Xena to Be Openly Gay in Reboot

Another beloved '90s relic is being brought yelling and cartwheeling back to life with NBC producing a reboot of cult classic Xena: Warrior Princes. Javier Grillo-Marxuach, a writer and producer behind The CW's The 100, is penning and co-executive producing the pilot he's hinted that Xena is going to drag all the gay subtext of the original series out of the closet.

Grillo-Marxuach responded to a question on his Tumblr about whether fan reaction to the death of a gay character on The 100 would influence his work on Xena:

i am a very different person with a very different world view than my employer on the 100 - and my work on the 100 was to use my skills to bring that vision to life.

xena will be a very different show made for very different reasons. there is no reason to bring back xena if it is not there for the purpose of fully exploring a relationship that could only be shown subtextually in first-run syndication in the 1990s. it will also express my view of the world - which is only further informed by what is happening right now - and is not too difficult to know what that is if you do some digging.

Maybe because hindsight is 20/20, but watching Xena as a kid, I always thought that it was pretty clear that Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) were more than just friends. Especially after Gaby was serving Ellen DeGeneres hair tease in the later seasons.

And Lawless certainly agreed. In a 2003 interview, she confirmed the love that dare not speak its name:

"There was always a 'Well, she might be or she might not be' but when there was that drip of water passing between their lips in the very final scene, that cemented it for me," she said. "Now it wasn't just that Xena was bisexual and kinda liked her gal pal and they kind of fooled around sometimes, it was 'Nope, they're married, man'."

Yup, sounds about right. But it's been 15 years since Xena last hurled a Charkam at someone's face and in that time Xena and Gabrielle have finally earned the right to marry.

[h/t] Newsweek