Originally appeared on http://www.littleindia.com/india/mar99/editorial.htm
[MaryD: The following can be considered racist and mysogynist.]
Xena: Cannibal Warrior
By Shekhar Deshpande
What could be so right about Xena that feminists appreciate so much?
There has been a buzz lately about the recent episodes of Xena in partnership with Krishna. The buzz is not all that unique, but it is likely that some of us will get worked up over it. If we do, it is legitimate. It is quite an exercise seeing how popular culture appropriates India in its representations. The real question is: why do we need to wait for this or another episode of Xena to see how the appropriation of India is either offensive or amusingly irritating for thinking souls?
Xena, the Warrior Princess, is a show that is a masterstroke (forgive us for the male terminology but the point is not entirely misplaced) of marketing that combines sex and xenophobic view of primitives, picking those things that irritate the natives of all lands not populated with White peoples. The show is set in mythical times, over which the West has had a very tenuous hold. Those times always belonged to the primitive. Oh, well then, Xena offers an inventory of images, motifs, signs, icons and symbols that is a true postmodern hybrid from all cultures exotic.
There are women who wear a bindi (and now Mehndi) popping up from cultures that also have weapons found with the Vikings, and then they have accents that are uniquely from California or Florida. The pure white skin gives no clue to clear this up either. The same woman would be an expert in some form of martial arts, would scream in mono-lingual terms and, don't forget, wear bear flesh as costume. This last attribute is a stroke of genius not lost in Hollywood. But it beats Baywatch in its rush to consider women with big breasts and skimpy costumes to be gifted in skills related to acting and all else.
It is not hard to figure out that Xena is tailor-made for the male libido that does not usually concern itself with critical notions of colonialism or orientalism. The exhibition of flesh is justifiable in the sense that mythical characters in these warm climates must have included women with major bosoms and shiny white skins. The plot offers an opportunity for Xena and her vicious rivals, her pupils, apprentices and the cadre in general, to muscle around for an hour.
What is surprising about the xenophobic Xena is that, apparently, it has a sustained appeal for women, feminists and lesbians alike. As readers of this column are no doubt aware, I have great appreciation for the political forms that feminist expressions have brought about in the last 20 years or so in film, television and popular culture.
But the Xena phenomenon beats the expectations of even the most ardent political feminists. One hears how women prepare shrines of Xena at their workplace. The special magazine that celebrates Xena to its fans always touts the amazing take-charge capability of Xena in adverse situations. Then, the other day, at a gay and lesbian bookstore in Philadelphia, there was a prominent display of Xena and her family of icons. What could be so right about Xena that the political constituencies that one would like to align oneself with are appreciating so much?
The issue is deeper than simply saying that popular culture offers all kinds of things to all kinds of people. One would think that politically conscious and responsible people would be more judicious in matters like this. Xena has this can-do attitude in a matriarchal world to sort out problems (including those with men), and she also offers a strong role model in assertiveness and bold decision making. In a culture where individual attributes, atomized away from their contexts, are more valued than the narratives where they work, what we do is look at isolated virtues and ignore how these virtues end up.
Thus, Xena's assertiveness ends up beating a whole lot of undesirable characters that have no resemblance to any real life characters. To what end does she use this power? To beat up on mythic enemies which are mere creations of the shared hallucinations! The most alarming thing about Xena, therefore, is that she has an appeal among women and feminists who worship the virtues they like to see while cannibalizing the world cultures, making a mockery of juxtaposed symbols and images that might mean something to some people around the world.
In such a world, Krishna appears in the latest episodes in one of his new, hybrid incarnations. He looks more like an exotic god who has been travelling around the world rather than one who emerged in native imagination. What matters here is that those who worship the show believe that Xena is such a forceful and entertaining role model that her cultural appropriations are to be overlooked.
All of this makes sense, though, because for feminists and the rest of us, this is a fantasy, another in line of many; a fantasy of the Western white culture that packages exoticness, wrapping it up in single selective attributes. Who really cares if we cannibalize the world in the name of this entertainment?