THIS WEEK IN THE XENA NEWS.... TWXN #13 http://www.teleport.com/~gater/IAXS.html 07/20 Brought to you by Xena: Media Review (XMR) XMR is a periodic annotated world press review of reports regarding the internationally syndicated television show XENA: Warrior Princess (1995 - ) and the castmembers, Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor. For a free e-mail subscription send "subscribe XMR" to ktaborn@lightspeed.net. Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future issues of XMR. [Tentative 324c] 07-18-96 DAILY VARIETY. Thursday. 6026 words. "TV and Cable Production Chart" COMMENTARY: Production chart for LA area: HTLJ and XWP. Same info as XMR324a [Tentative 333] 07-19-96 NOTE: July 19, 1996, in New York's Cinema Village, the series "Girlfriends: Lesbian Short Films From Around the World" opened. Included in this series was Christine Parker's "Peach", which included Lucy Lawless in it's supporting cast as the "mysterious tow-truck driver". The New York Times and Village Voice ran articles about this series. [Tentative 333a] 07-19-96 THE NEW YORK TIMES. Friday. Page C8. 591 words. "Film Review; A Lesbian Perspective" By Stephen Holden COMMENTARY: Mr. Holden deemed Peach one of the two strongest movies of the eight shorts in the "Girlfriends" series. [Tentative 333b] 07-23-96 THE VILLAGE VOICE. Page 66. 387 words. "Girlfriends: Lesbian Short Films from Around the World" By Elisabeth Vincentelli COMMENTARY: In a review about a Lesbian short film festival at a local New York cinema, Ms. Vincentelli attempted to determine what made a film a lesbian short film. In developing her thesis, Ms. Vincentelli made the observation that a lesbian nomiker is not solely based upon content. She stated, "I would also argue that Lucy Lawless is far more lesbionic in Xena, Warrior Princess than in Christine Parker's 'Peach,' though in that film she plays a mysterious tow-truck driver who seduces a young mom. (She does look pretty swell in 20th-century clothing, though, so now I'm praying for a team-up with Gina Gershon.)" I have never came across the term 'lesbionic' before, however that may not necessarily mean it is not in wide use by some (I know it will enter my vocabulary!). However, for my purposes, it appears to be a first coinage. It was a very clever pun especially in a Xena context, since it conjured up both the bionic woman ethos and the alleged lesbian subcontext(s) which flow from the presentation of a strong woman who is not afraid to travel around with only another woman as her companion. I will not go into this further, in part because it is a topic which is so rooted in the very fabric of our society that I could never do it justice as an annotation; and also in part because I anticipate this topic will be discussed thoroughly in several articles which will be published in Whoosh (The Journal of the International Association for Xena Studies). The sentence "seduces a young mom" is true but in a symbolic sense. In the film the peach represented a character's approach to life: Sal admired the peach from afar, and when it was given to her as a gift, she then put it on a pedestal and admired it further, and kept people, including herself, from eating it. In came the "mysterious tow-truck driver" who advised Sal (in a somewhat intense and unique way) to eat the peach. Sal ate the peach. Thus, the Lucy Lawless character did "seduce" Sal to experience more from her life, but not in the sense of a completed physical seduction (even though, then, it was a complete seduction in that Sal did eat that darn peach). Peach was an art film so many more things were happening in it than just an interrupted kiss between two women. [I do not want the reader to think Peach was a one message, exploitative, or polemic film. It was not. It had many levels and dealt with many aspects of life. I regret I am not doing the 16 minute short justice in this annotation. However, this is not an essay on Peach.] Also, in the film it was strongly implied that had not the baby cried, a non-ambiguous non-metaphorical seduction could have happened. Later in the article, in a circumstantial reference to Xena, Ms. Vincentelli expressed her disappointment that in a lesbian film short festival she did not see more action roles for women. She wrote, "I personally would have loved seeing women fight aliens, make giant aquariums explode, or at the very least wave enormous swords and kick Hercules's butt. Expensive? Look at what Monty Python could do with a broom handle and papier-mache!" [Tentative 334] 07-19-96 DAILY VARIETY. Friday. Page 8W. 382 words. "Syndicated programs suffer holiday blues" By Jenny Hontz COMMENTARY: Ratings for 2nd release of Mortal Beloved (#16): XWP took 3rd place in action hours (1st for HTLJ, and 2nd for ST:DS9), with a 4.9 share (up 11% from last week).