Flashback 1999: On the allure of `Xena'

 Xena, played by Lucy Lawless, left, shared adventures in a vague heroic past with her particular friend, Gabrielle, played by Renee O'Connor (Photo: ©Universal Television / Everett Collection)

     Rick Garcia, a key figure in the Chicago gay community, died last week. I've known him for decades — he's the reason my memoir, "You Were Never in Chicago," ends at the Chicago Gay Pride Parade: he invited me to ride on the float for his new organization, Civil Rights Agenda. Riding a float in the pride parade on a fine day in June is one of those peak Chicago experiences that you are lucky to do once in your life, like reciting at the Uptown Poetry Slam or watching a Cubs game from inside the scoreboard at Wrigley Field, or climbing one of the television masts on the John Hancock Building, or going down the Deep Tunnel. 

     I spoke to Rick a few times over the summer. Like many, he was having a hard time after the death of Lori Cannon. I tried to help, but wish I'd done more. Rick was a big-hearted man, but even the largest of hearts can break, and give out from overuse.

     My colleague Mitch Dudek wrote a fine obituary for Rick, explaining how nuns helped crack calcified resistance against gay rights by Catholic aldermen. He also said how he "became the first person many news reporters would call for a quote on gay issues." I can vouch for that. Back in the 1990s, Rick served as a kind of Gay Everyman. He shows up in a number of columns of mine — this is from when the column appeared Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, the latter two days being briefer, lighter efforts in the feature section. While the unapologetic male gaze in this might cause trouble today, we didn't think anything of it 26 years ago, and I believe I can repost it without getting in hot water. Besides, right about now people might appreciate reading a cheery trifle. I know I did. 

     Ever since "Northern Exposure" went off the air, I don't watch TV regularly anymore.
     Except when cleaning the kitchen. You need something to distract from the slop and the grind. This is easy in the evening, when you can count on something newsy.
     Weekends are different. Nothing's on. The choices are "Xena: Warrior Princess," auto racing or golf (who watches that? Anybody? I don't believe it. A whole round?).
     Of course I settle for "Xena." Not for the plots: tepid Dungeons & Dragons-type myth run through a food processor of squishy 1990s morality. But if you're going to look up from scouring the sink and see something, you might as well see a few heaving bosoms and battling babes.
     I have accidentally enamored our 3-year-old son with "Xena." Now it's his favorite show. I probably should be concerned because of the fighting. But I find it sweet.
     "Hey, your girlfriend Xena's on," I said Sunday afternoon, and he scampered upstairs. Wearying of the kitchen, I joined him, and the family, all camped out in front of "Xena."
     I must never have really paid attention to the show before, while cleaning, other than ogle whoever was on screen (it's like one of those Russ Meyer women's prison movies, but set in ancient times).
     About two minutes' worth of watching were enough to establish the, ummm, intense relationship between the Xena character and her petite blond sidekick, Gabrielle.
     "This makes `Ellen' seem like `Bonanza,'" I said to my wife.
     That raised a question.
     "It's huge among lesbians," said gay activist Rick Garcia. "I've only seen it a couple times, but that's all you need to catch the extremely heavy lesbian overtones. They talk about feelings. They're in tune to one another. It's almost a cliche."
     Rick put me in touch with a friend, who explained the appeal.
     "First of all, it's just a very feminist show," said Alicia Obando,* 35, a lesbian who is a legislative aide for Cook County Board Commissioner Mike Quigley. "She is a very strong person, physically, mentally, emotionally."
     I asked her if she thought the overtones were accidental, imposed on an innocent adventure show, or intentional.
     "They supposedly do it on purpose," said Obando. "She knows she has a strong lesbian following."
      Lucy Lawless, the New Zealand-born actress playing Xena, has admitted as much.
     "We are aware, and we're not afraid of it," she told a Scottish newspaper. "This is a love story between two people. What they do in their own time is none of our business."
     North Sider Melissa Stanley, 28, who dressed up as Xena for two of the past three Halloweens, pointed out that the implied relationship appeals to more than simply lesbians.
     "I'm not sure if it's for the women viewers or the men," she said.
     I wondered how, considering the big hoo-haw that erupted over "Ellen" two years ago, that "Xena," the most popular syndicated show on TV, could craft itself into a lesbian fantasy epic without public tumult. Stanley had an intriguing theory.
     "For one thing, they never made a political agenda out of it, like `Ellen' did," she said, pointing out that Ellen DeGeneres really is a lesbian, while Lawless merely plays one, maybe. "I think people have a better time with straight people playing gays than with gays playing gays."
     Now why would that be?
        — Originally published in the Sun-Times, April 13, 1999

* She would go on to become Ald. Tom Tunney's chief of staff in 2003, serving for almost five years.