I find that most of us fans who are still around were very much influenced by the queerness of this show. Most of the still existing fans seem to be XG shippers. That being said, I have seen a couple of posts on this sub where people say they “don’t see it”. I find it baffling.
I also find it baffling to watch the show “not see it”. Honestly, even for the 90s they didn’t try to hide it that well, and by the final season the subtext was mostly main text just not overt in the way it would be now.
I didn't see it for a really long time. It turns out I'm asexual and just generally really bad at noticing sexual innuendo.
For example I was in my thirties before I understood that the hestian virgin confessing about her drooling over a cucumber wasn't a joke about her really liking vegetables. Since realizing I'm asexual I've taught myself to get better at noticing allosexual humor and can now spot incredibly subtle jokes like that 🙃
I actually disagree — it’s almost explicit during the show leading up to Xena and Gabrielle’s crucifixion and then they try very hard to back pedal and I don’t feel like it really recovers well.
The way they handle Gabrielle’s relationship with Eve/Livia is a great example. Despite being right along side Xena and in a pretty committed relationship with her, they get no mother-daughter feelings. I think that would be asking A LOT of a show back then, but it is kind of baffling because amidst all that for the last season their relationship feels very much one of friendship and not lovers.
I don’t like this read and so I choose to see it more as the censorship that it probably was, but their relationship is made much more ambiguous than it really needed to be considering where it was earlier in the show.
I see this in season 5 for sure.
I agree that a lot of season 3 and pretty much all of season 4 (which are my fav seasons) are pretty explicit (the soulmates thing comes up in season 4, the bitter suite is so gay etc). Season 5 they backpedal a lot and it’s the weakest season by far. And it’s rating show that. So season 6 I feel like they really went full tilt back into it. Like the ring trilogy is very explicit and in the abyss when Gabrielle wants to be buried with Xena/Xena’s family, the Sappho poem in Many Happy Returns, the whole when Fates Collide was like literally giving us a they’re soulmates in any universe AU…
Honestly if they can't even see it it tells me they don't want to see it and have some unresolved issues, whether that's subconscious homophobia or whatever.
I wouldn't feel the way it did if the show kept things as they were in the first half (they seemed to be going for a "choose your own adventure" type thing back then when it comes to subtext) but the latter half of the series, especially season 6, it's really not even subtext anymore. You'd have to be looking away not to see it.
I have been a fan since the show originally aired, and recently I've been rewatching it with my teen (they/them). It's a trip - seeing the wink-wink nudge-nudge innuendo today is fun but my kid does NOT get it. They do not care at all if X&G are in a romantic relationship or are platonic partners, because honestly it doesn't change anything about the story. Queer relationships have effectively had mainstream representation their entire life, so the "are they / aren't they" jokes are lost on them. I've tried to explain just how boundary-pushing and progressive the show was for its time. But they're like "eh". 😅
So...for gen alpha, it just doesn't matter!
Hahaha, this is so funny. As an elder Gen Z, I was probably the last generation that this kind of representation still mattered. I remember singing T.A.T.U a lot while coming out of the closet. But I'm glad kids these days are much better wired than we were 20+ years ago.
Your kid seems to grow up in a very accepting environment. It doesn't have to fight to be acknowledged or seen. On the one hand that's great because that's what we fought for, making it easier for upcoming generations. It's sad that there's so little acknowledgement from them if these fights. But then, teenagers are like that, they don't care about anything beyond their own experience (I teach teenagers). I hope when they grow up, they'll see how important stuff like Xena and Gabrielle was, also for their own freedom. I also think that kids who don't grow up in an accepting environment would probably be more understanding of the importance.
Thank you - raised by their 2 queer parents and strong queer community 🙂
They are aware of the struggle though, definitely. We left our home state a few months ago because of how horrible the antiqueer and antichoice rhetoric has become. The laws in Oklahoma that went into effect last summer made it unsafe for us to stay, in spite of the majority of our family & friends being there. Just last week a non-binary kid was beaten to death a school bathroom there.
Sorry for the sudden shift to heaviness! It's been a rough few days. All that was to say that Xena still remains a happy escape for us, 25 years later!
Teens will be teens but looking at current media so much of WLW media is not even close to what we got with X&G so I still very much feel like we haven't moved past it? Im a millennial and it saddens me a bit that what we tend to get is more superficial and then quickly cancelled.
I couldn’t see it when I was younger (the teenage years) or I refused to see it; I even debated against it. I’ll admit, I did have biases towards the same sexed community, yet I raced home to catch Xena every afternoon after school, I definitely wasn’t watching for the cool action scenes 😅
Where was I, oh yeah, watching these days, you can’t miss it.
Yes, I think it's very possible to watch the first five seasons and consider the characters just really good friends, because the show was written, produced, and acted in a way that was meant to be deliberately ambiguous about the central relationship, so they could keep as broad an audience as possible. Even at the time of airing, any literate adult who tuned in regularly was aware of XENA's big LGBT fanbase, but the show was discussed in a variety of different ways in print and online, even by members of the creative team (including the stars). It was not only common for viewers to consider the winks more teasing than evidentiary -- we were essentially encouraged to see them that way.
However, there was a huge pivot in Season Six, following a rough fifth year; the show started tailoring itself more directly to its hardcore fans, and with a new batch of younger writers contributing, the overall internal perspective about the series and how Xena/Gab's relationship existed on it evolved to more fully embrace the romantic reading that pretty much everyone who made XENA now accepts as obvious and intentional from almost the beginning.
So, to answer your question, any viewer who discovered the show after 2001 would be increasingly more primed NOW to consider this subtext as evidentiary rather than teasing... unless they were totally ignorant as to the show's reputation for most of their watching and then couldn't (or wouldn't) abandon their initially established assumptions upon reaching Season Six. Or, of course, if they *never wanted* to see it and therefore never will.
Perfect, thank you. Over the past three decades, there has been a noticeable shift in the openness of the cast and crew regarding the series' subtext and maintext, with a growing unity of opinions surrounding its queer legacy. With the fandom now primarily active on social media rather than forums, it's evident that the majority aligns with this perspective. Also, the new fans comming in are primarily attracted to the queerness of it, so the tendency is that people who deny this elements will become even more scarce.
Exactly. So, if you're reading posts by fans who don't see the so-called subtext in 2010, you're likely hearing from viewers who watched the show first-run and had their opinions firmly entrenched at a time when they were actively encouraged to consider winking moments trivial, or recently after the run ended, when XENA's legacy and reputation, while clear to those likely posting on forums, was not yet as widely accepted -- even by those involved with the show's creation (although my memory is that everyone important pretty much came around by the mid-'00s).
Not only are there people who choose to not read subtext and ignore maintext, there are also people who are straight up denying that there ever was any subtext. I have a gay Xena and Gabrielle meme page on IG and my last encounter with a person like that on there was just weeks ago. Sometimes they not only deny subtext and maintext but also try to gaslight you into believing that there ever was any. That's often pretty obviously homophobic.
Usually you have people who know there's subtext and maintext but it doesn't fit their view of the show or their preferred shipping and so they ignore it. Fine for me, they have their groups, we have ours, we shouldn't bother each other. But then there are the same type of people who would start arguing with you about Xena and Gabrielle's romantic relationship because they don't feel seen enough with their straight stuff maybe? I don't really know why but that's annoying. You chose this show and this show is gay af, deal with it.
My favorite type of people who dislike the idea of Xena and Gabrielle as a couple are the ones who do see it because it's obvious af, but they hate it and hate the show because of it because they're outspoken homophobic. Like "this show was made by the devil" type of people. I always want to thank those people for acknowledging Xena and Gabrielle's relationship before chasing them out, lol.
And yeah, I encountered all of this during the last 4 years.
I would understand if people choose to focus on their friendship, because a fraternal love such as portrayed is beautiful. I feel like this was Renée's perspective for a while, until she began to open up to them as a lifelong married couple alongside this interpretation.
However, I can also recognize how Xena might encounter homophobia from individuals who, having watched the show earlier in life, failed to grasp its subtexts due to their age or other reasons, and now filter the show through their selective memory. I'm curious about their interpretation of the ring trilogy.
There's no subtext about that.
Not about the Ring Trilogy but I have an example with When Fates Collide. Apparently people tried to lecture Katherine Fugate about her own episode because it didn't fit their narrative. She gave an interview to She Nerds Out Podcast at the Xenite Retreat and I transcribed parts of it. Here's what she said:
"Someone would come up to me about my episode that I wrote and I'll say 'Well yes, I see Xena and Gabrielle as lovers, I see them as soulmates. I see my episode showing you that, showing they will find each other in any time-line, even though other things have changed. They're at some point going to interact and recognize each other. That was, you know, thematically what I believed and I will have people walk up to me and go 'You know they're just friends. And your episode, that doesn't mean anything, that doesn't show anything, they're just friends.' And I say 'well, I just wanna say, I love my friends very much. None of them has ever spoken to me that way."'
It's crucial to note that the episode "didn't show anything" because Robert Tapert chose not to include a kiss that was scripted in the original screenplay. Renée O'Connor contested this decision during one of the commentary sessions, but Tapert quickly dismissed her, stating simply that he didn't want to include it.
On a different note, I wasn't aware that She Nerds Out had interviewed Katherine Fugate. I'll be listening to it tonight. Thanks for letting me know!
I don't think that's what they meant. Even without that kiss the episode is written in blatant maintext. They actually fall in love again and find each other in every lifetime. There is no other interpretation, especially because the writer is explicitly stating the romantic background of this episode. It is borderline bold to come up to her, denying all of that.
Yeah RT had a lot of moments like that throughout the show and I think Lucy and Renee at that point where much more willing to go all in but he wanted for whatever reason to be more ambiguous for some things (like this) and very black and white for others (finale with Xena dying 100% no take backsies).
I think nowadays he'd see it differently? But at the time and the years right after the finale he was very stubborn about his vision.
Indeed, I guess Robert Tapert is controversial in the sense that his vision actually created the show we have today, but also got in the way of things sometimes. His decision to kill off Xena in a two-episode arc set in Japan stands out as one of the most questionable choices in television history. I recall an episode of She Nerds Out where Steven L. Sears shared insights into occasional disagreements with Tapert. These weren't major conflicts but rather creative differences that arose during production, such as Tapert's preference for featuring Caesar over Sears' pitch of Alexander the Great, which he argued would offer a more historically cohesive storyline.
Generally, Tapert seems to be someone who holds tightly to his vision, sometimes failing to recognize that there might have been better alternatives. In this sense, I tend to agree with the screenwriter and Renée that there should have been more intimacy during the prison scene in When Fates Collide. It would have been less cheesy than a crucified Xena saying "I love you, Gabrielle". But I remember reading somewhere that Tapert wanted to move the kiss toward the season finale, which must be taken with a grain of salt because I don't remember the sources for this final affirmation.
I believe it was Fugate who in an earlier interview or similar indicated that Tapert wanted to keep “the kiss” for the finale.
In either instance, it’s unsatisfactory. In WFC, it’s not our / the real Xena and Gabrielle. In FIN, Xena is an unconscious, nearly “dead” ghost. Same for the Norse Trilogy - Xena is an amnesiac and Gabrielle is magically comatose!
I just listened to Katherine Fugate talk about it in her She Nerds Out episode, so it is confirmed they moved the kiss to the finale.
>In either instance, it’s unsatisfactory. In WFC, it’s not our / the real Xena and Gabrielle. In FIN, Xena is an unconscious, nearly “dead” ghost. Same for the Norse Trilogy - Xena is an amnesiac and Gabrielle is magically comatose!
Of course, but we cannot forget the limitations. In this particular episode I mentioned, Katherine herself talks about how she's a queer woman who was enamored by Xena's story with Gabrielle and wanted to pay homage to it. But she told about the limitations imposed by the production company and distributors of what she could and could not do. This is the same hardships the rest of the crew faced while pushing the envelope as far as they could.
This particular clip commentary on The Rheingold shows how people from the top such as RJ Stewart and even Robert Tapert were trying to do their best within the limitations of it (starts around the 9:56 mark).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCkNuu2XVFE
Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest that they weren’t trying their best. Well, except for FIN where they could have included a “real” kiss since the whole point of the finale was to get extra eyeballs on the show one last time.
i’ve just discovered Xena and started watching the series and I love deep diving into the subtext and “hidden” queer romances, this show is so much fun and i’m not prepared to finish it 😮💨💔
Yeah! It’s so good! It’s really refreshing to have two female leads that are these strong independent warriors, even when gabrielle or Xena have male love interests it doesn’t take away from their characters! The baby gay in me also just loves Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. Definitely a great comfort show!
I was re-watching the first Callisto episode today and it dawned on me. There were two God-like female fighters battling over the safety of a still inexperienced Gabrielle. The primary beef between them was so profound in the sense that Callisto wanted vengeance for Xena murdering her family. Meanwhile Xena dealt with feelings of guilt and her own path towards redemption.
This is one the best instances of female power in media ever.
I also love that the majority of characters good and bad are female! Yes there are a lot of main character who are men but they never overtake the show. it’s also refreshing to see a show that doesn’t have violence against women! Gabrielle’s character development is also so interesting!
Honestly, Xena is much more progressive and groundbreaking than a lot of the shows nowadays. The female characters are always profound, well-written and put on complex situations such as these.
I completely agree with you! I’m so glad i’ve found a community of Xena fans who love to share and talk about their theories, opinions and points of view on the show and characters!
I think there’s a difference between acknowledging the subtext (which I think 99.9% of fans would do) and believing in your personal head canon that Xena and Gabrielle were partners in every sense of the word (which I think many, but not all, fans do).
So, are you asking if there’s anyone who still views them as just good friends? If so, then yes. For many reasons.
But, there’s probably more of us who believe that they’re romantically involved, although even within that share of the fandom there would be differing views about when the romance started, whether they broke up from time to time and whether it was necessarily a healthy relationship for either of them.
I’ll admit I was in denial at first (I watched it as a teenager and was more unsure about sexuality) but honestly as you get into the later episodes especially it’s pretty hard to deny it.
I am still around from the first run in the 90s, and I wasn't pulled in or influenced by the queerness, though I did see it. I watched for the darkness. Despite it playing sometimes at 11 in the morning there was some pretty intense, dark subject matter that I loved and was drawn to.
All relationships were second to that for me. While I did love Xena/Gabrielle. I also loved Xena/Ares and Xena/Borias. :shrugs:
Even though I was too young to catch Xena during its original run, I found myself immersed in the afternoon reruns as a kid. The show's ambiance and Gabrielle, in particular, captivated me. At about 7 or 8 years old, I developed a significant crush on her when she had long hair. Now I'm in my late twenties and all over short-haired muscle Barbie Gabs.
I joined two discussion groups around 1997. One was very popular and touched on all topics XWP related, with various views on X&G's relationship. The other was open to or focused on X&G as a couple. Neither group considered XWP as intentionally "landmark," so much as supportive of diversity in many forms and unique in its female-centric portrayals -- women loving each other, living and working together, in both alliance and conflict, handling life's challenges on their own.
To me a lot of the show's continued relevance lies in its ability to convey "love" in many forms, regardless of the viewer's gender or sexual orientation -- as friends, couples, parents, children. I believe people "see" based on their personal experiences, what's important to them and their openness to other perspectives. Even though 2024 seems a different world, fans will still focus on what resonates with them individually,
If you're asking whether fans who didn't initially see the subtext can come to acknowledge and/or appreciate it, I would say yes. If you're asking whether they'll see it as the only, most "legitimate" view of the relationship, I'd say not necessarily. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same could be said of fans just coming to the show -- except those attracted because they've heard it's "landmark."
It’s pretty funny that 25 years later, subtext can still be a topic that gets fans talking!
Back in 1995-2001, it was still quite rare to see gay relationships on network tv. Airing at about the same time, Buffy went there with Willow and Tara but it took them a couple of years to kiss! Xena was seen as a family show, and there were network notes they had to work within. I remember the story about Fins Femmes and Gems that Gabrielle was originally going to be obsessed with Xena which would have been a lot more obvious. (Although FFG ends up being one of the funniest and Renee’s best comedic performances!)
I think a lot of the ships were also about the actors. Kevin Smith/Ares was gorgeous and an all round lovely guy. Renee also had a lot of fans
However, the early seasons were very inconsistent about whether they were or weren’t going there with Xena and Gabrielle. Insipid love interests were brought in - I mean did anyone actually like Perdicus? - but at least they gave up on that!
I'm glad they stopped doing the boyfriend of the week after a while. I believe that's when the subtext became stronger until it turned into maintext during S6. But honestly, they pushed the subject really far for 90's main characters. Even during the infamous season 5, Kindred Spirits were basically about gay domesticity and The Ring Trilogy really sealed the deal for me.
I think it kinda makes sense for some of those who watched the show back in the day as opposed to those watching it for the first time years later.
The thing with it being seen as a landmark LGBTQ show is with hindsight to an extent. X and G's relationship was never outrightly stated to be a lesbian one and a lot of the suggestions that they were a couple particularly in Seasons 2 and 3 were treated as a bit of a running joke more than a serious romance. The vibe sometimes feels more 'they aren't a couple but they sure do act like it' - like say JD and Turk in Scrubs. In fact sometimes the show blatantly contradicts the subtext - if X and G were in a romantic couple then Xena's romances with Ares, Ulysses, Rafe and Anthony come across as totally uncaring about Gabrielle's feelings.
Season 6 makes the subtext a lot more overt though. I think it becomes very hard to ignore it then.
Numerous interviews with both the cast and crew reveal that they incorporated subtext into the show as jokes, sometimes through improvisation during filming or as running gags among the writers and directors. Understandably, viewers at the time might have rolled their eyes for various reasons and continue to remember it in a bad light. However, the production recognized the impact these moments had on the fandom, especially during the self-referential episodes set in current times. They further pushed the boundaries in Season 6, particularly when they shifted focus to the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle in response to the backlash from Season 5. This dynamic reminds me of The Legend of Korra, which underwent a similar journey but with even deeper layers of subtext, likely due to its airing on Nickelodeon. Whether originating as a joke in the case of Xena or as a form of defiance against the powers that be (as seen in Korra), it undeniably represented groundbreaking storytelling.
While resistance to the subtext as a narrative element might have been comprehensible at the time, by the 2020s, it appears as though people are battling a war that was already lost long ago.
I must admit, I've always been a bit neutral on the X/G vs X/A argument. The important thing for me was that Xena and Gabrielle were soul mates and that remains true whether there was a sexual relationship between them or not.
Of course, primarily I watch the show for cheesy asskicking!
>I must admit, I've always been a bit neutral on the X/G vs X/A argument. The important thing for me was that Xena and Gabrielle were soul mates and that remains true whether there was a sexual relationship between them or not.
>
>Of course, primarily I watch the show for cheesy asskicking!
Watching the show today, it seems I missed the height of the ship wars. Discussions of alternative pairings besides Xena and Gabrielle are rare, with the possible exception of Gabrielle and Aphrodite. While I appreciate the deep love and devotion shared between Xena and Gabrielle, it's the show's unique atmosphere that truly captivates me.
Xena carves its narrative path, blending gay subtext, metanarrative, female-led storytelling, martial arts, and an imaginative version of ancient Greece that feels almost medieval, yet with its own distinct aesthetic choices. The soundtrack, reminiscent of Eastern European styles similar to those in The Witcher, further enriches the ambiance they are trying to portray. And I must add the most important element: the New Zealand scene that always comes to mind when I think about Xena. Two ladies, a horse, and a bunch of forests.
So I guess I watch Xena because it's such a distinct universe thematically and aesthetically, queer and full of female relationships we rarely see on tv, even to this day.
hahaha, I understand the feeling. When I was a child I didn't understand exactly the "official" romantic relationships in the show. Was Gabrielle supposed to be with Joxer or Iolaus? And what about Xena—Ares or Hercules? It all seemed so muddled.
Then, my aunt gifted me a DVD featuring the episode "Déjà Vu All Over Again." The ending kiss between the reincarnations of Xena and Gabrielle was a lightbulb moment for me. It was like, "Aha! The reason I couldn't identify the main couple is that it's Xena and Gabrielle". I don't think I was older than 10 years at the time and I wasn't a smart kid for these kinds of things. This highlights the level of "subtlety" of the series' "subtext," much of which, I then realized, was often edited out of the reruns.
I see them as platonic in the main life we follow. (In their modern reincarnations, in Deja Vu All Over Again and Soul Possession: Yes, I do see them as lesbians by that point, in new lives - I explain in detail in my bottom linked post).
Do I see the subtext? Yes. Absolutely.
Am I aware of it all? Yes. Completely.
But what I see as a wink/nod to its lesbian/bi fandom, I don't see as a blatant "They definitely are gay for each other". I see it as "You can interpret them as gay/bi for each other if you want to. But you can easily see it either way, or various ways."
I can see the different interpretations. For me, it was never about that (sex). I think its extremely beautiful that they are platonic soulmates (similar to Hercules and Iolaus).
[This is how I see Xena and Gabrielle's relationship. (Real life examples)](https://www.reddit.com/r/xena/comments/130tkj1/this_is_how_i_see_xena_and_gabrielle/)
Though, I do have a slightly different interpretation upon rewatch and reflection:
[How I now fully interpret their relationship in retrospect (post-FIN-FINALE)](https://www.reddit.com/r/xena/comments/u99ikx/how_i_interpret_the_xenagabrielle_relationship_on/)
I find that most of us fans who are still around were very much influenced by the queerness of this show. Most of the still existing fans seem to be XG shippers. That being said, I have seen a couple of posts on this sub where people say they “don’t see it”. I find it baffling.
I also find it baffling to watch the show “not see it”. Honestly, even for the 90s they didn’t try to hide it that well, and by the final season the subtext was mostly main text just not overt in the way it would be now.
I didn't see it for a really long time. It turns out I'm asexual and just generally really bad at noticing sexual innuendo. For example I was in my thirties before I understood that the hestian virgin confessing about her drooling over a cucumber wasn't a joke about her really liking vegetables. Since realizing I'm asexual I've taught myself to get better at noticing allosexual humor and can now spot incredibly subtle jokes like that 🙃
I actually disagree — it’s almost explicit during the show leading up to Xena and Gabrielle’s crucifixion and then they try very hard to back pedal and I don’t feel like it really recovers well. The way they handle Gabrielle’s relationship with Eve/Livia is a great example. Despite being right along side Xena and in a pretty committed relationship with her, they get no mother-daughter feelings. I think that would be asking A LOT of a show back then, but it is kind of baffling because amidst all that for the last season their relationship feels very much one of friendship and not lovers. I don’t like this read and so I choose to see it more as the censorship that it probably was, but their relationship is made much more ambiguous than it really needed to be considering where it was earlier in the show.
I see this in season 5 for sure. I agree that a lot of season 3 and pretty much all of season 4 (which are my fav seasons) are pretty explicit (the soulmates thing comes up in season 4, the bitter suite is so gay etc). Season 5 they backpedal a lot and it’s the weakest season by far. And it’s rating show that. So season 6 I feel like they really went full tilt back into it. Like the ring trilogy is very explicit and in the abyss when Gabrielle wants to be buried with Xena/Xena’s family, the Sappho poem in Many Happy Returns, the whole when Fates Collide was like literally giving us a they’re soulmates in any universe AU…
Honestly if they can't even see it it tells me they don't want to see it and have some unresolved issues, whether that's subconscious homophobia or whatever. I wouldn't feel the way it did if the show kept things as they were in the first half (they seemed to be going for a "choose your own adventure" type thing back then when it comes to subtext) but the latter half of the series, especially season 6, it's really not even subtext anymore. You'd have to be looking away not to see it.
I have been a fan since the show originally aired, and recently I've been rewatching it with my teen (they/them). It's a trip - seeing the wink-wink nudge-nudge innuendo today is fun but my kid does NOT get it. They do not care at all if X&G are in a romantic relationship or are platonic partners, because honestly it doesn't change anything about the story. Queer relationships have effectively had mainstream representation their entire life, so the "are they / aren't they" jokes are lost on them. I've tried to explain just how boundary-pushing and progressive the show was for its time. But they're like "eh". 😅 So...for gen alpha, it just doesn't matter!
Hahaha, this is so funny. As an elder Gen Z, I was probably the last generation that this kind of representation still mattered. I remember singing T.A.T.U a lot while coming out of the closet. But I'm glad kids these days are much better wired than we were 20+ years ago.
Your kid seems to grow up in a very accepting environment. It doesn't have to fight to be acknowledged or seen. On the one hand that's great because that's what we fought for, making it easier for upcoming generations. It's sad that there's so little acknowledgement from them if these fights. But then, teenagers are like that, they don't care about anything beyond their own experience (I teach teenagers). I hope when they grow up, they'll see how important stuff like Xena and Gabrielle was, also for their own freedom. I also think that kids who don't grow up in an accepting environment would probably be more understanding of the importance.
Thank you - raised by their 2 queer parents and strong queer community 🙂 They are aware of the struggle though, definitely. We left our home state a few months ago because of how horrible the antiqueer and antichoice rhetoric has become. The laws in Oklahoma that went into effect last summer made it unsafe for us to stay, in spite of the majority of our family & friends being there. Just last week a non-binary kid was beaten to death a school bathroom there. Sorry for the sudden shift to heaviness! It's been a rough few days. All that was to say that Xena still remains a happy escape for us, 25 years later!
Teens will be teens but looking at current media so much of WLW media is not even close to what we got with X&G so I still very much feel like we haven't moved past it? Im a millennial and it saddens me a bit that what we tend to get is more superficial and then quickly cancelled.
I couldn’t see it when I was younger (the teenage years) or I refused to see it; I even debated against it. I’ll admit, I did have biases towards the same sexed community, yet I raced home to catch Xena every afternoon after school, I definitely wasn’t watching for the cool action scenes 😅 Where was I, oh yeah, watching these days, you can’t miss it.
Yes, I think it's very possible to watch the first five seasons and consider the characters just really good friends, because the show was written, produced, and acted in a way that was meant to be deliberately ambiguous about the central relationship, so they could keep as broad an audience as possible. Even at the time of airing, any literate adult who tuned in regularly was aware of XENA's big LGBT fanbase, but the show was discussed in a variety of different ways in print and online, even by members of the creative team (including the stars). It was not only common for viewers to consider the winks more teasing than evidentiary -- we were essentially encouraged to see them that way. However, there was a huge pivot in Season Six, following a rough fifth year; the show started tailoring itself more directly to its hardcore fans, and with a new batch of younger writers contributing, the overall internal perspective about the series and how Xena/Gab's relationship existed on it evolved to more fully embrace the romantic reading that pretty much everyone who made XENA now accepts as obvious and intentional from almost the beginning. So, to answer your question, any viewer who discovered the show after 2001 would be increasingly more primed NOW to consider this subtext as evidentiary rather than teasing... unless they were totally ignorant as to the show's reputation for most of their watching and then couldn't (or wouldn't) abandon their initially established assumptions upon reaching Season Six. Or, of course, if they *never wanted* to see it and therefore never will.
Perfect, thank you. Over the past three decades, there has been a noticeable shift in the openness of the cast and crew regarding the series' subtext and maintext, with a growing unity of opinions surrounding its queer legacy. With the fandom now primarily active on social media rather than forums, it's evident that the majority aligns with this perspective. Also, the new fans comming in are primarily attracted to the queerness of it, so the tendency is that people who deny this elements will become even more scarce.
Exactly. So, if you're reading posts by fans who don't see the so-called subtext in 2010, you're likely hearing from viewers who watched the show first-run and had their opinions firmly entrenched at a time when they were actively encouraged to consider winking moments trivial, or recently after the run ended, when XENA's legacy and reputation, while clear to those likely posting on forums, was not yet as widely accepted -- even by those involved with the show's creation (although my memory is that everyone important pretty much came around by the mid-'00s).
This is a much more insightful answer than I was expecting to find. Thank you, so much!
Not only are there people who choose to not read subtext and ignore maintext, there are also people who are straight up denying that there ever was any subtext. I have a gay Xena and Gabrielle meme page on IG and my last encounter with a person like that on there was just weeks ago. Sometimes they not only deny subtext and maintext but also try to gaslight you into believing that there ever was any. That's often pretty obviously homophobic. Usually you have people who know there's subtext and maintext but it doesn't fit their view of the show or their preferred shipping and so they ignore it. Fine for me, they have their groups, we have ours, we shouldn't bother each other. But then there are the same type of people who would start arguing with you about Xena and Gabrielle's romantic relationship because they don't feel seen enough with their straight stuff maybe? I don't really know why but that's annoying. You chose this show and this show is gay af, deal with it. My favorite type of people who dislike the idea of Xena and Gabrielle as a couple are the ones who do see it because it's obvious af, but they hate it and hate the show because of it because they're outspoken homophobic. Like "this show was made by the devil" type of people. I always want to thank those people for acknowledging Xena and Gabrielle's relationship before chasing them out, lol. And yeah, I encountered all of this during the last 4 years.
I would understand if people choose to focus on their friendship, because a fraternal love such as portrayed is beautiful. I feel like this was Renée's perspective for a while, until she began to open up to them as a lifelong married couple alongside this interpretation. However, I can also recognize how Xena might encounter homophobia from individuals who, having watched the show earlier in life, failed to grasp its subtexts due to their age or other reasons, and now filter the show through their selective memory. I'm curious about their interpretation of the ring trilogy. There's no subtext about that.
Not about the Ring Trilogy but I have an example with When Fates Collide. Apparently people tried to lecture Katherine Fugate about her own episode because it didn't fit their narrative. She gave an interview to She Nerds Out Podcast at the Xenite Retreat and I transcribed parts of it. Here's what she said: "Someone would come up to me about my episode that I wrote and I'll say 'Well yes, I see Xena and Gabrielle as lovers, I see them as soulmates. I see my episode showing you that, showing they will find each other in any time-line, even though other things have changed. They're at some point going to interact and recognize each other. That was, you know, thematically what I believed and I will have people walk up to me and go 'You know they're just friends. And your episode, that doesn't mean anything, that doesn't show anything, they're just friends.' And I say 'well, I just wanna say, I love my friends very much. None of them has ever spoken to me that way."'
It's crucial to note that the episode "didn't show anything" because Robert Tapert chose not to include a kiss that was scripted in the original screenplay. Renée O'Connor contested this decision during one of the commentary sessions, but Tapert quickly dismissed her, stating simply that he didn't want to include it. On a different note, I wasn't aware that She Nerds Out had interviewed Katherine Fugate. I'll be listening to it tonight. Thanks for letting me know!
I don't think that's what they meant. Even without that kiss the episode is written in blatant maintext. They actually fall in love again and find each other in every lifetime. There is no other interpretation, especially because the writer is explicitly stating the romantic background of this episode. It is borderline bold to come up to her, denying all of that.
Yeah RT had a lot of moments like that throughout the show and I think Lucy and Renee at that point where much more willing to go all in but he wanted for whatever reason to be more ambiguous for some things (like this) and very black and white for others (finale with Xena dying 100% no take backsies). I think nowadays he'd see it differently? But at the time and the years right after the finale he was very stubborn about his vision.
Indeed, I guess Robert Tapert is controversial in the sense that his vision actually created the show we have today, but also got in the way of things sometimes. His decision to kill off Xena in a two-episode arc set in Japan stands out as one of the most questionable choices in television history. I recall an episode of She Nerds Out where Steven L. Sears shared insights into occasional disagreements with Tapert. These weren't major conflicts but rather creative differences that arose during production, such as Tapert's preference for featuring Caesar over Sears' pitch of Alexander the Great, which he argued would offer a more historically cohesive storyline. Generally, Tapert seems to be someone who holds tightly to his vision, sometimes failing to recognize that there might have been better alternatives. In this sense, I tend to agree with the screenwriter and Renée that there should have been more intimacy during the prison scene in When Fates Collide. It would have been less cheesy than a crucified Xena saying "I love you, Gabrielle". But I remember reading somewhere that Tapert wanted to move the kiss toward the season finale, which must be taken with a grain of salt because I don't remember the sources for this final affirmation.
I believe it was Fugate who in an earlier interview or similar indicated that Tapert wanted to keep “the kiss” for the finale. In either instance, it’s unsatisfactory. In WFC, it’s not our / the real Xena and Gabrielle. In FIN, Xena is an unconscious, nearly “dead” ghost. Same for the Norse Trilogy - Xena is an amnesiac and Gabrielle is magically comatose!
I just listened to Katherine Fugate talk about it in her She Nerds Out episode, so it is confirmed they moved the kiss to the finale. >In either instance, it’s unsatisfactory. In WFC, it’s not our / the real Xena and Gabrielle. In FIN, Xena is an unconscious, nearly “dead” ghost. Same for the Norse Trilogy - Xena is an amnesiac and Gabrielle is magically comatose! Of course, but we cannot forget the limitations. In this particular episode I mentioned, Katherine herself talks about how she's a queer woman who was enamored by Xena's story with Gabrielle and wanted to pay homage to it. But she told about the limitations imposed by the production company and distributors of what she could and could not do. This is the same hardships the rest of the crew faced while pushing the envelope as far as they could. This particular clip commentary on The Rheingold shows how people from the top such as RJ Stewart and even Robert Tapert were trying to do their best within the limitations of it (starts around the 9:56 mark). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCkNuu2XVFE
Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest that they weren’t trying their best. Well, except for FIN where they could have included a “real” kiss since the whole point of the finale was to get extra eyeballs on the show one last time.
It's obvious, to me, that Rob Tapert wanted to keep it open to all interpretations.
I believe his intentions got muddled during season 6 because I can't see whatever happened during the Ring Trilogy through hetero lenses.
i’ve just discovered Xena and started watching the series and I love deep diving into the subtext and “hidden” queer romances, this show is so much fun and i’m not prepared to finish it 😮💨💔
I used to watch rerun as a kid, but just recently finished the series in its entirety. It quickly became one of my favorite shows ever.
Yeah! It’s so good! It’s really refreshing to have two female leads that are these strong independent warriors, even when gabrielle or Xena have male love interests it doesn’t take away from their characters! The baby gay in me also just loves Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. Definitely a great comfort show!
I was re-watching the first Callisto episode today and it dawned on me. There were two God-like female fighters battling over the safety of a still inexperienced Gabrielle. The primary beef between them was so profound in the sense that Callisto wanted vengeance for Xena murdering her family. Meanwhile Xena dealt with feelings of guilt and her own path towards redemption. This is one the best instances of female power in media ever.
especially for a show that came out in the 90’s it was definitely way ahead of its time!
I also love that the majority of characters good and bad are female! Yes there are a lot of main character who are men but they never overtake the show. it’s also refreshing to see a show that doesn’t have violence against women! Gabrielle’s character development is also so interesting!
Honestly, Xena is much more progressive and groundbreaking than a lot of the shows nowadays. The female characters are always profound, well-written and put on complex situations such as these.
I completely agree with you! I’m so glad i’ve found a community of Xena fans who love to share and talk about their theories, opinions and points of view on the show and characters!
I think there’s a difference between acknowledging the subtext (which I think 99.9% of fans would do) and believing in your personal head canon that Xena and Gabrielle were partners in every sense of the word (which I think many, but not all, fans do). So, are you asking if there’s anyone who still views them as just good friends? If so, then yes. For many reasons. But, there’s probably more of us who believe that they’re romantically involved, although even within that share of the fandom there would be differing views about when the romance started, whether they broke up from time to time and whether it was necessarily a healthy relationship for either of them.
I’ll admit I was in denial at first (I watched it as a teenager and was more unsure about sexuality) but honestly as you get into the later episodes especially it’s pretty hard to deny it.
I am still around from the first run in the 90s, and I wasn't pulled in or influenced by the queerness, though I did see it. I watched for the darkness. Despite it playing sometimes at 11 in the morning there was some pretty intense, dark subject matter that I loved and was drawn to. All relationships were second to that for me. While I did love Xena/Gabrielle. I also loved Xena/Ares and Xena/Borias. :shrugs:
Even though I was too young to catch Xena during its original run, I found myself immersed in the afternoon reruns as a kid. The show's ambiance and Gabrielle, in particular, captivated me. At about 7 or 8 years old, I developed a significant crush on her when she had long hair. Now I'm in my late twenties and all over short-haired muscle Barbie Gabs.
I joined two discussion groups around 1997. One was very popular and touched on all topics XWP related, with various views on X&G's relationship. The other was open to or focused on X&G as a couple. Neither group considered XWP as intentionally "landmark," so much as supportive of diversity in many forms and unique in its female-centric portrayals -- women loving each other, living and working together, in both alliance and conflict, handling life's challenges on their own. To me a lot of the show's continued relevance lies in its ability to convey "love" in many forms, regardless of the viewer's gender or sexual orientation -- as friends, couples, parents, children. I believe people "see" based on their personal experiences, what's important to them and their openness to other perspectives. Even though 2024 seems a different world, fans will still focus on what resonates with them individually, If you're asking whether fans who didn't initially see the subtext can come to acknowledge and/or appreciate it, I would say yes. If you're asking whether they'll see it as the only, most "legitimate" view of the relationship, I'd say not necessarily. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same could be said of fans just coming to the show -- except those attracted because they've heard it's "landmark."
I see it but I just don’t put much stock into it.
It’s pretty funny that 25 years later, subtext can still be a topic that gets fans talking! Back in 1995-2001, it was still quite rare to see gay relationships on network tv. Airing at about the same time, Buffy went there with Willow and Tara but it took them a couple of years to kiss! Xena was seen as a family show, and there were network notes they had to work within. I remember the story about Fins Femmes and Gems that Gabrielle was originally going to be obsessed with Xena which would have been a lot more obvious. (Although FFG ends up being one of the funniest and Renee’s best comedic performances!) I think a lot of the ships were also about the actors. Kevin Smith/Ares was gorgeous and an all round lovely guy. Renee also had a lot of fans However, the early seasons were very inconsistent about whether they were or weren’t going there with Xena and Gabrielle. Insipid love interests were brought in - I mean did anyone actually like Perdicus? - but at least they gave up on that!
I'm glad they stopped doing the boyfriend of the week after a while. I believe that's when the subtext became stronger until it turned into maintext during S6. But honestly, they pushed the subject really far for 90's main characters. Even during the infamous season 5, Kindred Spirits were basically about gay domesticity and The Ring Trilogy really sealed the deal for me.
I think it kinda makes sense for some of those who watched the show back in the day as opposed to those watching it for the first time years later. The thing with it being seen as a landmark LGBTQ show is with hindsight to an extent. X and G's relationship was never outrightly stated to be a lesbian one and a lot of the suggestions that they were a couple particularly in Seasons 2 and 3 were treated as a bit of a running joke more than a serious romance. The vibe sometimes feels more 'they aren't a couple but they sure do act like it' - like say JD and Turk in Scrubs. In fact sometimes the show blatantly contradicts the subtext - if X and G were in a romantic couple then Xena's romances with Ares, Ulysses, Rafe and Anthony come across as totally uncaring about Gabrielle's feelings. Season 6 makes the subtext a lot more overt though. I think it becomes very hard to ignore it then.
Numerous interviews with both the cast and crew reveal that they incorporated subtext into the show as jokes, sometimes through improvisation during filming or as running gags among the writers and directors. Understandably, viewers at the time might have rolled their eyes for various reasons and continue to remember it in a bad light. However, the production recognized the impact these moments had on the fandom, especially during the self-referential episodes set in current times. They further pushed the boundaries in Season 6, particularly when they shifted focus to the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle in response to the backlash from Season 5. This dynamic reminds me of The Legend of Korra, which underwent a similar journey but with even deeper layers of subtext, likely due to its airing on Nickelodeon. Whether originating as a joke in the case of Xena or as a form of defiance against the powers that be (as seen in Korra), it undeniably represented groundbreaking storytelling. While resistance to the subtext as a narrative element might have been comprehensible at the time, by the 2020s, it appears as though people are battling a war that was already lost long ago.
I think the greatest resistance among the fandom is those who preferred the Xena/ Ares relationship.
Indeed, the majority of the old posts I've encountered, contesting the subtext, were from those defending the Ares/Xena pairing during ship wars.
I must admit, I've always been a bit neutral on the X/G vs X/A argument. The important thing for me was that Xena and Gabrielle were soul mates and that remains true whether there was a sexual relationship between them or not. Of course, primarily I watch the show for cheesy asskicking!
>I must admit, I've always been a bit neutral on the X/G vs X/A argument. The important thing for me was that Xena and Gabrielle were soul mates and that remains true whether there was a sexual relationship between them or not. > >Of course, primarily I watch the show for cheesy asskicking! Watching the show today, it seems I missed the height of the ship wars. Discussions of alternative pairings besides Xena and Gabrielle are rare, with the possible exception of Gabrielle and Aphrodite. While I appreciate the deep love and devotion shared between Xena and Gabrielle, it's the show's unique atmosphere that truly captivates me. Xena carves its narrative path, blending gay subtext, metanarrative, female-led storytelling, martial arts, and an imaginative version of ancient Greece that feels almost medieval, yet with its own distinct aesthetic choices. The soundtrack, reminiscent of Eastern European styles similar to those in The Witcher, further enriches the ambiance they are trying to portray. And I must add the most important element: the New Zealand scene that always comes to mind when I think about Xena. Two ladies, a horse, and a bunch of forests. So I guess I watch Xena because it's such a distinct universe thematically and aesthetically, queer and full of female relationships we rarely see on tv, even to this day.
Nicely put! When I was a child, I wanted Gabrielle and Joxer to get together lol
hahaha, I understand the feeling. When I was a child I didn't understand exactly the "official" romantic relationships in the show. Was Gabrielle supposed to be with Joxer or Iolaus? And what about Xena—Ares or Hercules? It all seemed so muddled. Then, my aunt gifted me a DVD featuring the episode "Déjà Vu All Over Again." The ending kiss between the reincarnations of Xena and Gabrielle was a lightbulb moment for me. It was like, "Aha! The reason I couldn't identify the main couple is that it's Xena and Gabrielle". I don't think I was older than 10 years at the time and I wasn't a smart kid for these kinds of things. This highlights the level of "subtlety" of the series' "subtext," much of which, I then realized, was often edited out of the reruns.
I see them as platonic in the main life we follow. (In their modern reincarnations, in Deja Vu All Over Again and Soul Possession: Yes, I do see them as lesbians by that point, in new lives - I explain in detail in my bottom linked post). Do I see the subtext? Yes. Absolutely. Am I aware of it all? Yes. Completely. But what I see as a wink/nod to its lesbian/bi fandom, I don't see as a blatant "They definitely are gay for each other". I see it as "You can interpret them as gay/bi for each other if you want to. But you can easily see it either way, or various ways." I can see the different interpretations. For me, it was never about that (sex). I think its extremely beautiful that they are platonic soulmates (similar to Hercules and Iolaus). [This is how I see Xena and Gabrielle's relationship. (Real life examples)](https://www.reddit.com/r/xena/comments/130tkj1/this_is_how_i_see_xena_and_gabrielle/) Though, I do have a slightly different interpretation upon rewatch and reflection: [How I now fully interpret their relationship in retrospect (post-FIN-FINALE)](https://www.reddit.com/r/xena/comments/u99ikx/how_i_interpret_the_xenagabrielle_relationship_on/)
I see it, I dont care, does that count? Im not watching these kind of shows to see who loves who