From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V4 #86 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 Saturday, March 27 2004 Volume 04 : Number 086 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons ["Jackie M. Young" ] Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons ["Jackie M. Young" ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Eye of the Beholder ["Jackie M. Young" ] Re: [chakram-refugees] Eye of the Beholder [cr ] Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons [cr ] [chakram-refugees] Lucy in Celebrity Skin Issue #126 [IfeRae@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 20:48:35 -1000 (HST) From: "Jackie M. Young" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 02:06:06 EST, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: >I *think* I understand where Jackie's coming from there. (Jackie? You >okay? Yes, it's me, Ife. Need some smelling salts?) - --OMG, I see pigs flying!! ;P And just when I thought we were making the perfect "pro/con" team ("you say yes, I say no", per the Lennon/McCartney song). ;) > I felt these themes were imposed on the charcters in a way that didn't >feel as "natural" to me as other story lines. They were designed to >provoke big emotions from us--"exploit" certain subjects and our >feelings about them -- - --Yes, that's *exactly* what I meant. ;) What a Ms. Smartie you are, Ife! ;) And I didn't even have to "define exploitative".....;P (I have new appreciation for what you and KT have put up with all these years. ;) Thel can sure be *exasperating*, now can't he?!? *sigh* [Thel, you listening?? ;) ] ) - --Jackie ****************************************************** * Proud to have the same birthday as Lucy Lawless! * * * * "I think New Zealand geographically comes from * * ... Hawai'i." --Lucy Lawless, Late Show, 4/9/96 * * * * JACKIE YOUNG, JYOUNG@LAVA.NET * * * ****************************************************** ========================================================= 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: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 21:12:55 -1000 (HST) From: "Jackie M. Young" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 21:42:46 +1200, cr wrote: On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 19:52, Lilli Sprintz wrote: >> regarding Jackie's statement--- Yes. absolutely yes, having been >>raised in the 50's and 60's in the U.S., it was a BIG deal. > >OK, that's some independent corroboration. - --*Huh*?!? Lilli makes ONE comment about ST and suddenly it becomes "independent corroboration"?!? The Shatner/Nichols kiss was written about in more than one ST book. No offense to Lilli, but there's plenty of other "independent corroboration" out there other than herself. ;P But you chose to believe the first person to speak out about it, other than myself--doesn't make sense......?? I was also raised in the US in the '50s and '60s, but you're saying I can't voice a true opinion myself?? Illogical. And I didn't feel we were "debating", but rather "discussing" different points of view. Terms such as "missing the point" or "begging the question" are not necessarily "debating" terms, but terms used in everyday conversation-- sometimes in an academic environment--but certainly not solely restricted to that context. - --Jackie ****************************************************** * Proud to have the same birthday as Lucy Lawless! * * * * "I think New Zealand geographically comes from * * ... Hawai'i." --Lucy Lawless, Late Show, 4/9/96 * * * * JACKIE YOUNG, JYOUNG@LAVA.NET * * * ****************************************************** ========================================================= 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: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 21:51:02 -1000 (HST) From: "Jackie M. Young" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Eye of the Beholder On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 00:58:27 EST, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: >Yes, she chose the expression she thought suitable for the character and >situation. She's made comments about the "attractive quotient," in terms >of understanding the appeal of that to many viewers. I think she's aware >of when/how to make herself look good and when/how not to. I simply >meant that she was quite willing to make the latter choice in situations >where other actresses might have worried more about themselves than than >what was right for the character. - --I agree with everything you've said here (another "smelling salts" moment, Ife ;) ). Part of what constitutes "beauty" is charisma or attractiveness. And LL certainly has that "It" factor. ;) I was going to point out earlier that LL has mentioned in several interviews about having to "look good", and her director of photography said in an interview that his main job was to "make her look good", but you've stated that above already (for god's sakes, part of her climb to success was as a Mrs. NZealand!). Do I think she could've pulled off what Charlize Theron did in Monster and gain 30 lbs. just to portray the character more realistically? Probably. But my question here is whether we would've _wanted_ to watch a Xena who was constantly overweight and unattractive? My theory, and the theory for that matter of Madison Ave. and the media folks, is that we'd rather watch someone who's "beautiful" and who's got it all (femininity, self-sufficiency, and sexual attractiveness). Not too many TV announcers nowadays are unattractive, and if they are, they are usually men, not women (how many times have we heard Simon Cowell criticize a contestant on American Idol for not being attractive enough? [not that I watch that crap] ). That study I saw on TV of what type of person people were more likely to help on the street was of course recorded and tabulated. Even the attractive folks in the study were amazed when they watched the tapes at how differently people reacted to them, as opposed to the unattractive folks. Some strangers were even willing to lend the attractive folks money, or walk several blocks with them to give them directions to a place! But the unattractive folks barely got a nod or a helping hand. When their papers were deliberately tossed on the ground to see if anyone would help them gather them, they were ignored. But when the papers of an attractive person were tossed on the ground, _every_one around stopped to help! It was like night/day. I thought it was a shameful commentary on our modern society, but I couldn't ignore the difference in responses I saw on the screen. - --Jackie ****************************************************** * Proud to have the same birthday as Lucy Lawless! * * * * "I think New Zealand geographically comes from * * ... Hawai'i." --Lucy Lawless, Late Show, 4/9/96 * * * * "Feel the fear and do it anyway." --Lucy Lawless, * * Evening Post, 7/4/98 * * * * JACKIE YOUNG, JYOUNG@LAVA.NET * * * ****************************************************** ========================================================= 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: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 22:56:33 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 19:12, Jackie M. Young wrote: > On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 21:42:46 +1200, cr wrote: > > On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 19:52, Lilli Sprintz wrote: > >> regarding Jackie's statement--- Yes. absolutely yes, having been > >>raised in the 50's and 60's in the U.S., it was a BIG deal. > > > >OK, that's some independent corroboration. > > --*Huh*?!? Lilli makes ONE comment about ST and suddenly it becomes > "independent corroboration"?!? > > The Shatner/Nichols kiss was written about in more than one ST book. No > offense to Lilli, but there's plenty of other "independent corroboration" > out there other than herself. ;P But you chose to believe the first > person to speak out about it, other than myself--doesn't make > sense......?? > > I was also raised in the US in the '50s and '60s, but you're saying I > can't voice a true opinion myself?? Illogical. Ah, Spock's favourite word, I think ;) Sorry, don't read too much into my choice of words. I'm assuming from your post that you were a Star Trek fan and therefore, maybe, that your view was coloured by your greater exposure to Trek discussions than the 'average' person would have. Even if it was written about in ST books, I would hardly call that 'independent' - every fandom likes to think its series was somehow important or significant. In the same way, I can't really speak of the 'average' New Zealander's view of Xena - other than by observation, which may not be very accurate - since for the past 5 or 6 years my view of XWP has not been that of the 'average' non-fan New Zealander. (This presupposes, of course, that Lilli is not a dyed-in-the-wool Trek fan herself :) > And I didn't feel we were "debating", but rather "discussing" different > points of view. Debating, discussing - is there much difference in this context? > Terms such as "missing the point" or "begging the question" are not > necessarily "debating" terms, but terms used in everyday conversation-- > sometimes in an academic environment--but certainly not solely restricted > to that context. > > --Jackie Well that depends on how they're used. It's very easy to throw them around but they should not, IMO, be used unjustifiably. 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: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 23:16:39 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Eye of the Beholder On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 17:58, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 3/23/2004 2:47:59 AM Pacific Standard Time, > > cr@orcon.net.nz writes: > > I doubt > > if she deliberately made Xena look 'less than flattering', I think it was > > more just an incidental side-effect of the way she played the role. In > > other words, I don't think she thought "Do I look good? Do I look ugly?" > > but > > rather, "What would Xena's expression look like in these circumstances?" > > We're saying the same thing, except I disagree that it was incidental. Okay, we'll have to disagree, but I think it's more a choice of words than anything else. > I'm > sure Lucy knew the screwed-up "kill 'em all" face was not one she'd use in > a beauty pageant. It was meant to scare people, not have them run up to, > hug and tell Xena how cute she looked. I feel she deliberately used less > than flattering expressions, gutterals, body language, behavior (spitting, > picking her nose) for the younger Xena in Debt. I think she deliberately > chose less than flattering expressions in Paradise Found or Fallen Angels > -- not as side effects, but as integral aspects of her performance. I also > believe she knew she didn't always look "attractive" during fight scenes, > intentionally so. Well, I agree with all that. What I'm saying is (IMO), for LL, the performance came first, looks just followed from that. I don't think she ever decided "Let's look ugly" for no reason. But I suspect the difference between our viewpoints is not worth splitting hairs over ;) > Yes, she chose the expression she thought suitable for the character and > situation. She's made comments about the "attractive quotient," in terms > of understanding the appeal of that to many viewers. I think she's aware > of when/how to make herself look good and when/how not to. I simply meant > that she was quite willing to make the latter choice in situations where > other actresses might have worried more about themselves than than what was > right for the character. > > -- Ife I was just watching Bitter Suite - and this goes back to my original comment about LL *not* always looking beautiful. IMO, in that ep, when she was wearing that helmet that Ares gave her, after she killed Gabby, LL looked distinctly un-beautiful. And she knew it too - I think she said as much in two places in the commentary. OTOH, after she got put up on the cross in Dahak's (?) temple, right through to when she finally broke through the shower to reach Gabs and Solan, she looked absolutely gorgeous. And this was very odd because, for much of that, her face was lit from below which is usually very bad lighting for anybody. LL's looks were very dependent on her expression, the camera angle, and her hairstyle. Far more so than ROC's or Hudson's, for example. From some angles, specially side-on, LL looked (IMO) extremely plain. Maybe it's just my prejudice (or an eye of the beholder thing) but IMO Lucy rarely looked good in a hat and never in a helmet. And (IMO) that leather armour was always very unflattering and she looked much better in almost every other costume. So, for me, the suggestion that I let her get away with doing awful things just because she looked beautiful, just ain't so. I let her get away with doing awful things because she's interesting. 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: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 23:54:58 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] The Seasons On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 18:48, Jackie M. Young wrote: > > I felt these themes were imposed on the charcters in a way that didn't > >feel as "natural" to me as other story lines. They were designed to > >provoke big emotions from us--"exploit" certain subjects and our > >feelings about them -- > > --Yes, that's *exactly* what I meant. ;) What a Ms. Smartie you are, Ife! > ;) And I didn't even have to "define exploitative".....;P (I have new > appreciation for what you and KT have put up with all these years. ;) > Thel can sure be *exasperating*, now can't he?!? *sigh* [Thel, you > listening?? ;) ] ) > > --Jackie Yes I'm listening, don't you wish I wasn't? :) I see that Ife had no trouble saying what she meant by 'exploitative'. The reason I asked you to define what you meant by it was that if you don't, it's just another of those vaguely pejorative terms that's so easy to apply. But, umm, let's see now - if one's going to cavil about 'exploitative' themes in later seasons, how about a few in Seasons 1/2 - like Hooves & Harlots for example, all those half-clad Baywatch babes - sorry, Amazons - and their interesting style in dancing? Or Gabs's BGSB which had started its legendary inexorable shrinking long before, IIRC, the end of Season 2? Or Xena's leather 'armour' - chicks in leather, yeah man! ;) Or, let me see, Giant Killer - what on earth did a several-thousand-years-old Biblical legend have to do with Xena's Greece? Or cute, cuddly babies, as in Cradle of Hope? Or another Biblical legend, not to mention Xena's harem dance, in Royal Couple of Thieves? Man, I feel so exploited (I _liked_ CoH and RCoT, but like I said, it's such an easy accusation to make). Incidentally, on a quite other subject, if Xena kissing Marcus was so risque, one has to wonder what the good ol' folks made of Ephiny marrying a sort of horse. But I guess that was sufficiently mythical and divorced from reality that it was off their radar :) Cr the Exasperating ========================================================= 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: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 19:19:00 EST From: IfeRae@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Lucy in Celebrity Skin Issue #126 I diligently reserved Celebrity Skin when I first heard it had Lucy in it. I hadn't heard of it before, but Lucy pops up in a lot of places I'm not familiar with. I picked it up today. Now I know why I didn't know about it. My, my, my. I guess the name should've given me a clue, eh? Well, there certainly is a lot of skin shown, much of it centered around a body part Lucy recently celebrated in her performance in the NZ production of The Vagina Monologues. The other parts featured are a little higher up. Let's just say that the young man behind the bookstore counter got quite a good laugh at the shock on my middle-aged face when I saw what I was buying. Three copies, no less. So. I'll let bygones be bygones and simply forge ahead, 'kay? We thumb through various known and unknown ladies in various states of undress and testing out various pieces of ... equipment. Midway through (page 44 to be exact), we reach Lucy. We see a small piccie of her as Xena and a nice one in civvies with the dark hair -- both quite innocent. We have three other photos from "Miss Amphipolis" -- a small one in the sauna, where you see her back and a side of her breast; plus two where she's twirling in that gold costume, revealing the bottom portion of her ... bottom. (The magazine folks really did their research, huh? At least they didn't go for the obvious hot tub scenes.) The copy gives her birth date, mentions XWP in passing, and focuses on the largest photo -- which, of course, depicts Lucy's glorious moment singing the American national anthem at that hockey game, when "she raised her arm emphatically and out tumbled her warrior's weapons for all the world to see." And here we thought she'd always be remembered for Xena. There are also pages devoted to XWP alums Jennifer Sky (three photos in a bikini, three in lace underwear, four where her "pert little sweater puppies are on full display" from the 2002 film "My Little Eye") and Vicky Pratt (five photos from the 1999 movie "Whatever It Takes," which demonstrate why "vivacious Vicky's topless scene is more than memorable"). No, I do not have a scanner. You'll have to don a wig and trench coat to buy your own copy if you're so inclined. As it is, I'm praying overenthusiastic agents for Homeland Security don't check the package I promised to send two other fans. Boy, will they be surprised. Thank goodness neither has children. - -- Ife http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040318/nyth018_1.html > > > Celebrity Skin's Boob Tube Beauties > Issue #126 Turns Up the Volume on TV's Spectacular Sirens > Celebrity Skin #126 is available on newsstands nationwide on March 18th. ========================================================= 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 V4 #86 *************************************