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Feminist Media Studies

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Xena Rules
Wim Tigges Available online: 10 Dec 2010

To cite this article: Wim Tigges (2010): Xena Rules, Feminist Media Studies, 10:4, 441-455 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2010.514117

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XENA RULES A feminized version of Antony and Cleopatra

Wim Tigges
This paper analyzes and discusses Antony and Cleopatra, an episode from the popular and highly intertextual action-fantasy television series, Xena: Warrior Princess, in the context of the Roman story arc in the series and more particularly as a feminized appropriation of Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra. Although Xenas version of this tragedy copies the voluptuous atmosphere of Shakespeares play, it radically changes its characterization. The Roman triumvirate exemplies rigid and corrupted power play: Octavius is (as yet) a peaceful idealist, but Brutus (who replaces Lepidus) has murdered Cleopatra, and Antony, although brave and intelligent, is depicted as a ruthless and over-ambitious power politician, who is only taken in by a woman much cleverer than himself. Cleopatra is the victim of the struggle between these oppressive masculine forces, and, unlike Shakespeares Queen of Egypt, Xena, who replaces her, does not allow her feelings for Antony to divide her from her sensibilities. She never loses sight of the desirable outcome: a mutual weakening of the combative (masculine) forces of empire and colonial expansion through war, and the survival of the traditionally feminine values of peace and justice. She eliminates both Antony and Brutus, and to a much larger extent than Shakespeares ckle and understandably insecure lover-queen, Xena, a focused and condent female superhero, acts as an empowered and pragmatic ruler, who sacrices her own love for the greater cause of Egypts freedom. KEYWORDS action-fantasy; Cleopatra; feminism; intertextuality; Shakespeare; television; Xena

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Introduction
The appropriation of Shakespeare and his works by various modern and postmodern media, in particular in lm and on television, is becoming of increasing interest to Shakespeare scholars. The term appropriation is used by Lanier (2002), who examines the diversity of Shakespeares appearance in such media as a form of cultural theorizing. Paying serious critical attention to cultural phenomena which have long been regarded as low brow, and hence beneath the attention of academe, can provide us with fresh insights into the sometimes unexpected aesthetic as well as ideological riches of popular culture, and also into the nature of their inspirational canonical or high art sources. Whereas Lanier touches only in passing on several recent novels concerned with revising or refuting their Shakespearian sources from a feminist perspective (2002, p. 95), Sanders (2001) uses this perspective to discuss a number of novels by late-twentieth-century female authors who deconstruct and reinscribe some of Shakespeares plays.1 Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 10, No. 4, 2010
ISSN 1468-0777 print/ISSN 1471-5902 online/10/040441-455 q 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2010.514117

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In this paper I intend to add to Laniers necessarily limited selection of case studies a popular version of Antony and Cleopatra, a story which has always appealed to the creative imagination. A highly popular television series, Xena: Warrior Princess, also appropriated this story, with clear references to Shakespeare, as part of what may be considered a feminized version of the heroic adventure tradition. In this version traditionally male protagonists have been replaced by women, and traditionally masculine values such as physical strength and political power, logic, and rationality, are deconstructed or at least overshadowed by values that are often regarded as traditionally feminine, such as intuition, clever manipulation, seless integrity, and loyalty, as well as selfsacrice for the good of a just and peaceful community.2 Studying the relevant episode in some detail, besides illustrating how this particular item of mass culture has used its Shakespearian source material, may also contribute to a reappreciation of the way in which Shakespeare presents the protagonists, male and female, of his historical drama.

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Xenas Intertextuality
The action-fantasy series Xena: Warrior Princess (henceforth Xena), produced by Renaissance Pictures in association with Universal Television Enterprises, ran for six seasons from 1995 to 2001. There are altogether 134 episodes. The stories are supposedly based on Greek mythology, but their imaginary settings range from Ancient Greece to Ottomanic Northern Africa, from Roman Britain to India, and from Dark Age Scandinavia to feudal Japan. The character of Xena (played by Lucy Lawless) rst featured in a few episodes of an earlier TV series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. This series may have taken as its starting point the Twelve Labours of that heroic demigod, but soon accreted other mythological themes as well, including that of an entirely ctional female antagonist, a beautiful but evil-minded warrior princess who is craving conquest and power. Her creators, John Schulian and Robert Tapert, saved her from originally intended defeat, and in Xena she was recast as a female superhero who has an evil past but who now wishes to redeem herself by ghting for good causes. On her adventures she is always accompanied by her sidekick e and loyal friend Gabrielle (Rene OConnor).3 The series, which has already generated an extraordinary amount of online discussion and debate by fans, is likely to become a classic. One of its sophisticated elements is its highly intertextual nature. Not only is it almost entirely free from spatial or temporal constrictions, but in its individual episodes it also refuses to be tied down to a single generic label. Its narrative formats range from farce to fairy tale, from detective to western, and from pastoral to epic. Viewers are not only reminded of and possibly inspired to investigate extant myths, legends, histories, and suchlike in written form, but many references are to lms or to other television shows, as well as to literary sources, including the works of Shakespeare. With regard to the latter, the intertextuality mostly comes in the form of (punning) allusion or (modied) citation. Thus, a few of the series episodes carry titles which refer to titles of or famous phrases from Shakespeares plays: A Comedy of Eros, The Ides of March, The Plays the Thing. The cast of another episode, Athens City Academy of the Performing Bards, includes a meddling father by the name of Polonius. In The Furies, Xena temporarily goes mad, and at one point she echoes the blinded Earl of Gloucester in King Lear by saying: You know, to the godswe are nothing but dirty little beetlesand they kill us for their sport. Yet another episode, Been There, Done That,

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makes use of the thwarted-young-lovers-from-feuding-families motif of Romeo and Juliet in what resembles a Renaissance setting. The intertextuality in Xena, whether in the form of textual or visual citation or allusion, or in the use of themes, motifs, characters, or even whole plots is diversied as to subtlety of allusion as well as of application.4 This contributes not only to the postmodern campy nature of Xena, but also frequently to what I would call the feminization of heroic action. In an early paper on the series, Morreale notes how recent feminist critics have begun to take note of camps potential for modifying perception of the status quo, particularly with regard to sex and gender stereotypes (1998, p. 83). She proceeds to equate such campy feminization with the masquerading of stereotypically feminine behavioura guise adopted for the purpose of undermining traditional images of women which are constructed rather than essential. In the analysis of the second-season episode Here She Comes . . . Miss Amphipolis which she uses by way of illustration, the intertextual model is a modern beauty pageant. Jones argues that the intertextuality in Xena is its primary textual strategy (2000, p. 408), and explains how Xena continually constructs shrewd, playful parahistories that interrogate and critique the cultural texts that they irreverently invoke, misuse, and transform (2000, p. 405). With reference to a number of earlier critics, Jones marks the appropriation and revision of historical narrative as so many liberatory violences against the oppressive exclusivity of the master narrative (2000, p. 406). Her main aim, however, is to explore the subsequent appropriation of the series by its fans rather than the series own revision of its historical or cultural sources. The feminization I intend to discuss here amounts to the imposition of a female protagonist in an originally masculine situation of political power play. In many episodes of Xena such impositions or replacements can be observed: sometimes in brief scenes, sometimes throughout a storyline. Thus, for instance, a third-season episode called Gabrielles Hope includes allusions to the Round Table and its Arthurian context. In a brief comic scene Xena, utterly unaware of the story behind it, casually pulls a sword out of a stone, glances at it, mumbles, Nice blade, and puts it back into the stone from which according to the traditional narratives only the once and future king Arthur would be able to extract it. In Ulysses (season two) even the hero himself cannot quite string his bow to identify himself as Penelopes returned husband. Fortunately, unobserved by anybody including Ulysses, Xena, who had helped Ulysses reach his native Ithaca and had already saved his life once before by out-singing the Sirens, has hidden herself under a table from where she is able to loosen the bowstring at its bottom end. Apparently, these feminized versions of legendary male heroism appear to have gone unnoticed by Sir Thomas Malory and the poet Homer. Similarly, season six includes a trilogy of episodes that refashions a combination of the Old English heroic poem Beowulf, the Old Norse Edda and Volsunga Saga, the Middle High German Nibelungenlied, and Richard Wagners operatic version of the Ring myth based on these medieval stories. Unlike in Wagners Nibelungen cycle, in Xena the Ring passes through feminine hands only, and it is Xena who fulls the role of both Alberich (stealing the ring in her villainous past) and of Siegfried (recovering it in her heroic present). While the hero Beowulf gets relegated to a role as Xenas secondary sidekick, it is Xena who undoes the spell on the monster Grindl (formerly the Valkyrie Grinhilda), whom she had previously made.5 In this way, Xenas intertextuality can be related to its feminization of traditional narratives that feature male protagonists.

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Many other instances of minor or major intertextual references and modications of this kind could be added. A very interesting case, since it exceptionally appropriates and feminizes an entire Shakespeare playnot surprisingly perhaps, one of his Roman tragediesis the Xena version of Antony and Cleopatra.

Antony and Cleopatra

The fth-season Xena episode Antony and Cleopatra was rst aired on April 17, 2000. This beautifully executed episode does some justice to its Shakespearian title in recounting a tragic as well as sensual love story with comic relief in a marvellous Egyptian setting, and including some uncharacteristically sophisticated dialogue. Written by Carl Ellsworth (who also wrote the script for the subsequent and also highly dramatic episode, Looking Death in the Eye), and directed by Michael Hurst (familiar to the fans as Iolaus, Herculess sidekick and friend), it is also the most play-like episode in the whole series. Reversing the conventional order of male and female characters, let us begin with a survey of the characters:
DRAMATIS PERSONAE Cleopatra Xena / Cleopatra Gabrielle / Iras Attendants to Cleopatra Mark Antony Brutus Octavius Advisors to Cleopatra, ofcers, soldiers,

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and other attendants.

The individualized cast is much smaller than that of Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra (henceforth A&C), which has no fewer than thirty differentiated male characters. Lepidus, who together with Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar formed the Triumvirs, has been replaced by Brutus (a recurrent character in Xena). Sextus Pompeius, Enobarbus, and Dolabella have all been left out, and so has Octavia, Octaviuss sister and (second) wife to Mark Antony, and with her the whole jealousy motifexcept perhaps insofar as that is transferred to Gabrielle with respect to Xenas developing feelings for Antony.6 The number of speaking characters has thus been greatly reduced, especially on the male side. As the relatively lengthy teaser7 contains six different scenes, we have what amounts to a fully edged ve-act play, with ve powerful individuals (the real Cleopatra dying before the teaser is over) acting out a considerably feminized version of Shakespeares tragedy about political as well as erotic power struggle.8 The episode opens with Cleopatra taking her proverbial bath of asses milk, and being warned by her (male) advisors, who look like elderly priests of Isis, of the possible consequences of the civil war in Rome. Since she commands the greatest navy in the world, the empire will be ruled by whomever gets control of it. Wondering do crises only happen when Im naked?, Cleopatra waves away the possibility of her elimination, but when her attendant Shiana hands her a scroll containing an urgent message from Rome, a poisonous snake (Shakespeares aspic or asp) drops out of it, bites her in the breast and kills her. Dying, she asks Shiana to take a message to Xena, whose friendship for Cleopatra dates from the third-season episode King of Assassins. In Shakespeare the asp features as well, but there of course the viper is brought to Cleopatra in a basket of gs in Act 5 for the purpose of killing herself after Antony, who had stabbed himself upon hearing a (false)

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report of her suicide, has died in her arms. Xena reads the message (suitably written in hieroglyphics), and she and her sidekick Gabrielle travel to Egypt. To Gabrielles query whether Xena has a plan the answer is: First we become Egyptand then we take on Rome. The nal scene of the teaser shows us Mark Antony (Jon Bennett) discussing strategy with his lieutenant Canidius. A soldier brings in a gift from Cleopatra. It is a carpet, which when unrolled literally uncovers Xena, disguised as Cleopatra, that is to say, only dressed in golden chains, and accompanied by a note which reads: Will Rome enter Egypt?a sexual innuendo which is quite in line with Shakespeares use of bawdy ambiguities. Fans of the series will recognize that making herself sexually available is no more than a titillating ploy which Xena uses from time to time in order to conquer and defeat an opponent. The idea of the queen rolled in a carpet is a very good instance of multiple forms of intertextuality. In A&C Antonys friend Enobarbus, who is discussing with Pompey and Antony the decadent lavishness of eastern feasts, has heard of one Apollodorus once carrying [a] certain queen to Caesar in a mattress (A&C, 2.6.70). This scene is based on Plutarchs Caesar as rendered by Shakespeares main source for his Roman plays:
She laid her selfe downe upon a mattresse or ock-bed, which Apollodorus her frend tied and bound up together like a bundle with a great leather thong, and so tooke her up on his backe, and brought her thus hamperd in this fardell unto Caesar. (Sir Thomas North cited in Eduardo Gonzalez 2004, n.13)

It is made much of in Act 3 of Bernard Shaws Caesar and Cleopatra ([1898] 1965), and it also features, of course, in Mankiewiczs classic epic movie Cleopatra (1963), starring Elizabeth Taylor. More subtly, there is an echo worthy of Shakespeare between the viper rolling out of the scroll and the serpent of Old Nile (as Cleopatra recalls Antony playfully calling her in A&C, 1.5.26) rolling out of the carpet. Act 1 continues the previous scene from the teaser, with Xena as Cleopatra trying to seduce Antony: Egypt is yours, Antony. Wont you free me? He unlocks her golden chains with a small key that Xena has transferred to his mouth by means of a kiss, but he does not take her up on her offer. Instead, he hands her a cloak, which she casts over her nakedness:
Antony: I came hereto form an alliance with youone based on trustand openness. Xena/Cleopatra: I think we got the openness covered.

Cleopatra makes one more attempt to make him trust her to come to her palace, suggestively condent that there I think I can nd a bed for you. Next, Brutus (David Franklin) appears on the scene, demanding an audience with Cleopatra. In spite of her disguise as Iras, one of the queens attendants, he is shocked to recognize Gabrielle from the last time they met, in The Ides of March (You survived the crucixion).9 Somewhat delayed by her, Brutus presses on towards Cleopatras bedchamber, where he nds Xena in her regular leather warrior-princess costume. He tells her to warn the queen against both Antony and Octavius, Caesars grandnephew and adopted son, both of whom want her dead. The rst act ends with Iras assisting Cleopatra in taking her bath. When Antony enters and compliments Cleopatra, she once again renders him an invitation, but once again he fails to accept, to the surprise of both women. Beth Gaynor, who also noted other Shakespearian citations in this episode, recognizes an allusion to Macbeth (5.5.13: I have suppd full with horrors), when Antony,

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taking leave of Cleopatra, says: I have supped full of pleasures this night (Whoosh! 1995 , Episode Guide, Antony and Cleopatra). Act 2 opens with Cleopatra asleep in her bed being approached by a cloaked gure. Waking up, she accosts him as her assassin, but when a rebrand is thrown into the room from outside, she saves him from the re. Antony, who comes running up, introduces him as Octavius and as a traitor. When Octavius (Mark Warren) asks Antony: What would Caesar think of his closest friend denying me his throne?, Antonys reply includes a reference to another of Shakespeares Roman plays: Uncle Julius was too busy to realizejust how ill-equipped you are. Its not that I love Caesar less. I love Rome more. In Julius Caesar, Brutuss speech to the Romans collected in the Forum includes the following text:
If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesars, to him I say, that Brutus love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. (Julius Caesar, 3.2.17ff.)

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It is at this point in the Xena episode that Cleopatra can be seen to fall in love with Antony, who comes across as being sincere, if also still as having to be manipulated. Gabrielle/Iras notes the ambiguity in Cleopatras behaviour as well, commenting: Im losing sight of your plan, Xena. Are you going to irt him to death? But Xena replies that she is only getting him to trust her, so that she will have him on his kneesguratively speaking, of course. Gabrielle warns her friend: Be careful. Hes your type. What follows must be one of the most erotic scenes of the whole series. Sucking strawberries dipped in honey to the accompaniment of Natalie Merchants Carnival but single Carnival was also released on her rst solo album Tigerlily as Have (her 1995 de I Been Blind?), Antony and Cleopatra hypnotize and mesmerize the viewer as much as they do each other. Musical interludes (the scene is without dialogue) are of course common to Shakespeares plays as well, if rather more so in comedies than in tragedies. In A&C, Cleopatra, accompanied only by her female attendants, also asks for some music music, moody food / Of us that trade in love (A&C, 2.5.1 2); she almost immediately afterwards suggests a game of billiards, followed by an even better suggestion, namely to go shing (with her music playing far off). This is a hobby which Cleopatra shares with Xena, whom in other episodes we can see catching sh with her bare hands. Shakespeares Cleopatra, at any rate, will think of every sh she catches as an Antony, / And say, Ah, ha! Youre caught (A&C, 2.5.13 14). The sensuous scene lasts for nearly two minutes viewing time, after which an increasingly worried Iras/Gabrielle interrupts it, asking:
Gabrielle: How far were you going to let that go, Xena? Xena: Until he begged for my navel. Gabrielle: Your navy?10 Xena: I know what Im doing . . . I have no real feelings for him, Gabrielle, believe me.

But just after Xena has given Gabrielle this doubtful reassurance, Shiana enters to hand her an invitation to meet Antony that night under the pyramids. This meeting opens the third act. Antony is in a philosophical mood: Our time in this worldis brief. Kingdomstheyre mere clay. [Looking at the pyramids] Will Rome surpass their majesty?

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I dont know. In a place like thisa man is truly small. In the opening scene of A&C, Antony says something similar when addressing his beloved queen, who still doubts the truth of his utterances:
Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space! Kingdoms are clay! (A&C, 1.1.34 36)

In the Xena version, Antony here declares Cleopatra his true love, which she assures him wont help you in a ght against Brutus. Not much later they are in fact attacked by Brutuss soldiers, whom Antony ghts while Cleopatra looks on, now convinced of the sincerity of his love for her. Meanwhile in the palace cellars, Iras talks to Octavius, who tells her that unlike his exploitative uncle he intends to bring Roman peace to the peoples of the world. When Xena and Gabrielle meet up again after this, Xena confesses: You were right, GabrielleI do have a soft spot for bad boys. Even worse is a bad boy who loves like a fool. This judgment tallies with that which pervades Shakespeares A&C, namely that Antony is a fool to be fascinated by that gipsy Cleopatra. As one of his friends, Philo, puts it in the opening lines of the play, the Roman general is in his dotage and has become a strumpets fool (A&C, 1.1.10, 1, 13). Xena decides that she cannot allow Antony to get control of the empire, because [t]heres plenty of blood on those hands of his. Octavius, on the other hand, has his heart in the right place, and Xena wonders if he and Antony can work together. The next scene shows Antony walking on a map representing the known world, and Cleopatra, entering the room, asks if he is [m]aking travel plans? Answering her more specic questions, Antony then explains his strategies to her; if he defeats Brutus, he will execute him and all his men, and he will also kill Octavius: He may be a good boybut I cannot let him live to be a good man. Realizing his rigid ruthlessness, Cleopatra starts her project of playing off Antony and Brutus against each other by offering the former her navy so that he can draw Brutus into a battle and crush him. The last scene of Act 3 shows Cleopatra enthroned and being approached by Brutus, who now recognizes her as Xena. She accuses him of killing Cleopatra, and he justies himself by arguing that he could never compete with Antony for the affections of a beautiful womana good thing, too, because as Xena and Brutus are already acquainted, her impersonation of Cleopatra would not have worked with him. Furthering her double-edged plan, she now also offers him Cleopatras eet in the battle against Antony. To Gabrielle, who is to accompany Brutus as a pledge of trust, she expresses her concern about Antonys likely fate: death by her hand. Act 4 opens with three scenes on different ships, so that in a manner also common to Shakespeare three couples are mutually foiled: Antony and Cleopatra, Brutus and Iras, and Octavius and Shiana. The rst of these scenes is the most elaborate, containing in its opening speech by Antony one of the purple passages from A&C. In 2.2.201ff., Enobarbus, in Rome, relates the rst meeting of Antony and Cleopatra to some of Octaviuss friends in the following words, taken almost literally from Norths translation of Plutarchs Life of Marcus Antonius ([1579] 1910):
The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold,

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The corresponding text in Antony and Cleopatra, spoken by Antony11 as a future thing to do with Cleopatra, reads:
Perhaps, when we have dealt with Brutusa journey on the scented waters of the Nile on a golden barge with oars of silverwhich well keep stroked to the tune of utesand make the waters which they beat to follow faster as though amorous of each stroke.

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Cleopatra, now all intent on the veritable tragedy which is to unravel, sensibly reacts: Antony, were about to go into a major sea battle. On the other ships Gabrielle bitterly reacts to Brutuss I killed Cleopatra for the good of Rome, and Shianas promise to her mistress that she would see her murderers brought to justice is countered by Octaviuss statement that he realizes that it is his destiny to rule Rome. The naval battle, an intertextual nod to Ben-Hur (Stoddard Hayes 2003, p. 118), begins as Octavius launches the Egyptian eet on both Antony and Brutus. Realizing his betrayal by Xena and Gabrielle, Brutus wounds the latter, and Gabrielle kills him. Antony, too, realizes that he has been deceived, and ghts the woman he now knows is not Cleopatra but Xena:
Antony: Xena. You win my trustmy loveand then you betrayeverything. Xena: [appealing to his better feelings] Antony[wounds him lethally]. Antony: [dying] I didlove you.

Meanwhile the rain falls in torrents, until we shift to the concluding scene in glaring sunlight, where Octavius thanks Xena after the battle. She appeals to him to honour the new alliance forged between Egypt and Rome:
It cost Cleopatra her life. Make sure it was worth it. Cleopatra always put the well-being of her kingdom ahead of her own. Respect this. She died in the hope that the Egyptian people might, for the rst timechoose their next great leader. She was Egypt.

These words, reminiscent of the phrase She was Xena which denes the heros identity in the recurrent title sequence, conclude the episode.

The Roman Theme in Xena and Shakespeare

Joness argument that by building on its own mytho-logic, by openly and irreverently challenging and reworking historical orthodoxy, the series reinforces its own status as a highly politicized interpretative space by inviting its audience to ask itself, what if . . . ? (2000, p. 404) applies to Xena, but it is valid for much of Shakespeares drama as well. Just as A&C forms part of a Roman cycle (which includes Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, and Coriolanus), Antony and Cleopatra comes roughly in the middle of a Roman story arc which comprises altogether some fourteen episodes in the Xena series. As is the case in A&C, if not in the other Roman tragedies, in the Xena episode there is a strong connection

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between erotic and political power play, which may well account for the series creators selection of this particular intertext. According to Futrell Rome holds a special position in Xenas hero quest: Rome caused Xena (2003, p. 14). This story arc starts with the second-season episode Destiny. Ten years or so before the present time of the series, Xena, then apparently a pirate chief, captures Julius Caesar, seduces him, and offers him a partnership to become joint rulers of the world. After being ransomed, Caesar returns, treacherously captures Xena, and has her crucied. She is revived and taken to a healer by her rst female mentor Mlila, but it is Caesars betrayal of her that causes Xena to adopt the cognomen of Destroyer of Nations.12 From now on, Caesar and Rome will remain Xenas greatest enemies, and after her conversion to the cause of justice and of the feminine values listed earlier, to become a hero, Xena must become an anti-Rome (Futrell 2003, p. 15). Rather than just adopt a typically Roman might-is-right attitude, from now on she will either play off one Roman faction against the other, as in When in Rome or A Good Day, or else, as in Legacy and The God You Know, she will dress up like an attractive Roman lady or a Celtic goddess of sex to inltrate the Roman power basis and upset it with feminine charm before having it destroy itself. In a sense, Xenas masquerade as Cleopatra is a sophisticated version of the charm offensive. As formulated by Morreale: One way to read Xena as a feminist text is to examine it as an instance of feminist camp. Often the plot calls for Xena to disguise herself as a traditional woman in order to defeat the villain (1998, p. 81). In Destiny Xena offered partnership to Caesar, a partnership to be based not only on mutual desire for power but also on romantic affection (Futrell 2003, p. 15). But if she has allowed her emotions to be severed off from her sensibilities (Caesars sexual version of divide and conquer in Destiny), after her conversion and once she battles for positive values she no longer does so, as is exemplied in later episodes, including Antony and Cleopatra. Even of the mad god-emperor Caligula (in The God You Know) her nal judgment is that he was damaged rather than purely evil. In a short section on Xenas later dealings with the Roman empire, Futrell states that the series rewrite[s] history in the Roman arc (2003, p. 22). Rather than echoing the standard popular version of the Roman empire as peaceful and highly civilized, the XWP narrative emphasizes the consequences of imperialism, the suffering it causes its predominantly domestic and female victims, presenting a persistent subaltern perspective on the Roman Empire (Futrell 2003, p. 22). Following this revision of Roman power play, we are now to understand that it is Xena who causes the deaths of Crassus (in When in Rome) and Pompey (in Endgame). In the case of Crassus, emphasis is laid on his wilful crucixion of women and children, and of Pompey on his ruthless merchandising of captured Amazons. This altogether sexualizes the atrocities of Roman potentates, as well as their defeat by the hands of a female hero. Earlier on (in The Deliverer), Julius Caesars main opponent was a woman warrior, Queen Boadicea, who obtained assistance from Xena. In her brief but cogent discussion of Antony and Cleopatra, Futrell (2003, p. 24) remarks that traditionally the Cleopatra legend has been at heart a political spin. The Xena version, on the other hand, reinvents this inverted history . . . rebuilding a picture of validated feminine authority (Futrell 2003, p. 24). Referring to Morreales account of masquerade or camp, she adds that Xenas Cleopatra charade plays on the (Roman) legend, manipulating the hackneyed scenes and dialogue of exotic allure to control the political outcome of the ongoing civil war (Futrell 2003, p. 24). Thus, what we have in

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Antony and Cleopatra is a feminized version of the traditional historical narrative as recorded by Plutarch and as further ctionalized for a contemporary Elizabethan/Jacobean audience in politically unstable times. As we have seen, in the Xena version none of the male protagonists passes muster as a humane and civilized ruler of a self-contained and peaceful nation. The triumvirate (in this case Antony, Octavius, and Brutus) are embroiled in a power struggle that from each of their points of view can only be resolved by further empire-building, that is, by the conquest of Egypt. Even the honourable Brutus (who has already killed Caesar) is willing to sacrice his former associates, Xena and Gabrielle, in order to gain the upper hand. As Futrell phrases it: His efforts to justify this act [of murdering Cleopatra] as action for the greater good of Rome are pointed up as facile and self-serving (2003, p. 25).13 Antony bluntly admits that death and execution are the Roman way, and the survivor, Octavius, will in due time (in the episodes Livia and Eve) become as ambitious a tyrant as any Roman leader, warping the moral integrity of Xenas daughter, whom he had pledged to protect. The tragedy here is that Cleopatra is victimized even before the play proper starts, and that Xena, impersonating her perfectlythat is, not only physically but also morallycannot remain Egypt and take over. In this version the downfall of an autonomous oriental culture has only been temporarily stalled. The main problem with the Romans as presented in Xena is that they are never personalized, but generally presented as a collectivity. Impersonal, ruthless, rigid, they are the soldier ants of the Xenaverse. Even those Romans that are individualized, such as Caesar, Brutus, Antony, Octavius, and Caligula, share their ambitious nations inexible characteristics. The point repeatedly made in the Roman episodes is that Rome corrupts its rulers. But whereas male power corrupts, female power, personied in Xena, liberates. Xenas teasing note to Antony (Will Rome enter Egypt?) shows up the point that is particularly made in this story arc, namely that Roman violence, and specically imperialism, can indeed be dened as an act of rape (Kennedy 2007, p. 319). Imperial politics are sexual: The conquest of nations is made possible through the sexual conquest of bodies (Kennedy 2007, p. 320). This point is frequently illustrated in Shakespeares plays as well. By inviting the conqueror in, Xena/Cleopatra remains not only one step ahead of her opponent, but she also upsets the Roman power bid by making Antony fall in love with her rather than having him violate her, and by killing him when his Roman mindset proves to be impervious to her anti-Roman values. Even Xenas ghting skills are anti-Roman, namely, oriental, learned from female, non-western mentors like Mlila, Lao Ma, Akemi, and Cyane (cf. Kennedy 2003, p. 41). It is worth noting here that in a section called Facing East, Kennedy (2003, pp. 47 52) quotes Edward Saids Orientalism on the Wests invention of the East as a place of romance, exotic beings, [and] remarkable experiences. She also notes that as the West constructs the East as soft, fragrant, mysterious, seductive, and essentially female, Xena portrays the East as all of these things (Kennedy 2003, p. 48). The Antony and Cleopatra episode is not mentioned in either of Kennedys papers, but it would serve as a prime example of this phenomenon. Indeed, in this episode we can see an instance of an eastern nation (Cleopatras Egypt, in Shakespeares time considered to be effeminately oriental) which exemplies a superior rather than an inferior culture and morality (Kennedy 2003). However, it also appears to illustrate the point Kennedy makes about the shows tendency to be Orientalist in outlook. Said denes Orientalism as the discourse by which the West dominates, restructures, and gains authority over the Orient (quoted in Kennedy 2003, p. 47). However, in the episode under discussion this authority is not imposed. Apart from

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the fact that like Xena the historical Cleopatra was of Macedonian (i.e., western) descent,14 Xena herself only temporarily adopted Cleopatras identity. The nal message of the episode under discussion is that only Cleopatra herself was Egypt. Shakespeare presented a very different view of these matters. Antonys friends and followers see him as a military leader who has gone soft due to the pernicious inuences of the decadent East with its seductive eroticism. Cleopatra rules a nation that seems already doomed to perish of its own inefciency, and as a woman she is mainly concerned that Antony does not love her enough. When Antony travels back to Rome after the death of his wife, Fulvia, and patches up his bad relationship with Octavius by marrying the latters sister, Cleopatra is understandably jealous. In the end she kills herself for love of him and also to avoid being led in triumph by Octavius Caesar, but apparently unconcerned about the well-being of her kingdom. Xenas version of this tragedy copies the voluptuous atmosphere that oozes from Shakespeares verbal representation of Cleopatras Alexandrian palace. The characterization, however, is very different. Shakespeares Antony is presented as a lovesick winebibber and a political manipulator who intends to carve out a little oriental empire for himself. In the course of the play he piles mistake upon mistake, and in the outcome he succumbs to his own indecisiveness, bungling even his suicide. Xenas Antony is an intelligent and straightforward but ruthless power politician, who is only taken in by a woman even cleverer than himself. In the eyes of Shakespeares Cleopatra he may acquire the imagined stature of a superhuman hero, but Xena sees him for what he really is, a bad boy. To a much larger extent than Shakespeares Queen of Egypt, Xena as Cleopatra acts as an actively empowered and pragmatic ruler, and she sacrices her own love for the greater cause of Egypts freedom. There is little doubt that Xena as Cleopatra is the single protagonist of this episode, if only because she clearly demonstrates that tragic inner struggle which Fitz, in an excellent early paper critiquing the sexist distortions of Shakespeares tragedy by previous critics and making an incisive case for considering Cleopatra its single protagonist, rightly distinguishes in Shakespeares Queen of Egypt (1977, p. 314). Fitz argues that Shakespeares Cleopatra struggles against her own articial theatricality (i.e., her repeated threats of dying), as well as against her own inconstancy (1977, p. 314), and she must learn that she is a woman before she is a queen (1977, p. 315). Conversely, Xena must overcome her developing feelings for Antony to be able to full her mission as a hero, which is to preserve the independence of Cleopatras kingdom. She has, so to speak, to realize that she is a warrior princess before she is a woman. Unlike Xena, who is always focused and condent, Shakespeares Cleopatra is ckle and insecure, and her suicide is perhaps not so much a heroic act of independence as one of escape into permanent passivity. Fitz rightly rejects the sexist view of Cleopatra as the archetypal or typical wavering woman who does not know what she wants, and considers her feminine wiles, that is, her unpredictability and her manipulative use of mood as deliberate (1977, p. 300), and as resulting from her fear of ageing and her insecurity; in Fitzs view these must be regarded as positive values (1977, p. 301). In Xena, the real Cleopatra is fearless, but she at once becomes the victim not of her sensuality but of a struggle between oppressive masculine forces. All through the series, the Romans, in their drab identical uniforms and with their rigid and cynically ambitious leaders, seem to represent an unfavourable version of collective manhood (see Tigges 2007, chapter 2). Fitz also notes the unsavory character of almost all the Roman activities which

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appear in the play (1977, p. 306). Masquerading as a resolute Cleopatra, Xena has a moment not of weakness but of genuine concern about the waste of a male pawn in that struggle who thinks he is a leader. Yet, she never loses sight of what is the desirable outcome: a mutual weakening of the combative forces of empire and colonial expansion through war, and the survival of the feminine values of peace and justice. Thus, unlike Shakespeares Cleopatra, who, as Fitz observes, manifests herself very much in her capacity as Queen of Egypt but as such appears to be hardly effective, Xena shows herself to be a veritable ruler. At the end of the episode both Antony and Brutus are dead, and the surviving Triumvir, the peaceful and idealistic Octavius, seems to be a truly honourable man whom Xena trusts to recognize and support this new alliance forged between Egypt and Rome. His role in the episode is rather subordinate, and at this stage of his career he is still very unlike Shakespeares victorious Octavius Caesar, who is the epitome of the calculating and cocksure Roman power freak and Realpolitiker. Yachnin (1993, p. 344) discusses Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra as a play about the politics of loyalty written and performed at a time when the position of the British monarchy was under attack. In 1603 the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I, who had manipulated her recalcitrant nobles as well as a strong House of Commons by means of what was then looked upon as her feminine wiles, was succeeded by her distant cousin James I, who had been brought up in the belief that monarchs rule by the Grace of God, that is, absolutely an attitude which got him embroiled with Parliament. As Paul Yachnin phrases it, in A&C
Shakespearian loyalty produces or makes visible a deep contradiction within absolutism itself, in that Shakespearian loyalty seems more naturally an element in a consensual or contractual political model, and therefore seems irreconcilable with the divinely ordained absolutist order that it is seen to underwrite. (1993, p. 351)

This is not the place to go at greater depth into the relationship between Shakespeares drama and contemporary political ideology, except to remind the reader that in Shakespeares days the historical accuracy of classical history was generally disregarded; instead, the classics were used for what Miola calls establishing instructive parallels between ancient history and contemporary politics (1983, p. 10).15 From an intertextual point of view, it is interesting to note how the creators of Xena have made use of a Renaissance play in a way that is not really all that different from the way in which Shakespeare made use of Plutarch via North (who himself used an earlier French translation) for his Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. This is not, of course, to suggest that Xenas Antony and Cleopatra has the poetic quality or the philosophical depth of Shakespeares tragedy. However, if the former sends us back (or even on) to the latter, that is already quite some achievement.

Conclusion
If it is true that Shakespeare has become a reliable source of ready-made cultural prestige, a way of lifting virtually any pop product out of its trivial status (Lanier 2002, p. 43), this is certainly not true of Xenas Antony and Cleopatra, inasmuch as the series including this episode cannot in my view be dismissed as merely trivial. The popularity of the series when it was rst broadcast does not mean that it must be dismissed as mediocre or supercial. Its creators made a successful effort to produce a sophisticated if campy show and actress Lucy Lawless made Xena into a most intriguing personality with convincing

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depth of character. Xena has been justly praised as one of the rst television series to place a woman in the role of the archetypal hero on a quest and as a feminist text (Morreale 1998, pp. 79, 86), as paving the way for the eventual acceptance of more serious female heroes (Inness 1999, p. 173), as offering viewers and critics alike the opportunity to assess and . . . critique the patriarchal and imperialist history of the Western hero (Kennedy 2003, p. 40), and as a watershed TV series not only in terms of the development of the warrior woman in media, but also in terms of the image of women in general (Mainon & Ursini 2006, p. 51). Antony and Cleopatra is neither a pulpy appropriation of high culture, nor a mere parody or pastiche of Shakespeares play. Within the parameters set for a TV episode of action-fantasy, it can be said to have dramatic and even tragic proportions. Moreover, by placing a heroic and active (and nonetheless seductive) Cleopatra at the centre of the story, its creators did also provide us with an opportunity to rethink the issues, both in the realms of gendered power politics and of eroticism, originally presented by Plutarch but for a long time and many ages popularized by William Shakespeare. NOTES
1. See also Chedgzoy (1995). A paper presenting a similar approach with regard to myths and fairy tales is Geetha (2002). 2. Compare Futrell (2003, p. 14): Xenas mission tends towards the defense of domestic, female-centered institutions and goals, the home and the communityspheres where women traditionally played a prominent role . . . XWP celebrates the traditional feminine sphere, giving voice to those conspicuously silenced in the ancient texts. 3. See Tigges (2007, p. 7). For more background information about the series, including brief episode summaries, see Stoddard Hayes (2003). 4. The Kristevan concept of intertextuality can by now be regarded as a familiar one for the purposes of critical analysis. I am using this term in a broad sense; for a brief typology, see Miola (2004). 5. For a full account, see Tigges (2007, chapter 4, A feminist deconstruction of Nordic legend and Wagnerian opera). 6. Among fans, the series is also celebrated for its lesbian subtext with regard to the relationship between Xena and her sidekick. 7. A Xena episode typically opens with a teaser, followed by the title sequence and four acts (allowing for the insertion of commercial messages). Quotations from the text are taken from the episode transcription on the website of the online periodical Whoosh! at www.whoosh.com. Quotations from Shakespeare are as in The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works (Shakespeare 2001); bracketed references are to act, scene and line(s) respectively as in this edition. 8. The historical Cleopatra (VII) of Egypt lived from 68 to 30 BCE. According to Plutarch (c. 46 c. 120 CE), she took her own life when Antonys cause in Egypt became desperate. In his Life of Caesar, Plutarch ([1579] 1910) also describes her amorous dealings with Julius Caesar. In the Xena version of Antony and Cleopatra, the love affairs of Cleopatra with Caesar and with Antony are conated. 9. In this fourth-season episode, Julius Caesar has both Xena and Gabrielle crucied. The women are revived, but Brutus does not know that.

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10. As in the historical account, Antony needs Cleopatras naval (not: navel) assistance. He lost the battle of Actium in 31 BCE when Cleopatras sixty ships sailed away. In the Xena version, Brutus is the other contestant, and Xena will have the Egyptian navy attack both Roman eets. 11. In Act 3, scene 1, of All for Love (1678), John Drydens neo-classical appropriation of Shakespeares play, this description is in fact spoken by Antony as well; Drydens cast too is greatly reduced from Shakespeares, amounting to six men (not including servants) and four women. 12. There is a historical source for this particular episode as well: as noted by Futrell (2003, p. 137, n. 4), Caesar was kidnapped by pirates in 75 BCE and [a]fter insisting on an increase in the amount of ransom asked, the freed Caesar hunted down his former captors to crucify them at Pergamum. In crucifying Xena, Caesar is made to act out a pervertedly feminized version of this event, in that the main victim is now a woman, and he himself becomes an anti-hero. On the signicance of the multiple crucixion scenes in Xena, see Kennedy (2007). 13. With reference to Brutuss assassination of Caesar and Cleopatra, Kennedy points out that within the Roman Republic individual friendship must be subverted to the good of the state (2007, p. 319). It is appropriate that it is Gabrielle who kills Brutus, as she lost her pacist attitude and her blood innocence in Rome while trying to protect Xena (in The Ides of March; cf. Kennedy 2007, p. 320). 14. In Antony and Cleopatra the excellently cast African-American actress Gina Torres who played Cleopatra in King of Assassins was replaced by a lighter-tinted actress so as to make her impersonation by Xena more credible. Shakespeares Cleopatra is not traditionally performed by a coloured actress. On black Cleopatras, see for example MacDonald (2002, p. 50), and the references there provided. 15. See in particular Miolas chapter Antony and Cleopatra: Rome and the World (1983, pp. 116 163) for a detailed account of Shakespeares use of Plutarch and other classical sources for this play.

REFERENCES
(1995) Shakespeares Queer Children: Sexual Politics and Contemporary Culture, Manchester University Press, Manchester. CLEOPATRA (lm) (1963) Joseph L. Mankiewicz (dir.), 20th Century Fox, USA. FITZ, L. T. (1977) Egyptian queens and male reviewers: sexist attitudes in Antony and Cleopatra criticism, Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 3, pp. 297 316. FUTRELL, ALISON (2003) The baby, the mother, and the empire: Xena as ancient hero, in Athenas Daughters: Televisions New Women Warriors, eds Frances Early & Kathleen Kennedy, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, pp. 13 26. GEETHA, N. (2002) Feminist deconstruction and reconstruction of male myths and fairy tales via intertextuality, in Modern Criticism, eds Christopher Rollason & Rajeshwar Mittapalli, Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi, pp. 244 261. GONZALEZ, EDUARDO (2004) Odysseus bed and Cleopatras mattress, Modern Language Notes, vol. 119, no. 5, pp. 930 948. INNESS, SHERRIE A. (1999) Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.
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(2000) Histories, ctions, and Xena: Warrior Princess, Television & New Media, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 403 418. KENNEDY, KATHLEEN (2003) Love is the battleeld: the making and unmaking of the just warrior in Xena: Warrior Princess, in Athenas Daughters: Televisions New Women Warriors, eds Frances Early & Kathleen Kennedy, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, pp. 40 52. KENNEDY, KATHLEEN (2007) Xena on the cross, Feminist Media Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 313 332. LANIER, DOUGLAS (2002) Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture, Oxford University Press, Oxford. MACDONALD, JOYCE GREEN (2002) Sex, race, and empire in Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra, in Women and Race in Early Modern Texts, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 45 67. MAINON, DOMINIQUE & URSINI, JAMES (2006) The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen, Limelight Editions, Pompton Plains. MERCHANT, NATALIE (singer/songwriter) (1995) Carnival/Have I been blind?, Tigerlily (music album), Electra Records, USA. MIOLA, ROBERTS. (1983) Shakespeares Rome, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. MIOLA, ROBERT S. (2004) Seven types of intertextuality, in Shakespeare, Italy, and Intertextuality, ed. Michele Marrapodi, Manchester University Press, Manchester, pp. 13 25. MORREALE, JOANNE (1998) Xena: Warrior Princess as feminist camp, Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 2, pp. 79 86. PLUTARCH [1579] (1910) Plutarchs Lives, 10 vols., trans. Sir Thomas North, J. M. Dent, London. SANDERS, JULIE (2001) Novel Shakespeares: Twentieth-Century Women Novelists and Appropriation, Manchester University Press, Manchester. SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM (2001) The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, rev. edn, eds Richard Proudfoot, Ann Thompson & David Scott Kastan, Nelson, London. SHAW, BERNARD [1898] (1965) Caesar and Cleopatra, in The Complete Plays of Bernard Shaw, Paul Hamlyn, London, pp. 250 297. STODDARD HAYES, K. (2003) Xena: Warrior Princess. The Complete Illustrated Companion, Titan Books, London. TIGGES, WIM (2007) Her Courage Will Change the World: An Appraisal of Xena: Warrior Princess, [Online] Available at: www.lulu.com. WHOOSH! (1995 ) [Online] Available at: www.whoosh.com (8 Sept. 2010). XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS (television series) (1995 2001) Renaissance Pictures, USA. YACHNIN, PAUL (1993) Shakespeares politics of loyalty: sovereignty and subjectivity in Antony and Cleopatra, Studies in English Literature 1500 1900, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 343 363.

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Wim Tigges was a Lecturer in English language literature at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, until his retirement. He is the author of An Anatomy of Literary Nonsense (1988) and has published in both English and Dutch on a variety of subjects, mainly exploring the aesthetics of popular culture. He has recently written two monographs on Xena: Warrior Princess, and has been invited to co-edit a forthcoming volume of scholarly papers on this subject. E-mail: w.tigges@hum.leidenuniv.nl