Lesbian Archers for Rei

Hi Rei, You left the sexual preference of the FTM open, but given you've taken the position of "the Avatar's a lesbian" in the discussion I assumed you were pushing that she was a lesbian. Sorry if that's incorrect. But anyway, there's no conclusive evidence JOA was an FTM, either. If there was a buzz about possible lesbianism within Xena fandom then I wasn't aware of it, but then I wasn't a fan but more a captive observer with my kids. The evidence within the show for a lesbian relationship seems tenuous at best, while the evidence for heterosexual relationships between Xena and men were explicit. I grant that you and Dan have put that bath scene with Gabriel and Xena that I think appeared near the end of the series in a new light. I couldn't figure out how the gratuitous non-frontal nudity in a children's show made any sense - I didn't realize there was an older audience, and I didn't know Xena appealed to the lesbian set, but if there was a background buzz about lesbianism then the writers and directors probably included that scene to take advantage of it. The important thing for them was not to answer the question, but rather to make sure it remained a question. Or, possibly more likely, to make it seem to lesbians the question was answered in the affirmative, while leaving the question unanswered from other perspectives, and even unapparent from some perspectives, like children's. Well, obviously I'm not tuned into the same kind of sexuality you are. I never knew that Xena was a huge icon to the lesbian community, but clearly you did. But just because you found lesbian hints in Xena does not mean you can ignore the explicit heterosexual content. The producers are just creating a show to maximize the audience. For all you know they threw in the occasional lesbian hints to toss a bone to the lesbian segment of their audience, knowing that it would go over the heads of many straight viewers, and certainly the children viewers, and not because they had decided that the Xena character was a lesbian.And a little more on the topic of being tuned in to sexuality, I suppose everyone else is so tuned in that gays never come on to straights and vice-versa, right? Concerning Gabriel, does her expression in a scene mean admiration or love? If love, how do you know, and is the love sexual? You never seem to admit to any ambiguity. Why do think everything has an answer?--Percy

What odds? I've consistently pointed out that the majority of women who actually do this, in both reality and the context of the fantasy world depicted by the picture, are straight. The vast, vast majority. How do you get "odds are fairly good that she's a lesbian" out of that? It defies logic!

MrHambre,I can't seem to view the images, but just like skimpy bikinis & mini-skirts it's what you can't see that's so enticing.Phwoooargh!Any more?Mark[This message has been edited by mark24, 12-03-2003]

Long hair, and you say that means less likely to be a lesbian, but Gabriel's hair was pretty short. Was it ever considered a possibility that Gabriel was a lesbian in love with Xena and that her love was unrequited? Seems the possibilities are endless.--Percy[This message has been edited by Percipient, 12-03-2003]

quote:

---

Well, obviously I'm not tuned into the same kind of sexuality you are.

---

Percy, lust is lust no matter how you slice it. And I'm sure you know that in a kids show, you can get away with a lot more than you could otherwise, since nobody's expecting it. There's a great scene in the Muppet Movie where Kermit and Rolf are singing a song about one-night stands. This isn't subtext; there's a line that goes, "Still it's fun when they're fetching, and agree to see the etchings that you keep at your lilypad." (It's also topped off with the most monumentally genius line of all time... "First time I ever seen a guy that green have the blues so bad." But there's nothing sexy about that line, so screw it.)Pop-culture is jam-packed with sexy subtext all over the place. (Good God, don't start me on Japan, or we'll be here all day. Akane Tendo? Big lesbian.) This doesn't mean you need to see it to enjoy the show/comic/movie/what-have-you, but nine times out of ten the subtext was intended, and casts things in a big fat new light. Once you see it, there's really no other way to interpret it. Xena is so freakin' gay it's not even funny. If you go back and start watching the show with that in mind, I'd be astounded if you could come back and say that Xena's sexuality is supposed to be ambiguous.

I imagine the goal of the producers was to have their relationship be sufficiently ambiguously lesbian to hold viewer interest, but not so obvious that men would lose hope (if you will).Just like lesbian porn, basically. Or women's prison movies.

quote:

---

quote:

---

What clues are there in the picture to suggest that this is some sort of a "costume"? The picture is clearly posed in an alternate-reality context. Would you disagree with this?

---

​

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to assess her apparent sexuality from the standpoint of a denizen of her fantasy world?

---

Since we don't know her fantasy-world context, a real-world context is the only context available to us. Since it doesn't appear to be a costume-context, we cannot apply it to the costume context that you have been trying to pigeonhole her into. The only context that we have is our reality's historic context of knights and other armored warriors. And the the historic context of knights and other armored warriors, concerning men vs. women, is.... ? (fill in the blank)

quote:

---

quote:

---

Do you actually believe that the majority of people in Minnesota would describe "aggressiveness" as being a feminine trait, as opposed to masculine, as the implication was in your earlier posts?

---

​

Hey, don't put words in my mouth. I never said aggressiveness wasn't masculine, too. But masculinity has nothing to do with women. And everybody agrees that women can be very, very agressive when you have something that they want, or are in a position to perform a service for them.

---

I'll repeat, and hope again for a straight answer: is aggressiveness typically considered a masculine or feminine trait?

quote:

---

quote:

---

Do you honestly believe that women who take part in highly aggressive athletics have the same sexuality distribution as the average population?

---

​

From my experiences meeting female hockey players - and marrying one of them - I can assure you that there's more lesbians in the English department than there are on the hockey team. At least in Minnesota.

---

Oh really? Have you asked the team? Or is this just a guestimate? How many of the team members have other indicative factors (i.e, as I've been forced to keep repeating, it's never one factor, but the combination of several)? And have you asked any of the all GLBT-teams there?

quote:

---

quote:

---

My senses say lesbian.

---

​

Your stereotypes, you mean.

---

If the world applied your standards, gay people would almost never hook up. That's the reality of the situation.

quote:

---

women in this world wear armor and aren'tgay. In fact the majority of women who wear armor - for play, for sports, for law inforcement - aren't gay.

---

Oh please.1) For play: Does she look like she's playing?
2) For sports: Does she look like this is part of a sport?
3) For law enforcement: Does she look like she's taking part in law enforcement?We're not talking about a kevlar jacket or a hockey mask: We're talking about full-fledged heavy combat armor. It's silly to make such an analogy.

quote:

---

In the world represented by the picture, a vast majority of adventuring women wear armor - you kind of have to, really - and aren't gay.

---

Actually, no, in the type of world represented by the picture (from my experience with anime), a vast majority of adventuring women wearing armor look like this:Perhaps not that bad, but they're usually represented as little more than male eye candy. The avatar woman is armored up to the eyebrows. The only thing feminine about her is her face structure, which is something internal to her (not part of "presentation"). She's not emphasizing it (with makeup or whatnot), although one could possibly argue that such neat eyebrows are plucked.Besides, I've stated before, I'm judging against the context of our reality: knights and armor are extremely male stereotypical items outside of costume contexts. If you think that armor isn't stereotypically a "male" thing outside of a costume context, I don't know how to reason with you. What percent of knights in the history of this planet do you think were women?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-03-2003]

Well, we have a straight and a gay pretty much agreed that Xena was a big time lesbo if you're tuned into the subtext, and I consider that pretty strong confirmation. On the other hand, you're you and Rei and is Rei (), so I went out on the net looking for what this subtext might be and I found this among many others: It offers the lesbian subtext of each episode. Take a look: Not horribly convincing stuff. Maybe you have to actually watch the shows with the subtext guide in front of you.I'm reminded of the fortune cookie game we used play when out to dinner with friends. You had to read your fortune cookie, but append to the end "in bed". It made the interpretations hilarious, and the fortune writers never had any intent to do this. I think you're doing the same thing with Xena and a lot of other stuff. You're just reinterpreting things in a sexual context. Reminds me of the character Todd on the TV show Scrubs.In the case of Xena I think the show's producers became aware that a segment of fandom was making lesbian interpretations where none had been intended, and then they began feeding into it in a subtle way. And not so subtle - when poking around the net I noticed the bath scene gets a lot of attention.--Percy

quote:

---

Pop-culture is jam-packed with sexy subtext all over the place. (Good God, don't start me on Japan, or we'll be here all day. Akane Tendo? Big lesbian.)

---

Yappappa, yappappa, ii shanten
Hashagu koi wa ike no koi....Quite an amusing series. And lots of subtext. Haven't seen it in ages. Of course, I typically prefer the "deeper" series, such as Serial Experiments Lain. ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Okay... you sound like a creationist now. You're grabbing one site off the internet and saying, "Sounds incredulous."I think you're probably right that they started portraying her as gay after the lesbian audience started watching. But after the point where they started it's just unavoidable. And as I said with the Buffy post earlier, you're not going to catch it just by reading through transcripts and analyses of transcripts, because the words and actions themselves aren't where the subtext comes in. It's all in how/why the actors carry themselves on screen.

Ah, I'm thinking of the manga. (Same plot, way better done.) Rumiko Takahashi is one of the more talented cartoonists on the planet.

Are you kidding?Haven't you seen "Lord of the Rings"? Haven't you played any fantasy video games? Dungeons and Dragons? The basic, generic swords-n-sorcery fantasy world is easliy avaliable to us, as it's a staple of genre fiction and video games. So don't hide behind this "we don't know about her world" excuse. There's nothing about that picture to suggest that she belongs to anything but your basic fantasy world. Except that she's not wearing armor that has appeared in history at any time. ("It's not period" would be the SCA phrase.) So we can reject the historical context immediately. Masculine in men. Feminine in women. That's as straight as it gets. Yes. Do you believe that these teams represent the majority of female hockey players? Well, they're clearly more insightful than you, aren't they? Somehow they hook up just fine and yet avoid coming on to every woman in armor. You misunderstood. No, I'm not saying that she's taking part in those activities (except for perhaps enforcing the laws of her world, who knows?) What I'm saying is that there's two appropriate contexts in which to assess her apparent sexuality - the context of our world, and the context of the generic fantasy world she inhabits.In our world, the majority of women who do what she's doing are straight. In her world, the vast majority of women who do what she's doing are straight. So where do you get this "odds are she's lesbian" crap?I mean, maybe in your head the vast majority of women who do what she's doing are lesbians. But that's not true anywhere else, Rei. That's what I thought. Your only experience with the fantasy genre is anime and Boris Vallejo calendars.So, you don't have experience with women's hockey. You don't have experience with mediveal/fantasy reenactors. You don't have experience with various incarnations of the fantasy genre. What exactly thinks you're qualified to accurately make assesments about the socio-sexual situation of this woman? And we've established why that's an inappropriate context - this woman is clearly not a historical figure. No such armor has ever been worn in history, except in costume in this century. And if you're talking about armor in general we've established that the majority of women who wear armor aren't gay.So, her specific armor isn't gay. Armor in general isn't gay. So what about wearing armor leads you to believe that she's gay? I know that you don't know how to reason with me. It's obvious you don't have any experience with what we're talking about.Your argument has always seemed to be "if you saw a woman dressed like that, wouldn't you think she was gay?" And the answer is "no, I wouldn't, because I don't share your bogus stereotypes."

Never read the manga. I find myself always having to look up the kanji, it's too much work, and I'd feel guilty reading an English translation, because I'd know that I should be taking the effort to translate it and make myself learn kanji better. One group whose talent I've been really impressed with is CLAMP. If you've seen their X artbook, it's just beautiful. The only thing about CLAMP, at least in their anime, is that they tend to draw men like women, which can leave one a bit confused. Also, while I'd never heard of them until Lain, Triangle Staff does beautiful work, and I love Yoshitaka's design work.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Percipient writes:

quote:

---

and your read on the Xena/Gabriel relationship reeks more of male fantasy than anything else

---

Um, you really need to watch the show.Specifically, you need to watch the episode where a tabloid/reality show follows there characters around as Xena goes to Norway to get the golden apples in order to restore the godhoods of Ares and Aphrodite ("You Are There"). At one point, the TV host asks the two of them right out if they are in love with each other. And at the end of the show, they extend the joke out by having the interviewer ask again if Xena and Gabrielle are lovers. They finally break down and say that they're going to reveal the "true nature" of their relationship and, of course, just as they get started, the batteries die on the camera.The show was quite aware of the homoerotic nature of the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. Oh, the characters denied it every chance they got, but then they kept on doing things like having to keep one person underwater in order to hide and the other above water, taking a breath, dunking her head down, and kissing the other, ostensibly to pass the air. The writers deliberately played up the undercurrent of a physical affair between the two.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

True, but do you have a better site? This isn't a topic worthy of a lot of research, and you can bet I'm not going to be setting aside time to watch old Xena episodes. Human interaction has huge amounts of ambiguity. In some cases, like the finer kids movie, the plot advances on two different levels, and it's on purpose. In other cases the plot has unintended interpretations. I think we're pretty close to agreeing about Xena now, but I still think you're looking too hard for sexual subtexts everywhere. I've never watched "Buffy", so I can't comment. I've seen a couple episodes of "Charmed" - what do you think? Any sexual subtext there? How about "8 Simple Rules" - what was the real relationship between Paul and Bridget? See where I'm going? Can't you play this game with any program or movie?--Percy