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Xena and Gabrielle: Lesbian Icons

In June 2001, Lucy Lawless, star of the cult hit Xena: Warrior Princess, validated legions of the series’ dedicated lesbian and bisexual fans when she publicly outed her character on Late Night With Conan O’Brien while promoting the two-hour finale after a successful six year run.

Lawless told O’Brien that it was watching this episode that made her alter ego’s sexual orientation finally clear to her:

“Actually, you know, there was always an element of doubt in my mind, it was … it didn’t matter to the way I played the role. So if the audience chose to see it or not … but I saw it [the finale] for the first time last night and I went home and said to my husband [Xena Executive Producer Rob Tapert], “you’ve outed my character. I just … I can’t believe I’m saying this. I didn’t run this by anybody, but I don’t think there’s any doubt in my mind anymore.”

The character of Xena first appeared in 1995 as an evil warlord in a three episode arc of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. The tough warrior woman turned fighter for the greater good was popular enough to garner her own spin-off series.

By the late 1990s, Xena was the world’s most widely syndicated television program, seen in more than 115 countries, and the inspiration for scores of new female action heroes in TV and film.

Set in ancient Greece, the show featured a flawed superhero with fantastic martial arts-like skills and a dangerous dark side; in short, she was beautiful, sexy and deadly. Her sidekick Gabrielle (played by Reneé O’Connor) escaped a boring fiancé and village life to tag along with the warrior princess, and their relationship became the backbone of the show.

The show became a tale of two independent women who traveled the ancient world without the assistance of men, but with plenty of humor, camp, and great sword-fights. Gabrielle’s youth, innocence, and penchant for chatting made her a perfect foil to the more stoic Xena; along the way, Gabrielle grew into quite a fighter herself.

Xena and Gabrielle rescued the weak, righted the wrongs perpetrated by the Greek gods, interacted with historical and mythological figures, and often risked their own lives for the welfare of others–all without boyfriends tagging along. The duo also commonly interacted with the Amazons of lore, a society of women often associated with mythic lesbian history.

But something else soon appeared to distinguish Xena from the rest of the pack for lesbian and bisexual women. The writers, producers and actors began intentionally introducing sexual innuendo and dialog that lesbian audiences could read as desire between women, while the rest of the show’s viewing public wouldn’t necessarily notice a thing, such as this exchange in the second episode of Season 3:

Joxer (looking at Xena’s neck): “Is that a hickey?”

Gabrielle and Xena both turn away with guilty looks.

These hints at a romantic or sexual relationship between the two characters became known as “subtext.”

Lesbian producer Liz Friedman was often interviewed in the gay press as the show’s popularity soared, and quite openly acknowledged the show’s lesbian subtext, as she did in 1996 on One in Ten:

“That’s one of the best parts of the job, getting to throw in references that I know the fans who are interested in that will pick up on, but don’t necessarily flash any irrevocable red lights. We opened up a show with the two of them fishing naked, and we’re about to have a Halloween episode that will certainly have some nice moments for our queer fans, a little lesbian vampire show.”

Lawless played with the mainstream press as well. When asked in a 1997 Playboy interview about Xena’s fantasy vacation, she quipped, “a biennial sailing trip to Lesbos.” Comments like these from people associated with the show kept the “are they or aren’t they” debate going throughout the lifetime of the series.

During the second season, the internet saw an explosion of web sites which detailed the subtextual dialog, looks and action in each episode. The 13th episode in Season 2, (“The Quest”) featured Xena leaning in to kiss Gabrielle from a dreamlike state, only to cut to Gabrielle kissing Autolycus, a male friend whose body Xena was inhabiting at the time.

Episode 15 in Season 2 (“A Day in the Life”) included the first of many shared hot tubs, and the two women were often shown together in a bedroll, holding and comforting one another, or declaring their devotion.

Many queer viewers embraced the show because it finally let lesbian and bisexual women in on the jokes, and because a mainstream television show was intentionally catering to a queer audience, as Lawless mentioned as early as the second season in a 1996 interview with the Denver Post:

“We talk about it on set. We’re all aware of how different sectors of our audience perceive the show. If you’re talking about the lesbian element, we are aware and we’re not afraid of it. This is a love story between two people. What they do in their own time is none of our business.”

But the subtext on Xena also had a negative side — its very existence depended on the show maintaining a “don’t ask, don’t tell” type of policy which prevented the characters’ sexual orientations from ever being directly addressed or referenced. Although the show did blur the lines and push the envelope for heterosexual viewers, Xena and Gabrielle’s most intimate scenes were often a hurt/comfort situation, and the kisses were officially about transferring water or giving mouth to mouth.

Xena did have male sexual partners from the past, especially in the initial episodes, and Gabrielle was often enamored with the boy of the week (and even briefly married). The attentions of Ares, Greek God of War, were consistently geared towards seducing Xena into his lair and into his bed.

These relationships did not require a subtextual reading and contrasted sharply with the repressed expression of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship.

In a handful of episodes, Xena’s attraction to selected men also brought up issues of infidelity for our perceived lesbian couple. In Episode 18 of Season 5 and Episode 3 of Season 6 (“Antony and Cleopatra” and “Heart of Darkness” respectively), Gabrielle broke up kissing sessions between Antony and Xena, and between Xena and Lucifer. In both cases, seduction was part of “the plan,” but from Gabrielle’s eyes, Xena appeared to be enjoying herself a little too much. On the flip side, we also saw Gabrielle kissing Virgil in “Heart of Darkness” as well.

In spite of this, this episode scorched with an erotic Xena/Gabrielle dance scene, one of the few blatantly erotic touches between the two.

As the series progressed, the sly jokes and innuendo turned into loving glances and a physical closeness that was increasingly intimate in nature, beyond the kinds of interactions one sees between “just friends.” Xena and Gabrielle went through many trials to test their relationship, including death and resurrection. The love, devotion and loyalty between them was spoken repeatedly, and the two were revealed to be soulmates through generations in the future.

The relationship became the backbone of the show, and although the physical side of that equation always remained unrealized, there were no male sexual partners.

Xena and Gabrielle also created an alternative family together, which struck a chord with many lesbian viewers. This was especially apparent when Xena became pregnant (interestingly enough, by the spirit of a woman””her former nemesis Callisto). Xena’s first reaction to the news? “Gabrielle’s gonna freak.”

Xena’s mother searched for a man for her to marry and had to be reminded by Xena that she already had a family, i.e. Gabrielle. After losing and then welcoming her daughter Eve back into the fold in Episode 22 of Season 5 (“Motherhood”), Xena specifically emphasized to Gabrielle that “we got our daughter back.”

As Gabrielle lay injured in Episode 6, Season 6 (“The Abyss”), we heard more of their devotion:

Gabrielle: Xena, I have a last wish.

Xena: I don’t want to hear of it.

Gabrielle: No, I’m serious. You don’t want to know?

Xena: What is it then?

Gabrielle: I don’t want to be buried with the Amazons.

Xena: All right. Well, in fifty years, when the time comes”?ª.

Gabrielle: Xena, I want lie with you, with your family in Amphipolis.

Xena: What about your family?

Gabrielle: I love them, but I’m a part of you. I want it to be like that forever. I love you.

Xena: OK.

Gabrielle: This is all my fault.

Xena: This is not your fault. This is not your fault. It’s mine for setting you on a path you were never meant to walk.

Gabrielle: Any path is OK, Xena, as long as it’s with you.

In the sixth and final season, some of the fun subtext and loving scenes appeared with even more frequency. Episode 19 of Season 6 (“Many Happy Returns”) saw Xena commissioning a poem from Sappho as a gift for Gabrielle. At the end of the episode, Gabrielle read these lines to Xena (which were written in real life by the poet from the Isle of Lesbos):

There’s a moment when I look at you

And no speech is left in me.

My tongue breaks, then fire races under my skin

And I tremble,

And grow pale,

For I am dying of such love.

Gabrielle’s perceived betrayal in season three resulted in a vicious attack in which Xena almost killed her. The murderous Xena of old appeared, dragging Gabrielle behind her horse and almost throwing her off a cliff. In the wake of “the rift,” a significant group of women stopped watching, in the middle of emotional online discussions about partner abuse. But the warrior companions endured and wounds healed.

And then came the end, the final episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. Xena and Gabrielle had been through a lot in six years. As media attention gathered on the upcoming finale, fans were elated at Lawless’s statement on the Conan O’Brien Show that this episode “outed my character.” It seemed those who were looking for text rather than subtext in Xena were finally going to find validation.

Instead, the Xena fandom was rocked and shocked when the relationship not only remained subtextual in the finale, but Xena allowed herself to be killed and beheaded, leaving her soulmate to travel the world alone. The ultimate redemption of Xena may have been true to the creator’s idea when the series began, but in the context of lesbians in media, the story was all too familiar and painful. The lesbian always dies, in this case the very gruesome death of a hero, and the eternal partners were separated. Even TV Guide panned the ending, saying that Xena deserved better.

Grieving fans invested in this fictional relationship felt betrayed and scrambled to create alternate endings, in particular latching on to the Episode 18 of Season 6 (“When Fates Collide”), which appeared just weeks before the finale and featured the love story front and center. Xena and Gabrielle rode off on horseback together in the final shot, and many a fan now considers this the real end to the Xena story on television (writer Katherine Fugate has since said that she wrote the story as if the two were lovers).

So what is the ultimate legacy of Xena: Warrior Princess for lesbian and bisexual viewers? The are they/aren’t they debate in the media brought lesbian visibility to a mainstream television show, and these two women who loved and shared their lives together became lesbian icons. Xena and Gabrielle were partners in the true sense of the word. They became role models of strong women who dealt with complex moral problems, fought for social justice, and paved the way for other female action shows and more explicit lesbian relationships on television.

For a majority of lesbian viewers, there was never any doubt about Xena and Gabrielle, or their relationship’s importance to the show. Xena was a long running series centered on a positive portrayal of a same-sex romantic partnership, something that has yet to be duplicated on television. O’Connor summed it up nicely in a February 2001 interview with Upbeat magazine:

“I think Gabrielle is probably searching for her soul mate and that she found it in Xena, actually. Having been through the entire series, she’s probably been searching for the love of her life…which is Xena.”

The show became a lightning rod for fans who responded to a tough chick with a sword and her feisty companion, and the show continues to attract new viewers today in reruns and first runs around the world. Television programmers in 115 countries might not have a clue about the subtext, but Xena‘s wide reach means that viewers in Saudi Arabia or Turkey have been exposed to love between women.

Online, the Xena/Gabrielle coupling lives on through fan fiction, and has spawned a new industry in the publication of original lesbian fiction from writers who began by posting fan fiction on the web. The Xena: Warrior Princess Subtext Virtual Seasons airs new episodes regularly, with a huge following.

As a cult hit and the driving force behind the creation of an enduring fandom, Xena’s audience became more than merely passive viewers, and in the process, cemented Xena’s place in the history of women in television.

Angie B. is the webmaster of the MAMMOTH Index of Xena Fan Sites http://xenawp.org

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