Xena And/Under the Transgender Gaze
Judith Halberstam’s “The Transgender Look” offers an important step towards the understanding of transgender subjectivity in the current moment by examining how transgender bodies and gazes have been utilized in contemporary cinema.1 Since the early 1990′s when the word “transgender” first came into more popular usage as an umbrella term for various forms of gender non-conformity,2 feminist/queer film theory has also undergone shifts in how it conceives of the “gaze.” No longer solely relegated to “male” and “female” gazes, film theorists such as Halberstam have begun to theorize about the possibility of “other” gazes, including a transgender one. While her essay “The Transgender Look” applied this new theory to 1990′s films with transgender characters, there have been few scholars who have attempted to apply a trans studies paradigm to the small screen.3 However, like film, television underwent shifts in the 1990′s that included, among other factors, the inclusion of transgender characters.4 While all standard filmic techniques do not necessarily translate smoothly to television, Halberstam’s concept of the “transgender gaze” has potential to be productively applied to analyze this closely related medium. One show in particular – Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001) – has been marked in both scholarly and popular discourse as a show representative, in many ways, of a uniquely ’90s queer aesthetic. Therefore, it stands as a cultural text worthy of consideration when considering the presence of the transgender gaze in American television.
Before directly analyzing the show’s portrayal of a transgender character, however, it is useful to briefly consider Xena‘s unique place in popular culture. From the outset, the show was an instant success, and by 1998 was the most watched show in American broadcasting.5 Originally conceived of as a spin-off of action-adventure series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1999), Xena quickly outstripped its predecessor, both in terms of popularity as well as innovation. While Hercules remained necessarily wedded to the standard “hero” narrative and remained true to the Ancient Greek mythology it was based on, Xena – a fabricated ancient hero – came to represent a flexibility of narrative and a decided rejection of mythological/historical accuracy. Xena, as a female hero who was both in touch with her masculinity (Warrior) yet unafraid to be feminine (Princess), became a symbol of a new kind of hero whose success was not only measured by how many foes she vanquished, but also by her tolerance for uncertainty, ambiguity, and flouting of societal norms. The most celebrated (and still heavily contested) manifestation of this new outlook could be found in the show’s deployment of sexuality – in particular its carefully maintained lesbian “subtext.”
From the first episode, queer viewers were able to read a lesbian inflection into the relationship between Xena and her spunky young sidekick/partner Gabrielle. With the timely advent of the Internet, the show’s producers were quickly able to take note of this fan interpretation, and came to incorporate more sexually-suggestive dialogue and interaction between the main characters, as well as intensified their fairly frequent vows and displays of love for each other.6 Ultimately, the incorporation of multiple “texts” of desire within the show marked it as a cultural product that appealed to a strikingly large demographic range, even among audiences previously considered irreconcilable7; each week, adults and children, the casual viewer and the more stereotypical sci-fi/fantasy fan, the “mainstream” and self-identified feminists, heterosexuals and queers alike eagerly tuned in over Xena‘s six-year run to watch a woman in a metal bra and leather mini-skirt lay waste to countless men, rewrite history, and emote with her female “soulmate.”8 By 1996, Xena‘s second year in production, the show had been lastingly marked as both an influential mainstream and a lesbian/queer phenomena.9 Already known for pushing boundaries, the show’s producers decided to incorporate, mid-season, a comedic episode that featured a transgender character to be portrayed by the controversial, openly HIV-positive gay porn star/drag queen Karen Dior.
This episode, “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis,”10 stands out among Xena episodes as one that received a comparatively large amount of attention, not only from the popular media and from scholars, but from transgender-related social justice organizations as well.11 True to Xena‘s penchant for ambiguity and destabilization of norms, the episode does not monolithically signify one meaning to these various critics, but rather encompasses both the most positive and negative aspects of transgender representation producible in the visual medium. Not only is this a useful episode to consider in a study of television’s transgender gaze because of the show’s intentional crafting of a simultaneously “mainstream” and queer space, but also because, unlike most episodes, this one has already had a scholarly essay devoted to its analysis. In 1998, at the height of Xena‘s popularity, feminist critic Joanne Morreale produced an essay in the Journal of Popular Culture entitled “Xena: Warrior Princess as Feminist Camp,” which focused on “Miss Amphipolis” as the most viable production of “feminist camp” on television.12 A review of this essay reveals a particular mode of feminist analysis that dominated during Xena‘s epoch (mid-late 1990′s) – one which Halberstam explicitly critiques in “The Transgender Look” (2005). Therefore, a reading of the “transgender gaze” within the episode represents, in many ways, an “update” on Morreale’s arguments, if not an outright critique of the dominant style of feminist analysis that fails to take into account transgender subjectivity.
In her essay, Morreale identifies Xena as a “postmodern” text open to many readings, including the then-new “feminist camp” approach explicated by Pamela Robinson in her groundbreaking Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna (1996).13 This approach, according to Morreale, is one that humorously “subverts traditional female stereotypes despite its formal acquiescence to the patriarchal discourse” – in other words, an approach that seeks to identify a critique of traditional femininity couched within an overriding milieu of gender rigidity. By marking Xena‘s universe as particularly feminist, Morreale enmeshes the text not within more “mainstream” conversations concerning gender roles, but within the particular conversations of scholarly feminist circles. The rhetoric she utilizes is reminiscent of heated arguments that have taken place within the feminist/women’s movement since the Second Wave – namely, one that reifies an essentialist concept of “woman” at the cost of scapegoating the transgender woman as a figure complicit in ramifying rigid patriarchal gender roles. In her close reading of “Miss Amphipolis,” she presents Dior’s Miss Artiphys – a transgender character who wins a beauty pageant by default when all the cisgendered women (Xena included) drop out – as the only person who willingly feeds into the patriarchal fantasy of womanhood. On the other hand, the other courageous contestants “following Xena’s example, break free from the patriarchal constraints that contain them, and redefine themselves independently of their male ‘sponsors.’”
Morreale is correct in identifying the episode as one of the most overtly feminist of the Xena canon, and one uniquely alive to the constructed nature of gender. The episode opens with Xena and Gabrielle summoned by a friend to go undercover in a beauty pageant he is running so that they can discover who is trying to sabotage it and possibly instigate a war. Immediately, Gabrielle takes on a tiredly sanctimonious feminist voice, refusing to take part in the “feeble excuse for men to degrade women.” Xena, on the other hand, scorns the women for being complicit in their own victimization, but contradicts Gabrielle by adopting a more liberal humanist argument, and quickly volunteers to go undercover as a contestant to spare everyone from a war that would ruin all their lives, irrespective of their gender. Abandoning her leather armor and stark black hair for a sparkling dress and blond wig, she transforms herself into the vapid and simpering Miss Amphipolis.
The main comedic thrust of the episode hinges on the campy use of masquerade; Xena’s over-exaggerated portrayal of the ultimate fantasy woman serves to destabilize the normativity of both femininity and masculinity by highlighting their ironic clash embodied within a single person. In most episodes, the character purposely wears a “male” mask, performing the duties and role most people around her consider to be manly; however, her low-cut armor and impractically short battle skirt keep her sensuous femininity firmly within view. “Miss Amphipolis” adds a new layer to Xena’s habit of gender parody; the episode’s use of “double mimesis” – presenting a female character who dons a male mask only to don another female mask on top of that14 – sets the viewer up for an even deeper exploration of the constructed nature of gender than the show usually engages in. The entrance of Miss Artiphys, a transgender contestant who only Xena is able to recognize as someone who is similarly “undercover,” makes hypervisible the gender excess that is written on the characters’ bodies throughout the series.
However, Morreale’s arguments do not take into account the individual subjectivity of Miss Artiphys, but strips her down to a symbol of the stereotypical male infiltrator. A deeper look reveals that Artiphys operates as more than an insertion of the male patriarchy into a “woman’s” space; in fact, she is presented, in some lights, as more courageous than them all. One marker of this is the fact that she is the only contestant who does not have a (male) “sponsor,” but has entered the pageant of her own free will (Xena herself is sponsored by a disguised Gabrielle posing as a rich “Marquesa”). She exists as a complex character within a universe of shifting gender significations; even while the people around her attempt to simplify or “box” her, Artiphys remains coyly resistant. One of the most interesting examples of this is found in the way she identifies herself – or rather, resists being definitively identified – in contrast with how others identify her. In their first confrontation in which Xena reveals that she, unlike everyone else, has figured out that Miss Artiphys (read: “artifice”) is not quite what she seems, the two engage in a telling dialogue:
Xena: [rips off A's wig] Now I want some straight answers.
Artiphys: [plaintively] Well, you got the wrong girl. [Pause. Voice drops an octave] [...]
I was just trying to scare you. [...]
Xena: Why’d you want to scare me?
Artiphys: Because I knew you knew about me, and I didn’t want you telling anyone.
But when I came back to unlock the door [of the streamroom], you were gone.
Xena: [smiling compassionately] What made you think I’d tell?
Artiphys: [sadly] You really don’t get it do you? [Xena shakes her head “no”]
I guess being born a woman, you wouldn’t. [Xena's face registers sympathetic concern]
This is a chance to use a part of me that people usually laugh at…or worse. A part
I usually have to hide. Only here, that part works for me. You see?
Xena: I think so.
Artiphys: Look, I don’t expect you to understand. And I’m sorry you got steamed.
I just hope you let me quit the pageant in private instead of going public with it.
Xena: No way! [A looks down, disappointed. Pause. Xena hands back her earring]
May the best person win.15 (emphasis added)
The conversation is worth quoting at length, for it illustrates a great deal of the identity politics behind these two characters, who are bonded together by their recognition of each other as gender outlaws, as well as their mutual need for secrecy.
Their dialogue is marked by an interplay between transgender and homosexual signifiers – a struggle that continues throughout the episode. When Xena rips off Miss Artiphys’ wig to reveal the “real” her – what Halberstam might identify as a symbolic castration16 – her use of the word “straight” implies that she is exposing their interaction as one that is heterosexual because it is truly between a man and a woman. However, Artiphys immediately refuses this interpretation, maintaining that she is a “girl”; even though she consciously drops her voice to a more “masculine” register, she never concedes that she identifies as anything but female. The juxtaposition is underpinned by the striking visual spectacle of Artiphys, who stands with her short (nearly bald) hair shockingly revealed, yet still in an ornate bra and miniskirt, with her midriff sensuously exposed. Later in the episode, Artiphys returns the “favor” of Xena keeping her secret by walking on-stage in the warrior’s armor just as several warlords have identified “Miss Amphipolis” as who she truly is; sashaying into the spotlight in the familiar leather and metal Xena gear, Artiphys steers the attention away from Amphipolis by pronouncing “I’m not a [Warrior] Princess! Honey, I’m a Queen!” The audience, who conceivably have not realized that Artiphys was not “born a woman,” are amused by the clever show; the viewer, on the other hand, is able to recognize the use of “queen” as Artiphys’ sly concession that she is, in fact, a gay male drag queen. During her subsequent walk-off, the pageant host cheerily reads aloud Artiphys’ hobbies for the audience – “archery, horse-breeding, and knowing the complete score to every musical ever written!” – a knowing, tongue-in-cheek reference to her being a mix of masculine and gay male stereotypes. Finally, the episode ends with an incredible spectacle: upon winning the pageant, Artiphys grabs Xena (who is now no longer undercover) and engages her in a passionate kiss – an image that registers not as heterosexual nor male homosexual, but as lesbian.
Within the universe of the show – one whose camp aesthetic necessitates “be[ing] alive to the double sense in which things can be taken”17 – Artiphys represents what Morreale identifies as a “pastiche” (or “blank parody”): an uncritical appropriation of several images/stereotypes into one. What marks this parody as “blank” rather than charged is that the appropriation is done without comment, or without anyone trying to push a politicized meaning onto any one of these identities. Artiphys exists as all at once, and is still able to “pass” as a readable image despite the excess of readings imposed upon her body. However, it is significant to note that Artiphys’ passing is contingent upon the gaze she comes under, as several interact constantly throughout the episode: the gaze of the viewer/Xena, the gaze of the pageant’s audience, and her own transgender gaze. As Halberstam explains in “The Transgender Look,” feminist film theory has generally conceived of the “gaze” within visual media as one that is “male” by default; a viewer, no matter whether they are male or female, experiences the show’s universe through the gaze of the male, and is only able to gain access to voyeuristic pleasure by looking upon female bodies with heterosexual desire. This necessitates that a female viewer’s subjectivity, suspended within the temporary reality of the show, be “sutured” to that of the male, allowing a “cross-dressed” gaze that momentarily accesses the power of the male viewer (and thereby precludes the gaze from being lesbian, despite its fetishization of the female body).17 However, as Halberstam points out, recent cinema (i.e. 1990′s forward) has problematized the canonical male/female binary by inserting multiple gazes that vie for dominance.18
Generally speaking, a viewer enters the universe of Xena: Warrior Princess sutured to the heroine’s gaze – a gaze that is not simply male or female. Xena, as “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis” graphically illustrates, exists as a complex layering of male and female subjectivities, which she can don and remove seemingly at will. This is not to say that hers is a “transgender gaze,” but it is one that a viewer may read multiple gendered meanings through, and which has the potential to privilege a transgender gaze depending upon its interpretation. What this particular episode accomplishes, diverging from the usual Xena set-up, is to force a “crisis” of gazes; while the viewer may be preconditioned, from previous episodes, to be solely sutured to Xena’s gaze, the presence of a voyeuristic audience within the episode causes a rupture. Locked into Xena’s logic, a viewer’s gaze travels through the episode’s world as one that is able to penetrate Artiphys’ mask; however, the moment Xena becomes the spectacle that is Miss Amphipolis, the viewer becomes one with the pageant audience. The viewer then must allow Artiphys to pass as female when seeing from the audience’s unsuspecting eyes, yet at the same time, from Xena’s gaze, is unable to recognize her as anything but the transgender individual she is. The dissonance between these two gazes is humorously highlighted by the fact that no one within the show notices Artiphys’ name is a pun that, if only they were able to sharpen their ears/eyes, they would be able to recognize.
Halberstam identifies the transgender gaze as one that is accessed by the mainstream viewer through the “successful solicitation of affect – whether it is revulsion, sympathy, or empathy”.20 While the viewer is certainly able to access sympathy for Artiphys through identification with Xena’s gaze, perhaps the most powerful access is granted through the solicitation of desire. As Halberstam highlights, what distinctively marks the new cinematic representations of the trans body is that “the transgender character surprises audiences with his/her ability to remain attractive, appealing, and gendered,” despite their existence outside the confining gender/sex/sexuality matrix.21 Because, at its heart, cinema (and, similarly, television) are based upon a “fetishistic structure” fueled by a spectator’s desire to both see and see through to imagine what is not explicitly shown,22 a transgender gaze is made viable when a trans character becomes a part of that complex interplay between spectacle and fantasy. Halberstam alternately identifies this subtle shift to the transgender gaze as a “seduc[tion]”23 and as a surreptitious “high-jacking,”24 in which a viewer is seamlessly enmeshed within “queer forms of visual pleasure” without even making the conscious leap. This forces the viewer into specifically “transgender modes” of looking, at least temporarily.
“Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis” engages the viewer in several of the trans modes that Halberstam describes, most importantly the “rewind” and “doubling.”25 In the former, Halberstam describes a common construct in which a transgender character is first presented as passing and is subsequently revealed in a climactic moment, which then forces the reader to rewind in order to reorganize the linear narrative. The presence of this mode within the episode has already been described previously, in the dialogue that was quoted. The latter mode involves playing a trans character off another trans character, thereby “remov[ing] the nodal point of normativity.” This is quietly achieved within the episode by certain parallels between Artiphys and Xena. Besides the obvious fact that they are both “passing” in order to accomplish their goals, the end of the episode also includes a scene which appears to deliberately parallel Artiphys’ previous reveal scene. In the scene already described, a trapped and de-wigged Artiphys allows her voice to deepen and become intentionally masculine; similarly, once the pageant’s saboteur has been brought to justice, Xena reveals herself by removing her own wig and dropping her voice to its customary low octave. While the scenes are not exactly the same, the characters’ parallels – as well as the image of Artiphys dressed in Xena’s fetishistic leather outfit — do offset the “nodal point of normativity” by forging a visual and emotional link that opens a space of possibility for a viewer, sutured to the episode’s audience, to desire both Xena and Artiphys.
According to Halberstam, the presence of these stylistic practices draw a viewer in to become affectively entwined with a transgender gaze. While not the same as being “sutured” to a transgender look, these modes do render the trans person human and significant – a feeling, thinking subject – rather than a mere exoticized object or stylistic foil. Perhaps more importantly, however, Halberstam is careful to document those moments that the transgender gaze falters, which reveal the fragile and tragically expendable construct that trans subjectivity generally is within mass cultural production. While “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis” does engage the trans look, it would be difficult to argue that it is sustained throughout the entire episode. There are particular moments that actively “detour”26 or even entirely erase Miss Artiphys’ unique subjectivity by disallowing the viewer to see her as she sees herself or eliminating the possibility of her being considered transgender entirely.
An example of such a “detour” is the first time the audience views Miss Artiphys, as seen through Xena’s eyes. Walking into a hallway, Xena stops and stares at one of her competitors, who fiercely returns her look. A shot/reverse shot firmly establishes the viewer’s suture to Xena as the camera lingers on the striking features of Artiphys’ face. Thrown into garish relief, the viewer is struck by the masculinity of her face – rather than the femininity she herself sees. Morreale, in a “rewind,” notes in her essay that this is a moment of “recognition” between the two imposters; considering Halberstam’s arguments, however, this is far more. It establishes the viewer as someone who is seeing through Artiphys, rather than seeing with her, marking her as an object of the gaze but rarely an agent. A second example, building off the first, has already been described: the involuntary removal of Artiphys’ wig by Xena. Serving as a simulated “castration,” the abrupt exposure and jarring visual could be interpreted as a move meant to protect the viewer from their own desire. Standing next to the more readable femininity of Xena, Artiphys must now rely on the “real” woman to restore her man-/woman-/gender-hood via the return of her earring. While this may reinstate a measure of humanity to her (via somewhat patronizing sympathy, rather than relatability), she is never quite the same in the viewer’s eye. In fact, the entire stylistic construct of “secrecy” that weaves throughout the episode implies a certain viewer the show’s producers constructed in the process of creating the episode – an audience unfamiliar with the particular emotions (joy, triumph, fear, humiliation) associated with the life of the trans individual fighting to pass in society. As Halberstam points out, “secrecy constructs a mainstream viewer,” and thereby implicitly “ignore[s] [a] more knowing audience” (emphasis added).27 In other words, this construct establishes a distance between the assumed reality of the viewer vis-a-vis the reality of Artiphys, placing a barrier between a trans-identified spectator being able to see themselves in Artiphys or being able to smoothly suture to her trans gaze within the episode.
Then again, to return to an initial point made in relation to Xena: Warrior Princess: the construction of the show’s audience was a peculiarly fraught and contested ground throughout its production in a way unparalleled by any other show of its time. This fact is perhaps not better illustrated than by a moment such as the one at the end of “Miss Amphipolis,” in which an ecstatic Miss Artiphys leans Xena down in a surprise kiss. Continuing in a vein arguing for an unsustained transgender gaze, one could posit that this moment represents the ultimate erasure of Artiphys’ trans subjectivity. Compounded by previous moments alluding to Artiphys as gay, this image cements her character as one that is coded “homosexual” – whether that be as a male homosexual or as a lesbian. As “homosexual” generally exists as a polarized category to “transgender” in the American popular imagination, this coding eliminates the possibility of her being “trans” (read: in between, across, outside) gendered, but firmly establishes that she must have a solid gender identification in keeping with the normative binary in order to engage with her sexuality.
On the other hand, the universe of Xena had been established in previous episodes as one that could, arguably, be considered wholly “queer.” A veritable firestorm of speculation raged around the multiple texts of desire deployed within each episode, and queer-identified fans often eagerly viewed Xena and Gabrielle as the only characters on prime-time television engaged in a sustained lesbian relationship.28 The fact that they themselves never discussed their sexuality or possible romantic/sexual relation to each other marked their world as one in which, opposite to the viewer’s world, lesbian/queer desire could be considered as normative as heterosexual desire. This is what Halberstam refers to as a “queer universe” – one in which “the heroes are utterly unremarkable for their queerness in the cinematic world the directors have created.”29 It is possible to believe, considering the incredible demographic range the show attracted, that a segment of Xena‘s audience entered the show’s universe engaged in this particular subjectivity. Within “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis,” this view triggers a third “transgender mode” that Halberstam describes: the closed circuit.30 Within this mode, if one considers Xena and Artiphys to be the “heroes” of the episode, “transgenderism is a complex dynamic between the two[.] [They] collude and collaborate in their gendering, and create a closed world of queerness that is locked in place by the circuit of a gaze that never references the male or the female gaze as such.”
An important element of the establishment of the queer universe within the episode is the role of Gabrielle. Within the purview of a queer subjectivity, Gabrielle is generally considered to be in a lesbian relationship with Xena. This connection is made subtlety explicit when she, posing as the “sponsor” of Xena’s “Miss Amphipolis” character, interacts with the male sponsors of the other contestants. As the rich Marquesa, she places herself in the same patriarchal, patronizing role of ownership of the other sponsors, and the men assume, without comment, that she has every right to inhabit this role, irrespective of her gender. Their sponsorship of the pageant is almost solely based upon an assumed sexual desire they have for the women’s bodies – a desire Gabrielle is thereby implicated in, by association. Midway through the episode, she has a particularly revealing conversation with one of the other sponsors, a man who has placed his girlfriend in the pageant against her will. After having suggested to the group that, instead of giving orders, they ask for their contestants’ input, the one sponsor/boyfriend stays behind to inquire personally about the Marquesa’s relationship with her sponsee, Miss Amphipolis. Engaging with her on a plane of equality – as if not only assuming that they both are worthy sponsors, but that both are also lovers of their contestants – the sponsor asks her for advice on his relationship with his girlfriend. Within the queer universe of the episode, this interaction ramifies the “closed circuit” of trans subjectivity that touches every aspect of each characters’ interactions. Both the gaze of the male sponsor and of Gabrielle/Marquesa do not reference a familiar male/female binary that delineates normative roles and desires, but rather transcend to see with a kind of gender flexibility that resonates with the trans-ing potential of both Xena and Artiphys’ gazes.
In this light, then, the final kiss between Xena and Artiphys exists as the most overt acknowledgment of this reality, removing all doubt that the show engenders anything but a “queer universe.” This is not the “humanistic” queerness that Halberstam disdains31 – one which presents the queer subject as an individual who is just as “normal” as everyone else – but, rather, a somewhat exclusionary queerness. This universe is one that not all viewers are able to recognize themselves a part of, despite being implicated in it as soon as they turn on their television. “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis” shows a self-reflexive awareness, enhanced by its consciously campy aesthetic, of this unique receptive process through its construct of a show-within-a-show. The pageant’s audience – which functions as a kind of shorthand for the “mainstream” audience of the series – does not, interestingly, react with disbelief or revulsion to the kiss between Artiphys (who they presumably read as a biological woman) and Xena. Rather, they do not react at all; as the camera cuts to the faceless masses complacently cheering, one receives the sense not that they are cheering such a display of “alternative” sexuality, but that they do not, in fact, see it at all. They are as unfazed by the act as by anything else they see – a blind gaze that highlights, somewhat surrealy, the disjuncture between a knowing (queer) universe and an unknowing (mainstream) one. The kiss itself seems only to be accessed visually by Gabrielle – who reacts with a strikingly jealous look of dismay. A shot-reverse-shot between her and Artiphys/Xena establish the fact that the three are a closed circuit unto themselves, privileged by a different kind of penetrative gaze that, rather than stripping away trans/queer subjectivity, gives agency to it.
What these opposite readings amount to is not only a critique of a feminist interpretation like Morreale’s, which fail to take into account the complexities of transgender existence, but also a problematization of Halberstam’s theory of the “transgender gaze/look.” Her essay begins the daunting and necessary task of documenting and exploring modes of looking in visual culture that resonate with trans subjectivity, but is not an end in itself. While her essay presents certain modes as distinct and even polarized (e.g. the rewind vs. the closed circuit), “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis” illustrates how these modes can be complexly interwoven within one visual product. Layering of texts, subjectivities, and gazes, while ideal for comedic effect, also perform the important function of destabilizing the process of audience reception by enmeshing the spectator in several modes of viewing, exposing multiple potential axes of pleasure, and ultimately reflecting the absurdity of a constructed “mainstream” audience.
Perhaps the episodic nature of Xena: Warrior Princess, whose particular gender dynamics were built upon the compounded readings viewers had placed on the characters week after week, opens itself wider to the possibility of the transgender gaze taking multiple forms – as opposed to the singular nature of film, which can only trigger and sustain a limited amount of modes within its narrow timeframe. This possibility suggests that television offers a significant site for further inquiry into the production (or lack thereof) of the transgender gaze. However, the decline of action/adventure fantasy series such as Xena (1995-2001) marks the closing of an important experimental space of possibility for the exploration of the postmodern “potentiality of the body to [...] become fluid”32 – a fascination that, according to Halberstam, continues to enthrall audiences into the current moment. However, the show does illustrate what has been done, and therefore what can potentially be created again. Most significant, then, is the ultimate implication that while this one space of possibility has closed, it has allowed for – perhaps even inspired – the opening of others. While transgender visibility on popular television continues to expand, a critical look at how gazes are utilized within the structure of emergent visual styles (e.g. “reality TV”) will become increasingly necessary to ensure an ongoing dialogue concerning the truth and appropriation of trans subjectivity.
–
Note: This essay was originally produced for “Studies of Women Gender and Sexuality 1200qh: Transgender History in Urban Spaces. Professor Susan Stryker. Harvard University. Fall 2008.
Endnotes
1. Halberstam, Judith. “The Transgender Look.” In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. NYC: New York University Press, 2005.
2. Stryker, Susan. “Queer Gender in the 1990′s.” Lecture. Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality 1200qh: Transgender History and Urban Spaces. Harvard University. Fall 2008. 2 December 2008.
3. Most analyses of transgender characterization have focused on film. For examples, see In A Queer Time and Place (endnote 1).
4. Jensen, Michael. “TV Landscape Changing for Transgender Characters.” 17 October 2007. <http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2007/10/transgendertvlandscape>
5. Morreale, Joanne. Xena: Warrior Princess as Feminist Camp. Journal of Popular Culture. Fall 98, Vol. 32 Issue 2, pgs. 79-87. Para. 1.
6. Findlay, Heather. ”Xena-Philia!: Girlfriends takes a peek into the epistemology of the warrior princess’s closet.” Girlfriends. 4 April 1998. Pg. 29, 44.
7. Butt, Miriam, and Kyle Wholmut. “The Thousand Faces of Xena: Transculturality through Multi-Identity.” Globalization, Cultural Identities, and Media Representations. Natashca Gentz and Stefan Karmer, eds. NY: SUNY Press, 2006. Pg. 89.
8. From midway through Season 4 (Episode 15, “Between the Lines”) through to the end of the series, Xena and Gabrielle refer to each other as their “soulmate.” Examples:
“Between the Lines.” Xena: Warrior Princess (Season 4), DVD, directed by Rick Jacobson. (2004, Anchor Bay Entertainment).
“The Ring.” Xena: Warrior Princess (Season 6), DVD, directed by Rick Jacobson. (2005, Anchor Bay Entertainment).
For an analysis of the concept of “soulmate” in Xena, see:
Fisher, Judy. “ ‘The Quest’ Kiss and Its Aftermath: How Xena: Warrior Princess‘ Greatest Scene Damaged the Show.” Whoosh!. Iss. 87. March 2004. <http://www.whoosh.org>
9. Findlay.
10. “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis.” Xena: Warrior Princess (Season 2), DVD, directed by Marina Sargenti. (2005, Anchor Bay Entertainment).
11. Rudnick, Bret. “An Interview with Chris Manheim.” Whoosh! February 1999. Issue 29. <http://whoosh.org/issue29/imanheim1.html>.
12. Morreaele.
13. Robinson, Pamela, Guilty Pleasures: Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna. Duke University Press, 1996.
14. Morreale.
15. “Here She Comes…Miss Amphipolis.”
16. Halberstam.
17. Robertson, as quoted in Morreale.
18. Halberstam, 85-6.
19. Ibid., 76.
20. Ibid., 77.
21. Ibid., 76.
22. Ibid., 81.
23. Ibid., 83.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., 78-9.
26. Ibid., 82.
27. Ibid., 80.
28. Catherine M. and Laura Anh Williams. “’Everything Else Is the Same’: Configurations of The L Word.” Chapter in Televising Queer Women: A Reader . Rebecca Beirne, editor. Pg. 152.
29. Halberstam, 94.
30. Ibid., 79. Note that “closed circuit” is my own label.
31. Ibid., 94.
32. Ibid., 76.
(c) Michelle Kellaway, 2008
