The open secret progressed with the series and in turn became a cause for the growth and development of the XSTT and Xenaverse fandom. The lesbian discourse around the subtext illuminates a broad spectrum of transformational attitudes within the fans experience. Often their chats became inspirational talk, representing a triumphant aspect of the fans‟ personal lives and the celebratory effects of their fandom.
At the start of the series, fans of the show were drawn to a layer of text embedded in the show because examples of double-entendres were peppered throughout the script.
It was then that fans began to talk of the Xena twist. At the outset, the Xena twist described what was seen as the creator-writers of X: WP‟s unusual practice of intentionally placing subtle indications of a lesbian relationship between Xena and Gabrielle into the show. To support this notion of subtext, the creators produced a space in the text on which the lesbian fans of XSTT focussed. I asked cabinngirl an XSTT fan, when she talked about the show with others, what did she talk about? She
replied:
It makes me laugh to think about it, but we would talk like we were gossiping teenage girls. We would talk about symbolism, and what did we think this meant…. And did you see that clever little symbol they put on
the set …or the innuendos that were thrown around…or the look that Xena gave Gabrielle, and didn‟t it send chills up your spine.
cabinngirl expresses her everyday speech and discourse about the open secret and this is important in terms of the social and cultural aspects of fan practices and lesbian fandom. The fan is looking for meaning in the text and its use of symbolism. The fan is immersed in the fantasy of the subtext, and how it holds substance for her sense of self and identity. The innuendos and symbolism are codes of lesbian identity that this fan acknowledges. The lesbian fans of XSTT enjoy online and offline chats as part of their pleasurable fan activities and, for some, it enhances their new lesbian identities.
Other fans such as magmor, not only recognised subtext as coding in the text of the series, but emphasised the pull of the subtext, and how it was seducing her to keep on watching. She clarifies the importance of the subtext and declares what she is witnessing as her motivation for watching the series in her searching journey.
... it kept lesbianism on my TV screen, even if in a coded way, at a time when I desperately needed it.
The fan is complicit with the open secret and suggests self-awareness as a liberating factor in her plea of desperation. The more lesbian Internet fans tuned in, the more the lesbian subtext was developed to the point that fans declared a new definition of the subtext, as magmor explains:
The subtext – which I consider to have been the maintext for quite some time actually One of my straight girlfriends cackled glee at the final episode of the Norse Trilogy of season six and asked “Is there anyone left out there who can still think they‟re straight after that “?
In her commentary on the standing of the text, magmor revealed how discussions on the subtext reached diverse parts of the X: WP viewing audience. This fan explained that she exchanged viewpoints on the subtext with one of her “straight girlfriends”
suggesting that discussions about the subtext as the main text not only crossed over
different audiences, but that both participants in the exchange understood the subtext as dominant.
As with the case of many of the fans understanding the subtext as the main text, what impact it is important to ask what impact this was having on the XSTT fandom? The most important aspect of the open secret was how it prompted in-depth revelations from the fans about their transformations. We have traced several of magmor‟s comments on the subtext in how it kept her hooked into the series, and how the fan was following her understanding of a development of the subtext as a relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. I asked magmor what was the most memorable thing that happened on the show? She replied:
It was that Xena and Gabrielle evolved as human beings, and the way their relationship responded to those changes -
And when asked whether magmor changed during the period of the series? The fan replies in depth:
In denial and in some turnmoil when I started watching in 1997, the show was a great comfort to me and focus for my struggle to come to terms with my sexuality. In 1999 I came out, and weeks before the final episode screen on Sky 2001, I was sitting in an evening class on Lesbian Literature at UCD in which slash fiction and Xena fanfiction being discussed by ten fascinated lesbians( one of the most fascinated being the course director who was given the class, yes, I‟ll say I changed!
The fan magmor‟s interpretation of the series‟ open secret is that Xena and Gabrielle are having a lesbian sexual relationship. Her lesbian fan discourse is participative and she gives confessional accounts of how it has been a transformational and inspirational experience for her during the period of 1997 to 1999. For magmor, watching and participating in the series online chats and discussions offline in a university classroom setting with other like-minded people, and for her, one person in particular was what drew her attention and enabled her coming out narrative, and her
self-reflected thoughts about her lesbian fan identity and journey. The open secret for magmor was about her own secret her secret of her closeted sexuality that she struggled and suffered with especially through the three years she mentioned in her online responses.
In exploring these fan narratives, the fan readings and interpretations express their relationship with the characters at the beginning of their viewing experience. The message the fans receive from the show as individuals enables them to bring their own social and cultural frameworks to bear on what was being conveyed by the symbolic images and the show‟s narrative and plotlines. They are making meaning from the appropriation of the text while constructing a social and personal identity for themselves. For fans such as magmor it was an adjusting period, a process mirroring the changing narrative of the show, in which the fans‟ identities developed, occasionally in parallel with the female characters of the show. As an individual, magmor identifies with the notion of female objectification through the media message she is interpreting and also dealing with her own „denial‟ around her own sexuality. This can be viewed as being complicit with the show‟s message of the open secret but it is also liberating and salutary. As stated in the introduction, the fans‟
discourses are embedded with biographical senses of the self and, as such, the meaning of the open secret is individual to each of the fans from XSTT.
As we have examined, the first layer of discourse offered spaces for meanings, for interpretation and discussion by fans through the development of the subtext. The subtext is used in a celebratory manner and opens up topics of discussion from coming out, gender, sex, love, and identity (to name but a few) and these will be explored further shortly in this chapter, and again in chapter four. I would now like to
turn my attention to the commodification of the open secret, and how the paradox of the show was to promote this subtext while denying it, and how this played to the economic gain of both Studio and fans.