Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Historical Context
Sapphic love
Examination of Religions
Clues of the Producer's True Message
Appendix A - Biography of Xena
Appendix B - Biography of Gabrielle
Appendix C - Series Disclaimers
Xena: Warrior Princess is an hour-long action-adventure series filmed in and around Auckland, New Zealand, and produced by Renaissance Pictures. It is exclusively distributed in syndication in the United States by MCA-TV and internationally by MCA-TV International. The show premiered the week of September 4, 1995 as a spin-off of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. The final episode aired the week of June 17, 2001. The basic premise of the program is the continuing search for redemption of Xena, a former villainous warrior who destroyed families, lives and communities with her warring ways and her armies. The physical manifestation of her conscience during this search is her sidekick Gabrielle, the young, bright-eyed innocent who looks up to Xena as a hero and sees the true beauty and goodness within Xena.
Together, they travel doing good deeds, saving innocents, killing warlords and ogres; all the while, learning and teaching of religious beliefs that on the surface stand at odds with one another just as the good and evil within Xena (and each of us) does.
As a spin-off of "Hercules," the Xena series began with a male dominated audience. Most women viewed the program as a version of WWE where the women are scantily-clad just for the entertainment of the men. To transition this program and this audience, Rob Tapert took on two very big underlying messages - Sapphic love and religious understanding.
Putting together a team to produce Xena must have tested Rob Tapert's skill as a producer and as a manager. There were 41 different directors of the 134 episodes and 43 different writers, many...
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And now, so soon after this television show finally withered away, the supposedly prominent "stars" aren't even appearing on the lesser talk shows any more to tell us what new and forgettable adventures they are off to, and DVDs of the various seasons show up in the discount racks at the discount stores, we look back and wonder: did we really take this stuff seriously? How?
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