The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: xena
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Despite being the face of the banner, Xena does not receive her own section in Dynamite’s Heroine sale… she just get lumped in with generic heroes. Bettie Page though… she gets her own section for some reason.
Now it’s true some of these titles are somewhat subversive, and that many of them are a mixed bag (Jennifer Blood has some great covers… also many literal lingerie covers)… and the Patricia Briggs section is pretty great – this sale encapsulates so many problems prevalent not only in comics but modern media.
Largely a lot of major publishers still view female protagonists not just as an excuse to put cheesecake on their covers, but rather many of them require a specific explanation why they shouldn’t do so.
We get a lot of messages asking about Xena the Warrior Princess and whether she deserves to be celebrated or ridiculed. The show certainly had a lot of positive qualities and was very progressive for its time – but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t problems or that the protagonist’s outfit is automatically good.
So let’s address the most recent question – is Xena’s outfit heroically idealized?
This is kind of a shame, because her combat and other abilities certainly fell into the “heroically idealized” category that we see normally reserved for men. Xena was certainly badass, heroic, interesting and inspiring in many ways – but that was due to the stories and performances. It was not Xena’s armor that made her fantastically heroic, but rather the woman inside the armor.
The show certainly never hesitated to put her in ridiculous outfits that were often problematic in a whole bunch of ways. Being light hearted fantasy with goofy magic and not taking itself too seriously or semi-frequently including good looking men showing off their bodies certainly didn’t excuse this either.
Xena’s default outfit largely in the “mostly suitable as ornamental” armor category and featured adjustments clearly made for the purposes of bringing the sexy rather the badassery.
Now since the show was kind of silly (in a fun way) and the outfit was not too overtly sexualized (especial compared to her nemesis, who has previously featured on the blog) it frequently came across as not too bad in the context of the show. Though it could certainly inspire some clearly heroically idealized designs.
