XENA AND
HERCULES
AS featured in the November 98 edition of
Matrix Magazine produced by the British Science Fiction Association. (BSFA)
What possible interest can Humanists find in
a couple of sibling programmes about a Greek myth world where gods not only
exist but interact directly with human beings? The answer is lots.
The mention of Hercules (subtitled The
Legendary Journeys) conjures up visions of old ropy old B movie films featuring
the likes of Steve Reeves and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Hercules TV series
featuring Kevin Sorbo rises surprisingly high above such dross. For one thing,
the muscle bound central hero is played by an actor, not by a plank of wood.
Sorbo shows a remarkable range of acting skills in the series, as does Lucy Lawless
in the sister show, as will be seen shortly.
Hercules is the product of Sam Raimi's
Renaissance Pictures TV studios. Raimi is most famous for the low budget, but
highly imaginative black comedy horror flicks now known as The Evil Dead
Trilogy. (The star of those films, Bruce Campbell, appears periodically in
Hercules and Xena as Autolycus, the Errol Flynn/Robin hood like criminal genius
known as The King Of Thieves). Renaissance alone is a word that conjures up a
sense of historical tradition for Humanists, and indeed, that tradition is shot
though the adventures of Hercules and his female counter part. It was during
the Renaissance in the 15th century that Christian artists became
influenced by Greek and Roman art, history, philosophy and myth. Before this
time, much Greek art had been destroyed as pagan and superstitious. During the
Renaissance, such traditions were revived with a vengeance. As Greek/Roman
artists were as fascinated by human form and depiction of people in motion, the
Renaissance also saw the birth of the Humanities. It was suddenly in vogue to
celebrate the lives of ordinary people as well as notaries, priests, and
Biblical heroes. Raimi's studios being called 'Renaissance' is therefore
extremely apt.
Hercules is a familiar figure to us all of
course; the half-human demi-god is one of the great archytypical heroes whose
twelve labours thrilled many of my childhood imaginings. Half-human heroes are
also common is SF television, most notably from the day Spock, the Vulcan
logical non-emotional hero of Star Trek revealed that he had a human half and
had to suppress his feelings. Film makers and TV producers are nervous of
making the heroic (rather than the evil) aliens too remote from any human
identity. This was to result in even British Television's Doctor Who being
revealed as half Human in his final televised adventure to date. If ET could be
all alien and still loved by us, why not other aliens? Why have to make them
all 'a bit human' to make us empathise with them?
Hercules has a stronger right than most SF
heroes to be half human, as of course he was made such by Homer and other
writers long before SF was dreamed of. (that's if you reject the idea of The
Odyssey being a proto-SF novel in its own right, which I don't).
Spawned by Zeus who had a reputed habit of
seducing mortal women, Hercules grows up exasperated by the lack of contact
with his father, and his illegitimate status. His step-mother, Hera, insane
with jealousy wants Hercules dead, and his father never calls round to offer
any fatherly advise. As a result, Hercules renounces his divine strength and
tries to be a human. His contempt for the gods shows throughout his adventures,
and in many ways, shows us why we should have no place for gods in our lives.
Hercules proves to be very educational viewing for Humanists.
In one of the five feature films made to
launch the series and its truly spectacular CGI effects and sense of costume,
(Hercules And The Circle Of Fire) Prometheus is trapped in a pillar of ice
for his defence of humanity against the wishes of the Olympian hierarchy of
Gods. Humanity slowly loses the secret of fire (given to us by Prometheus), and
the world grows dark and cold. We are in danger of freezing to death. Hercules
enlists his father's help and sets off to rescue Prometheus, but even his
Father wants to stop him. At first, Hercules suspects his Father is as evil as
Hera, (the cause of the crisis), but Zeus (Anthony Quinn reprising his Zorba
The Greek role and loving it for every moment he's on screen as the womanising
dirty old codger), is actually protecting Hercules, who's half God status makes
him likely to be killed by some of Hera's traps on the quest.
Prometheus is of course an excellent role
model for Humanists, in being more for humanity than pro-God despite being a
God, but we see little of him in the episodes he features in. In many ways it
is Hercules who takes on the characteristic defiance we normally associate with
Prometheus. Hercules marries a woman, and raises a family. His heroics and his
need to do good for everyone means invariable separation from domestic duties
and enforces his human qualities time and time again over his physical strength
and cunning. He often outwits opponents rather than thumping them anyway.
When the series (Hercules) began in earnest,
Anthony Quinn dropped out, and the family Hercules acquires as his own in the
films are killed off by Hera, literally in the opening episode. (The Wrong
Path). This leads Hercules to a literal war against the gods as he rampages round
trashing Hera's temples. Until a human woman shows him the futility of mindless
violence and he starts being a champion for all mortals once again.
Temple sacrifices being stopped are a common
theme in Hercules (and Xena), arguing consistently against the idea of humans
being insignificant compared to divine entities.
In the ninth episode of Hercules, The Warrior
Princess, Xena makes her first appearance, as a cruel, and beautiful warrior,
who seduces Hercules' best friend Iolaus, a regular character in the
adventures, played by Michael Hurst, who seems to get better fight scenes than
Sorbo ever does). Iolaus is seduced by her into killing Hercules. He almost
does, and Xena also comes across as a match for the demi-god.
The success of the Xena episode prompted a
call for her to get her own series, which quickly went into production. Her
interest for many male viewers is easily understandable. Lucy Lawless (who has
already been in Hercules as other characters) is a truly beautiful woman, so
dressing her in dominatrix leather short skirt and revealing leather top,
complete with leather boots, a sword and a whip, was enough to drive the male
audiences wild. In fact Xena also has an intense following in the American
lesbian community, of which more later.
The producers had one problem in making the
Xena series. Xena is an utterly evil character, but in a specially prepared
teaser episode of Hercules, (The Gauntlet) she is made to have a change of
heart. By the time her own series began, she was a hero, albeit a darker, more
melancholy figure than her male counterpart. We never doubt that Hercules will
come through and win, but Xena often fails and struggles to come to terms with
her mistakes. Her evil past is made constantly to haunt her. She has dangerous,
unpredictable qualities and still relishes a fight against the odds. She takes
out whole male armies and enjoys doing it. It's no wonder women like her so
much, as she beats so many macho sexist pigs senseless and kills those who
would use women in a more overtly abusive manner.
While Hercules has close friends like Iolaus,
we never doubt that they are just good mates, and buddies. Xena has a more
regular travelling companion, Gabrielle, who has matured from a drippy naïve
virgin full of romantic bardic dreams to gaining a near equal warrior status to
Xena herself. Their relationship is more intense and passionate, suggestive of
a certain gay affinity. They take baths and swim together, and admire one
another's beauty. In one episode, Xena, trapped in the body of Autolycus,
actually passionately kisses Gabrielle. In Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Gabriella
is seduced into an all female vampire club, where the sense of erotic passion
is blatantly explored. The episode looks like a teaser for a soft porn film version
of Dracula.
Lucy Lawless comments on the Lesbian
sub-motif herself in an interview given to SFX Science Fiction magazine
November 1988. "I'm very thankful to the New York lesbian community
because they were the first ones to latch onto the show in a cultish way and
make it hip. I'm totally comfortable with that. To me, it's like saying Xena
has grey eyes instead of blue. Big deal! I'm sure most gay people don't think
about being gay all day long. We could make a big deal out of it and say 'Oh
gosh, she's not (a lesbian), or 'Yes she is', and alienate part of our
audience. Why on Earth would any show want to do that? We don't have a mind to
and it isn't an insult to us. That's a very 90's way of looking at the world,
isn't it? It just doesn't hurt us or make a difference one way or
another."
In America, lesbians now celebrate Xena day.
And why not?
The Hercules series continues, popular and
deservedly so in its own right. Some stories are pure comedies. Others dark and
depressing. In Cast A Giant Shadow, Hercules is trying to bring down The Mother
Of All Monsters (understandably vengeful after Hercules has killed most of her
children) but discovers that a gentle giant and friend of his actually loves
the repulsive snake woman, (one of the show's most impressive monsters). And he
comes to see the value of protecting her. King For A Day is the first story
given over exclusively to a supporting player, and Iolaus handles himself
extremely well in it, setting the scene for other stories in which the central character
doesn't appear at all, a rare event on any television show with an eponymous
hero.
History and chronology are extremely confused
in both Hercules and Xena. It is uncertain what period of mythical history they
are set in, the dawn of Greek civilisation, or its swan song. When Hercules
meets Daedalus, father of Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun is
already dead as a result of his folly. Similarly, Midas is cured of his golden
touch problem. The stories often evoke the idea of Hercules and Xena living at
the close of an era, the gotterdammerung of Greek myth. Gabrielle meets Homer,
the blind poet who wrote the Oddessy. Xena participates in the last days of the
Trojan War, sees the horse, and meets Helen Of Troy. By this time the events, if
they are to believed true, were largely over and done with. Jason, for
instance, is an older, battle weary figure, reliving his Argonaut adventures.
In one episode, the skeletons Ray Harryhausen created for the film, Jason &
The Argonauts, return, though Renaissance Pictures CGI SFX (impressive as they
are) are no match for the old film's stunning effects on the skeletons. At
times, the Renaissance effects are astonishing, with huge hydra monsters and
serpents, but it is often the simple costume creatures that stand out; notably
the giants (the best outside Irwin Allen's Land Of The Giants series) and the
very well presented centaurs.
Xena witnesses many biblical scenes. In
Altared States she stops a man who believes in only one God from killing his
son, Icus in honour of that God, who actually turns out to be the boy's older
brother, pretending to be the voice of God. The name Icus is a pun on Icaas,
son of Abraham, who faced a similar decree only to spare his son in the end.
The message here is clear, that humans must protect all children from such
extreme beliefs and that no God should be allowed to oblige humans to slay
their own kith and kin. This is a surprisingly anti-biblical story.
Xena also discovers the ark of the covenant,
in The Royal Couple Of Thieves (aided by Autolycus) which has exactly the same
effect on the story's villains as it does in the film, Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
Xena decides such a devise isn't for her and rehides it, (with an obvious hint
that Indiana Jones will find it next). In Giant Killer, Xena helps David slay
Goliath, (who is portrayed for once with some sympathy and understanding);
actually she doesn't so much help as do the deed for David, to the degree that
you wonder why she wasn't mentioned in the Bible.
Clearly moving on several centuries, Xena has
several encounters with the tyrannical Julius Caesar and meets Boedicea, too,
even though their history post dates the earlier Biblical scripture story and
precedes the advent of Christianity by 55 years at least.
In a non too serious adventure, Solstice
Carol, Xena actually meets the Midwinter Festival equivalent of Father
Christmas, and also provides Mary & Joseph with the Donkey needed for their
trip to Bethlehem. This story is concluded in Hercules' A Star To Guide Them
when Iolaus has visions that lead him and Hercules to witness the arrival of
the Star Of David at Bethlehem. Iolaus goes into the stable, but Hercules,
sensing the passing of his age, stands back and watches in morose silence,
turning the traditional image of hope into a more sombre pageant.
Both Hercules & Xena were given to harsh
stories amidst the humorous ones. In Gabrielle's Hope Gabrielle is duped into
an affair with a cult leader and spawns his child, who she names Hope. The girl
grows alarmingly quickly, and is clearly a psychotic killer, but Gabrielle
loves her as a mother might, and even threatens to kill Xena, before faking her
daughter's death to fool Xena into leaving the child alone. In Maternal
Instincts the girl, Hope returns and eventually kills Xena's own recently
discovered forgotten child, and Xena kills Hope who will later return from the
dead). By now Xena has become very dark and serious indeed. Gabrielle &
Xena try to kill each other over the deaths of their respective offspring, and
almost succeed until plunged into the realm of illusion where they face
hallucegenic musical numbers that force them to reassess their relationship and
chill out. That's right, the savage harsh storyline suddenly turns musical, a
kind of Gilbert & Sullivan meets Wagner parody, surprisingly well staged,
showing the extraordinary range of its cast's acting range.
Later the dark, miserable side reasserts
itself, when Hope comes back and apparently kills Gabrielle in the third season
finale. Stay tuned for season Four folks.
Hercules went straight for laughs much of the
time and even got into a phase of dabbling in pantomime. In And Fancy Free (a
parody of the film Strictly Ballroom), the hard-man hero is caught up in a
dance contest with a girl partner with two left feet. To teach her the
necessary skills quickly he enrols with her in Widow Twankie's dance academy,
(the widow is played in high comedy by a near unrecognisable Michael Hurst,
(more familiar to fans of the series as Iolaus). The widow proved popular
enough to resurface in Men In Pink, a high camp variation on the classic
Monroe, Lemmon, Curtis film, Some Like it Hot in which Autolycus and Salamonius
end up in drag in Twanky's dance troop.
At times the humour in Hercules stops the
show from being anything other than a comedy. Salamonius (a regular wise guy,
toga salesman character) seems remarkably like Terry Pratchett's Discworld's
Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, a sell anything and run before they realise they've
been had, figure. The comedy reaches its peak in Porkules when Hercules is
turned into a pig (a parody of the film Babe), and its sequel, One Fowl day
when the female pig who falls for him, tries her hand at becoming human for a
while. There is a homage to tradition here of course, with Homer also having
the crew of Odysseus's ship turned into swine, but the comedy detracts from the
serious aims of the show. In Yes Virginia, There Is a Hercules, the parody
takes over when the story is brought to our own time, and the making of
Hercules. Kevin Sorbo vanishes, and the production crew, seeing their profits
dwindling, struggle, fight and bicker over how to solve the crisis.
Alternatives suggested include spin offs, (such as Xena), the adventures of
Young Hercules depicting the hero as a teenager (actually done often in the
series itself) and turning it into a cartoon, (a viscous lampoon of the Disney
film about Hercules that was undoubtedly inspired by the show's success). Some
scenes are hilarious as new Hercules actors audition lousily, and there's a
terrific scene in which the male members of the production crew take a leak in
the gents loo while collectively showing their bitterness by whistling the
programme theme tune.
After such lightweight hilarity and with
Sorbo back from filming on other projects the stories get dark and serious
again. Hercules' earthly mother dies. Zeus returns (now played by Roy Dotrice
and not Anthony Quinn) ) invites his demi-God son to become a complete God.
Hercules tries it for a while, but sickened by Olympian life and after a brutal
battle with Hera, he rejects supreme power and returns to demi-God status.
In many stories we see humans become god like
and fail, and gods become mortal and having to lump it (even Hercules suffers
this fate briefly in Judgement Day).
Xena & Hercules are very entertaining
hokum, and if you don't quite buy that idea, try watching them back to back
with their imitators, Tarzan, and Sinbad. Tarzan attempts to turn the stories
of the jungle lord into SF. He fights more aliens than lions. Sinbad is an
attempt to do a Hercules in an Arabian Nights setting. Both the pretenders to
the throne fail due to lousy acting, ill-conceived scripts and third rate
special effects. Their failure helps to make Renaissance Pictures productions
all the more stylish.
Xena and Hercules can be violent shows, which
tends to put many Humanists off watching, which is a shame. After all, the
central theme is a call for peace and an end to violence. God Of War Ares's
first collision with Hercules ends on the brink of a bloody battle between two
armies which Hercules stops with the aid of the maimed ghosts of the dead of
former battles standing between the two forces, reminding the living of the
cost of their wars. When Ares tries to force Hercules into direct combat,
Hercules refuses and beats the more powerful God by refusing to fight at all.
Whilst violent, the message of Xena and Hercules is one of peace.
Hercules & Xena are extremely thoughtful
at times and self indulgent pleasant time wasters at others. Judging them
merely on sex appeal factors is a mistake. They actually show us why the old
Greek gods (Greek despite the show being filmed in New Zealand), would have
been much more interesting than the God believed in by Christians today. If I
had to believe in Gods, the Greek ones would win out every time.
A follow up feature on a banned episode of
Xena is given on this website at UNBAN
XENA An example of Xena fan fiction is online at BABYLON
FIRE
Arthur Chappell
LINK TO THIS PAGE – http://arthurchappell.me.uk/xena.and.hercules.htm
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