > lot in teaching Gab what was useful and protecting her from what was bad. > Suddenly, both of them were forced to question themselves and each other. > This led directly to Xena's doubts about her "path," to being open to > people or ideas she instinctively mistrusted, but which seemed to offer > Gabs some positive things that Xena thought she couldn't. Both women made > mistakes in that learning process, yet Gabs' quest ultimately helped Xena > to resolve her own crisis of faith. > > By "switched roles" in S4, I don't mean that Gabs became the "parent" or > "taught" Xena directly. I mean that Xena was positioned more as following > Gabs' quest, observing and assessing Gabs' "lessons," supporting her, and > learning about herself in the process. > > -- Ife Yow! I hated S4. (Well, much of it, all except Sin Trade and Endgame /Ides). (OK, hated is too strong a word, but I would much have preferred some other path). And why? Because I really didn't like seeing Xena feeling lost, and I thought Gabrielle was even more lost. (I must be an unsympathetic bastard - "Get *over* it" was my usual reaction ;) So I didn't feel Xena was going to learn anything from Gabs' quest, certainly not after Gabrielle embarked on Eli's particularly futile and clueless 'Way of Love'. Except, possibly, what to avoid ;) I thought Amarice's comments on the usefulness of that were most cogent. But it wasn't really fun for me to watch. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 19:35:49 +1300 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] RE: Flirty Xena On Friday 10 January 2003 23:13, Trek4u269@aol.com wrote: > I am a minority and I accept the fact that heterosexuality and same race > dating are the norms/choices for most people (not to say anything else is > abnormal). Our media of magazines, tv shows, movies, etc are all based on > certain priciples of society....why else do they make a fuss and have so > much publicity when an interracial kiss or same sex kiss occurs in a show > (more so in years past when several tv channels banned showing star trek > for kirk kissing uhura in 60s, and rosanne kissing a woman in 90s) > > Vic > Proud PFLAG member and xena fan Well, Xena, like most shows, is based on what interests the majority audience. The majority, in this case, being heterosexual white Americans. One could equally well ask why all the main characters talk in American accents (or at least that approximation known as 'mid-Atlantic'). (A trace of Kiwi sneaks in here and there, but it's an unintended exception). Same reason, the audience in its primary intended market is American. As a Kiwi I could resent that if I wanted to, but it wouldn't do me any good ;) Maybe, from the lesbian point of view, it's really unfair for TPTB to show heterosexual affairs while merely suggesting lesbian ones. But TPTB weren't making the show for the lesbian market, and in the wider world of majority-rules ratings-driven TV, I think they went much further with the subtext than they needed to have done and are deserving of acknowledgement for the extent they did go to, not complaints for not having gone further. IMO. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 23:55:16 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Flirty Xena In a message dated 1/12/2003 4:59:59 AM Central Standard Time, cr@orcon.net.nz writes: Ife said: > See, that's one of the reasons I have to keep on-screen X&G > > separate from my off-screen view. I can't pretend I didn't see eps that > > conflict with X&G as a couple. Nor do I want to hurt my brain trying to > > resolve those conflicts. I'd rather let other folks 'splain why G would > > encourage her spouse to hop in bed with "bad boys." I could assume maybe > > that's a version of an "open" relationship, but that would conflict with > my > > off-screen view of them as dedicated to each other. > > Hmmm. So, you have the same problem with A&C that I do with OAAA and MWF, > I > think. All I can do is ignore those eps, which goes right against my > philosophical belief that 'what's on screen is canon'. I'd love to find a > > valid 'internal' / 'narrative' reason to explain away or even ignore those > eps, but I can't. So all I can do is override my usual modus operandi and > say, in effect, 'the hell with it, I can't make those eps fit so I'll just > ignore them anyway'. It preserves the remains of what on a good day passes > > for my sanity ;)>> Actually, I didn't have a problem with any of the eps you mention above (from a subtext perspective), even MWF. I don't ignore eps. To me, all of them "fit" in RT's vision somehow, or he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of producing him. However, I do think the "relationship" took on a life of its own that RT never anticipated, but nevertheless accepted as an enhancement to his vision. I see one thread that is very supportive of "soulmate"/romantic love in its various forms (including sex) and one thread that supports a more general "soulmate/best friends" (which excludes sex). For the former, I feel free to turn on my subtext lens. For the latter, I turn off my subtext lens. That, in essence, is my lazy way of getting around the inevitable conflicts that occur between the two lenses. In cases where I see both threads present (AFIN being the most notable for me), I watch them as parallel, even tho I can also appreciate the added dimension they might give each other. This is why, for me, AFIN is both heroically affirmative and heroically tragic. Rather than choosing one over the other, I simply appreciate what I can of both. > <> Not really, at least in terms of the TV show. I didn't care what they did off-camera. In the "best friends" scenario, I merely assumed one of them did or wanted to have relationships with men (or maybe another woman). In the subtext scenario, I assumed they were monogamously sexually active with each other. I didn't "prefer" to see them as "a couple" off-camera; they just happened to live and relate to each other on-camera in a way that fit my concept of "a couple," with the nonsubtext eps eventually seeming to me to be aberrations best viewed on their own terms. Once I saw X&G as a couple, then, yes, I tended to prefer reading fanfic which explored what to me would be "natural" for that particular couple to do. - -- Ife ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V3 #11 *************************************