Everything these days seems to be getting a reboot. Though, it seems one reboot that actually would have been amazing, is dead in the water before I had even heard it was happening. According to Out Magazine,
“Once upon a time, NBC was planning a big, lesbian reboot of Xena: Warrior Princess but, because we can’t have nice things, that reboot is apparently dead…The revival, which was set to bring back co-creators Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi, was going to focus more on the lesbian relationship between the Amazonian goddess and Gabrielle as well as, you know, the fighting and her iconic armbands… It was rumored that these creative differences stemmed from him wanting to put the lesbian relationship front-and-center, which lead to today’s announcement from NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke that the reboot won’t go forward at all.”
Which is a huge bummer. Even though I wasn’t the biggest Xena fan of all time, a lesbian reboot would’ve been amazing. We may not get to see a lesbian Xena reboot anytime soon, but we can still dream of what might have been. With that in mind, here are 3 things I would have loved to have seen in the reboot.
1. We Could See Their Adorable Homelife
So yeah, they kick a lot of ass and take a lot of names, but can you imagine what an adorable home life we could have seen? There are so many possibilities:
- Maybe a la 30 Rock, they could have had a fight in their local Amazonian IKEA
- Maybe they use their local form of Pinterest (probably an actual bulletin board of ideas) and do a DIY project together for their beautiful home
- Maybe you know it’s all kicking ass on the week days but on the weekends they have brunch and garden
Do they brew their own wine and beer? Do they breed animals? Do they just have really adorable date nights? We could have had it all. We could have had kickass-ness AND lesbian normalcy.
In the TV Tropes page on “Hide Your Lesbians“, they describe the series saying,
“The show features one of the best known and longest running examples of this trope in the implied relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. Though the subtext becomes more and more explicit throughout the series, particularly during the final season, they’re never officially confirmed to be anything more than Heterosexual Life-Partners, and both characters are seen engaged in serious relationships (in one case, even a short-lived marriage) with male characters at various points throughout the series. It should be noted, though, that in later seasons, they stopped having Temporary Love Interests.”
Just by being able to show that there IS a relationship would be radical and fulfilling. To be able to show the “relationship”-y things present on any given sitcom would finally give these characters not something hinted at, but real and affirming.
2. Hercules and Xena Could Be Bro’s
If we forget about all of the romance and marriage stuff, we can’t ignore the fact that Xena and Hercules would make amazing bro’s. After a long day of kicking ass and sending Titans back to hell or whatever the hell that animated movie was about, they could totally hang out.
After they put up their weapons, they could have gone to their local bar, had a couple beers and been like,
“Ladies… can’t live with them, can’t live without them, am I right?!”
It would have been great. They could have even done a whole episode a la How I Met Your Mother doing really stupid dares with each other. Even Gabrielle taking part in a series of drink offs, and drag their drunk asses home.
3. We’d See Xena OWN Misogynists and TERF’s
and it would have been totally awesome. Every episode could be like
“You think this is a phase?! I was born this badass you asshole— POW”
and
“You have been repeatedly asked to use the correct pronouns. WHACK”
and
“If your feminism isn’t intersectional, it’s not feminism. And as a cis woman we should lift up our gender non-conforming peers, not punch down [BATTLE CRY]”
Or maybe she would just kick bad guys asses. Even if the show wasn’t setting out to be political, it would be. To show an actual lesbian relationship, a show with a leading lesbian character, and just general great combat, it would be amazing.
But For Now, We’ll Have to Stick to Fanfiction
All that being said, this reboot isn’t happening and who knows when it will. The potential lesbian sitcom about kicking ass and a 20+ old lesbian relationship will have to stay on our vision boards and in fanfiction. These aren’t the only ideas in the world about a Xena and Gabrielle romance though, you can always dig into fanfiction archives like fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own. That or you can get started with a Xena reboot of your own, though chances are NBC won’t be interested. To get started, you can stream the original show on Hulu.