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 While women played subdued roles in classical mythology, pop culture TV heroines aren't exactly shrinking violets. Xena is a warrior in an oddly synchronic ancient world and Buffy is the teenaged nemesis of vampires and other things that go bump in the night in suburban California. La Femme Nikita fulfills assignments with a cold, brutal efficiency and Seven of Nine, befuddled by her own exuberance on 'Star Trek Voyager,' has uttered the classic line: "It must have been my humanity reasserting itself." |
By Elizabeth Locke
(Editor's note: Liz Locke is a Ph.D. candidate at the IU Folklore Institute in Bloomington. Her work focuses on feminist revisionings of ancient myth and on the ideological uses of American popular culture.)
The word "hero" has a twisted history. We think of "heroic culture" as masculine in the extreme. And since Mycenean times in the Western world, it has been.
Even distinguished etymologists W. W. Skeat and C.T. Onions agree that the term refers to "a man of superhuman qualities; an illustrious warrior; a man admired for his great deeds and noble qualities." This usage, incidentally, is related to the word "heroin," as use of the narcotic is accompanied by an inflated estimation of the personality.
But Eric Partridge agrees with Joan V. O'Brien that "hero" comes to us via Hera, a pre-Olympian goddess of childbirth and of the seasons. A hero, then, is a protector, a man belonging to a season.
We were taught in high school and re-learn every time we watch Kevin Sorbo in Legendary Journeys on Saturday afternoons that Herakles, the hero par excellence of the ancient Mediterranean world, was plagued by Hera, his stepmother. But his name and his glory are derived from her. Herakles means "he who wins fame from Hera."
Heroine, then, is one of those words like "actress," "poetess" and "huntress": the suffix serves to herald the deviance of a woman doing a man's work.
But back to common connotations. If "real men" are warriors, and warriors are manly protectors, how did we ever imagine and then wholeheartedly embrace, pop culture television characters like Xena (whose name means "Stranger") the Warrior Princess and Buffy ("Airhead?") the Vampire Slayer? Are they just more gorgeous, scary chicks in great shape, kick-boxing their way out of male fantasy and onto the little screen? More madonnas menacing male privileges? More incarnations of patriarchy in drag?
I don't think so, and here's why.
Unlike La Femme Nikita, whose survival depends more on the whim of her patriarchal oppressors--male and female--than on her skills as a warrior, and unlike Seven of Nine, whose magnificent form is still to be inhabited by a human woman, Xena and Buffy are recognizable caricatures of the best that is in us. They are conscious and smart and funny and strong. Even when they are alone.
But each knows that she is not complete within herself in a vacuum. Neither is narcotized by ego inflation. And both fully understand the consequences of violence.
It's the well-above-average writing that makes these TV shows so successful with both men and women--Xena recently outstripped Baywatch as the world's most popular program, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer just put "the WB" (Warner Brothers Network) on the ratings map.
But it's the sidekicks who make them us.
I had a friend in college who warned me never to break a date with her because a man had called--my first real lesson in feminism. Gabrielle, "that irritating little blonde," is at the heart of Xena's battle cry.
While some viewers wonder about Xena's sexual identity, and certainly actress Lucy Lawless has unabashed fun with that, the beautiful-albeit now-dead Marcus is her man. And Gabrielle even married a man for love. (Okay, the gentle Perdicus didn't live long either.)
It's the unmitigated sisterhood between these women that makes them both so powerful. Xena ("I Have Many Skills") is the protector of the weak, and Gabrielle, who eschews sharp weapons, is her compassionate conscience. Without Gabby's innocent tenderness, Xena is just another babe-goddess with a chakram.
And Buffy is more than a politically correct, upbeat 1990s girl-version of Dracula's Professor Van Helsing. The "Slayer" is a hard-bodied protector, deeply in love with a 400-year-old vampire with soul, and Sunnydale would be hellish without her. Sure, she's part of the American obsession with nubile teenagers and side-show, snake-oil hopes for immortality, but she's got her stake ("Mr. Pointy") and she's got Willow.
A student called me recently at midnight. While writing her final paper on "the beastie boyfriends" episode of Buffy, she was sobbing, horrified to find that she couldn't stop identifying with the men.
Then she realized that she could step into Willow's persona and everything changed. Willow is profoundly sane. Willow is the friend who expects you to break your date when a man calls, but you never do because she's more interesting, with more depth and character, than any of your male peers. Willow is the non-neurotic, non-self-absorbed, curious, intelligent and kind humanity that Buffy's destiny seeks to defend.
Even Kevin Sorbo's Herakles has Iolus, his nurturing, heart-connected, "irritating little blonde." See what happens when you let the girls play? These aren't your father's heroes anymore. Hopefully, they're your son's.
Now, if we could just hip the writers about Hera.
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