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The Effects of Saltwater on Leather, or What does Xena do at the Beach?
Sara Gwenllian-Jones, Cardiff University
| [ Go to this paper in the timetable ] |
The long legs, perfect tan and radiant (if rare) smile are pure Baywatch. The armoured leather outfit, sword and subzero gaze are not. The image of Xena at the edge of the waves introduces an alien erotics to the beach, an unlikely positioning of S&M iconography and a female warrior coded as lesbian or bisexual within a setting more usually associated with wholesome heterosexual sunlovers and a very different set of leisure pursuits. Like the beach she stands on, Xena is a liminal entity that possesses 'too much meaning, an excess of meaning potential, that derives from its status as anomalous' (Fiske, 1983).
Xena: Warrior Princess frequently uses the desolate beauty of New Zealand's Bethells Beach as a setting for extreme action and highly eroticised encounters. Here, the beach is mythologised as the outermost edge of the semi-civilised world, an interim site of arrivals and departures, of losses and reunions, of battles, crucifixions, death and salvation. This paper will look at how beach scenes in the series construct and use the seemingly contrary meanings both of the beach and of Xena herself, darkly playing with their semiotic tension to erotic effect. It will seek to map the interplay between the beach and Xena as sites of liminality and excess. Finally, it will discuss the pivotal beach crucifixion scene in the episode 'Destiny' in relation to the eroticisation of Xena in extremis.
