From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V7 #81 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, July 23 2007 Volume 07 : Number 081 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] book Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture [c] [chakram-refugees] ATTENTION!!!!! [HJJH ] Re: [chakram-refugees] book Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 21:10:04 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] book Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture On Sunday 22 July 2007 15:40, KLOSSNER9@aol.com wrote: > Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture, by Gideon > Nisbet, a 2006 British book, is rather overclever, with > the author showing off his erudition about both ancient > history and lore and the modern films and other > representations. Nisbet is a British academic and > prefers some of the B-films, comics and TV shows to > some of the big film epics. Well, don't we, too? One TV show in particular.... > After noting that the Hercules series was careful not to > make Hercules and Iolaus too close, he adds "On this > point, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys stands in stark > contrast to its successful spinoff Xena: Warrior Princess. > Although constrained by what the networks would stand > for, Xena consciously courted a lesbian audience via > increasingly heavy hints -- most famously in the episode > 'A Day in the Life' -- about the relationship between the > heroine and her sidekick Gabrielle. Audiences responded > enthusiastically to this erotically charged subtext. The > implicit romantic tension clearly helped the show expand > its market share, broadening its appeal beyond the > obvious, and still indispensable, core demographic of > teenaged boys. (The TV series Buffy, the Vampire Slayer > enjoyed a similar mid-run rejuvenation when it brought > Buffy's best friend, Willow, out of the closet.) Receptions > of the show in unofficial media, too, embraced the idea of > a hidden relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. It > became a favourite topic for female-authored slash fiction > online. Meanwhile, a string of 'unauthorized' episode guides > and series companions titillated the guys by cataloguing the > show's double entendres and smoldering glances. None of > this fan activity transferred back to the original Legendary > Journeys, which shared Xena's commercially essential > core audience of male adolescents. The scriptwriters' > assumption -- almost certainly correct -- was that this audience > would find Xena's hinted lesbianism alluring but would switch > channels at any hint of a gay leading man." (p. 63-64) I think this guy is pretty much accurate in his summing-up, though I'm not sure it ever crossed the minds of the Herc writers that there might even be a hint of gay-ness in Herc. Actually, I'm wrong, now I think of it. They occasionally made fun of the idea, in fact I recall an occasion when one female character said something like 'quite a firm handshake between you two, isn't there?' - (I thought it was Xena in 'The Warrior Princess' but it isn't, and my collection of Herc transcripts is on my other computer which is halfway through an upgrade so I can't search them). > "Sincerely tongue-in-cheek, Legendary Journeys and Xena > were worthy successors to the Herculean excesses of the > sixties pepla. They represent the latest growth spurt of a > Hydra-headed monster that has swallowed the myths of > other Greek heroes and continues to gorge on everything > from gladiators to kung fu. The ancient Hercules franchise > has been rejuvenated." (p. 65) > > While criticizing the film Troy, Nisbet writes "The literal > horseplay of the final reel signals Troy's final descent into > genre-confused bathos; we might expert Xena, Warrior > Princess to show up at any moment. Indeed, in Xena's > own cheekily revisionist Girl Power version, Xena and > Helen stow away in the horse and make a clean getaway, > rolling out of the burning city towards new adventures. He remembered this fairly accurately - in fact Xena and Gabs stowed away in the Horse, and Xena intercepted Helen and her captor outside the wall as they exited a secret passage (but I had to check XT's transcripts to remind me of that). On the whole, I think the quoted bits give a pretty fair account of the TV world of Herc and Xena. 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, 22 Jul 2007 17:02:18 -0500 From: HJJH Subject: [chakram-refugees] ATTENTION!!!!! Remember the site where you can vote -- over and over!--for the best TV series of all time? http://richlabonte.net/tvvote/ What the contest really reflects is a combination of the number and the devotion of the shows' fans. Well, XENA has \naturally/ been easily topping it for a long time. Only FIREFLY was giving it some competition, and it was t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d-s behind. On July Fourth, for instance, XENA was 24,000 ahead. 7/04 X 338K F 314K 24K ahead Hokay, we thought, we can sit back on our laurels and relax. BUT the competition \didn't/! 2 weeks later, they had moved up 6,000! 7/18 X 346K F 328K 18K ahead 2 \days/ later they've moved up another 2,000. 7/21 X 348K F 332K 16K ahead Every day they'ra gaining! At this rate, unless you and I and every fan we can tap gets in there and votes and votes and votes, we're DOOOOMED!!!!! ========================================================= 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, 22 Jul 2007 15:15:12 -0700 From: "Kym Masera Taborn" Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] book Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture From: "cr" > I think this guy is pretty much accurate in his summing-up, though I'm not > sure it ever crossed the minds of the Herc writers that there might even > be > a hint of gay-ness in Herc. > > Actually, I'm wrong, now I think of it. They occasionally made fun of > the > idea, in fact I recall an occasion when one female character said > something > like 'quite a firm handshake between you two, isn't there?' - (I thought > it > was Xena in 'The Warrior Princess' but it isn't, and my collection of Herc > transcripts is on my other computer which is halfway through an upgrade >so I can't search them). It was Nebula in Web of Desire, and she made more than one insinuation about the boys' apparent "friendship". Kym ========================================================= 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 V7 #81 *************************************