From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V8 #61 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, November 30 2009 Volume 08 : Number 061 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Pomeroy book -- from NZ [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] Xena in new book -- briefly [KLOSSNER9@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:11:52 EST From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Pomeroy book -- from NZ I just sent in a post on a new book, Then It Was Destroyed By the Volcano: The Ancient World in Film and on Television, published in the UK, 2008. I should have noted that the author, Arthur J. Pomeroy, is Associate Professor of Classics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. I suppose there are only a few classics professors in New Zealand. It's a little disappointing that when one of them writes a book on this subject, he gives relatively short shrift to Xena and Hercules. Boeotian ========================================================= 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, 29 Nov 2009 20:02:32 EST From: KLOSSNER9@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] Xena in new book -- briefly I have a new book, Then It Was Destroyed By the Volcano : The Ancient World in Film and on Television, by Arthur J. Pomeroy, Duckworth (UK), 2008. The odd title is a quote from an ignorant summation of Roman history, offered by actress Joan Collins. The book does not cover all the films and TV shows implied by its subject. It has a whole chapter on Buffy, with the excuse that the show had ancient "themes." Pomeroy only briefly discusses Xena and Hercules. On p. 3 he discusses the Italian pepla films and notes "a subset of the peplum, the muscleman film, shows the remarkable continuity of one theme from the earliest silent creations to modern films that exploit the star appeal of Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as the television series Hercules: the Legendary Journeys and Xena." The reference to Scharzenegger would be to the Conan films. On p. 48, Pomeroy discusses the Italian pepla about Hercules and notes "America has since then embraced the hero, most notably in Kevin Sorbo's television series Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, which in turn spawned a female equivalent in Xena, herself a descendant of the archetypal Amazon, Wonder Woman." On p. 59, Pomeroy notes the attempts to find variations on the Italian pepla, and adds "indeed Hercules and Xena frequently revel in similarly serving up a farrago of elements derived from different times and places. But the closest modern analogies are the national film styles represented by the melodramas of Hong Kong and Bollywood." On p. 113, near the end of his main text, Pomeroy asks, "But in international cinema will there be a simple choice between supercharged machismo remakes of the past, for instance the death and mayhem fun of 300, and the reversal of gender expectations of Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Xena replaces the male warrior hero by a female princess from Hong Kong's wuxia tradition, the Greek populace by a multiracial cast in generic Eastern European garb (working to the strains of the Bulgarian State Television Female Choir), and the landscapes of Greece with lush New Zealand scenery. The series' exploitation of ethical and sexual ambiguity ("It's not easy proving you're a new person") made Lucy Lawless a heroine for several sub-communities of fans simultaneously. Yet Xena needed the presence of Hercules to provide its subversive subtext of same-sex female desire and Girl Power. The archetypes must be preserved in order for them to be rejected." A footnote on p. 127 says "Xena, Season 1, Episode 3, "Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts" subverts the male fantasies of the genre by having Xena ask Helen what she wants to do with her life." A footnote on p. 135 says "Fans of Xena have seen traces of Alexander in her depiction and in her progress from Greece through Asia and Egypt: Gregory Swenson, "Alexander the Great: Blueprint for Xena?" (_http://whoosh.org/issue4/richan.html_ (http://whoosh.org/issue4/richan.html) ). Perhaps Semiramis should be considered as a stronger female role model for a modern heroine." This footnote comes from a discussion on p. 103 of The Man Who Would Be King (the Kipling story, not the film) -- "By spreading the word that they are the children of Sikander [Alexander] (and of the legendary Assyrian warrior queen, Semiramis), the adventurers establish a kingdom, ruling over a fair-headed Aryan tribe." Boeotian ========================================================= 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 V8 #61 *************************************