Many thanks to Leanne from Kiwi Attic for the transcript. You can order
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The Listener

(New Zealand)

20 - 26 January 2001

Xena: Model Princess


As an occasional insomniac, I was very relieved to discover the Fashion Channel on Sky. The fashion channel is a 24-hour process of models, walking vacuously up and down catwalks, displaying clothes that can be worn only by women who are built like teenage boys and haven't heard about underwear

That's why I'm delighted that we're screening new series of Xean and Hercules and distraught that they won't be with us much longer. These programmes give us more than well-made escapism and a healthy injection of US dollars. They give young women around the world new role models.

The women in their tongue-in-cheek version of ancient Greece come out of Li'l Abner, not Terminal Ward 3. These are women with bosoms and hips and thighs and even the occasional delightful belly. They've got it, they show it and they celebrate it.

And these Amazons have attitude. For every well-stacked blonde who's rescued by the manly arms of Hercules, a nuscular thus is kicked into submission by the rounded thighs of Xena. These aren't women who turn pale at the sight of a carbohydrate. They're more likely to slug mead than sip champagne. They like their meat rare
and catch it themselves. They don't do tofu and they don't take crap.

When Xena entered cult status, girls started comparing triceps, not wasted arms. The toned body and the defined muslce became benchmarks. Tall girls stopped stooping and big girls found out they were beautiful. Parents around the world breathed a
communal sigh of relief.

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