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Xena and Her Warrior Women
Pretoria News
Tonight Section
31 July 2006
By Kim Clayton-Millar
She stood tall as an oak
tree, her long jet-black hair framing a face men would kill for; her body
worthy of the silks of a pampered queen, but dressed instead in skin-tight
leather; her only adornments a sword and pair of lethal hands able to crack
a head open with one blow.
Her name was Xena … for best effect, whispered, her still-adoring fans will
tell you, with just a little breathlessness in the tone.
In the mid 1990s, millions of television viewers worldwide found themselves
drawn to an action fantasy adventure series with a mythological Greek
setting - a time of ancient gods, warmongers and demons - in which a
captivating Amazonian-like, yet sexy, female warrior called Xena kicked some
serious butt, yet still managed to attract the guys, and, if the ever-
hopeful gay fans of the show's fondest wish were true … a girl (Gabrielle)
too.
Xena, Warrior Princess ran from 1995 to 2001 and starred gorgeous Lucy
Lawless as a young woman forced to toughen up and fight for physical
superiority to most of the men in her life, when her family was slaughtered
by a band of pillaging militia.
After being a feared and loathed badass, the warring princess' conscience
pricked her into turning her back on old feuds and using her physical
attributes to fight for good instead. She literally kicked over a new leaf
by rescuing a girl called Gabrielle from thugs. The starry-eyed maiden then
nagged the warrior woman into dragging her along on her adventures and soon
became Xena's intimately devoted sidekick through a campy, funny and
fight-filled series of fantasy adventures.
Lawless as Xena earned such huge cult status that literally hundreds of web
sites devoted to all things Xena sprung up on the 'Net, most still in
existence. Fanfare reached such a fever pitch that a new term, "xenaverse" -
used to describe things set in the universe of the show - was even coined.
The rest, as they say, was television icon-making history. Happily, for
those who've missed the action she-hero and loved the concept of a woman
winning battles, hearts and making a difference in history, there is hope.
From on Tuesday night, as part of the celebration of Women's month on SABC2,
an action-filled edutainment series called Warrior Women, consisting of five
one-hour documentary films (a different one will go out every Tuesday at
9.30pm for the rest of the month) will be screened.
The films, hosted and narrated by Lucy Lawless, are a mix of real- life
historical stories about five dissimilar female warriors - Mulan, Boudica,
Grace O'Malley, Lozen and Joan of Arc - all of whom had different passions
and causes but shared the common bond of being strong, fearless women who
not only survived, but ruled in the male-dominated society into which they
were born.
The New Zealand-born Lawless, is perfect to front this series, as the iconic
warrior woman hero character Xena she made her own, while fictional,
epitomised the spirit of the real-life warrior women featured in this unique
series.
To give the doccies authenticity, taking viewers into the core of each
woman's world and bringing history more realistically to life, they were
shot on location in France, Ireland, Britain, China, and New Mexico. These
are no Hallmark channel pretty stories and while they are artistically shot,
the filmmakers have tried to keep each re-enacted tale faithful to the
facts.
While some still prefer their historic tales to come in the form of dusty
old library books, this series is a chance for viewers to learn more of, or
re-visit, what they already know about these five iconic heroines through
the visually expressive medium of television.