POP CULTURE SCENE
Xenafest not deterred by demise of heroine
By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Xena, played by Lucy Lawless, was killed off in the TV series but lives on in fan events such as Sunday's 7th-Ever Xenafest.
Advertiser Library photo 7th-Ever Xenafest Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics, Room 110, University of Hawai'i-Manoa. Map available via Web site 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday $6 general, free for children under 12; 735-5854, 693-8747 |
And they're bringing Salmoneus with them.
The 7th-Ever Xenafest will take place Sunday at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics on the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus. Robert Trebor, who played the opportunistic Salmoneus on "Xena" and "Hercules: The Legendary Journeys," will be the featured guest.
The event is being presented by Xenites Hawai'i, a loosely organized Xena fan club headed by serious Xenite Jackie Young. It will be the first Xenafest since Lucy Lawless' character was killed in the series finale. Yet, in the spirit of the oft-killed, oft-revived warrior princess, the fans aren't ready to pack it up just yet.
"In some ways, it's similar to 'Star Wars,' which was groundbreaking in the area of science fiction," Young said. "'Xena' was groundbreaking in that it showed a strong female role model. It showed a change in mentality, and it challenged the history of the role of women."
Young, a secretary at the UH Department of Philosophy, has been a fan of the show since — and she's sure of this — November 1995. That was when she first saw a late-night promo for the show and found herself entranced by the powerful image the Xena character presented.
The first episode she watched, "The Reckoning," didn't disappoint.
"There were a lot of turns," she said. "It was such a twisty episode, it kept my attention. It was well written, it took time to show the New Zealand scenery, the special effects were handled properly. It was very sophisticated."
Young said she was intrigued by the new space Xena was carving — OK, hacking — in the TV landscape.
"You never saw a woman empowered on TV in such a cool way," Young said. "She was a strong female, with a female sidekick, who didn't need men to bail her out all the time. There were other shows with strong female characters, but they always had male sidekicks or male bosses.
"Xena regularly kicked male butt," she said. "And she saved men, too. She was really iconoclastic in that sense."
Young, whose fondness for the show has taken her to Xena conventions across the country, is not just a Xenite, the preferred term for Xena fans, but a HCNB.
That would be "Hard Core Nut Ball," the term affectionately bestowed by Lawless to her most active Internet fans.
And, make no mistake, Xena's run as revolutionary cultural paragon was fueled largely by the rants, raves, posts and positings of a devoted, computer-savvy community of fans.
"That was something 'Star Trek' didn't have initially," Young said.
In fact, the Xenafest came about after Young noticed that another member of her online Xena discussion group had a Hawai'i address. The two got together to watch some videos — the first Xenafest.
By the fourth Xenafest, promoted by KHON Channel 2, attendance jumped to 120. Young isn't sure what to expect this time, but she's optimistic.
"A lot of hard-core fans are re-watching the old episodes and chatting about what they're catching the second or third time around," she said. "And there are always newer fans that are catching the show for the first time on (the cable channel) Oxygen."
Trebor's presence at this year's Xenafest should help. It's the first appearance by one of the series' stars, and Trebor is known for being particularly responsive to fans.
