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Gabrielle’s Heteronormative Nightmare - A Married With Fishsticks reappraisal
For years I thought Married with Fishsticks was one of the worst episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess, but having rewatched and reflected on it, I see something else.
What once looked like pointless nonsense now feels like one of the strangest, most subversive episodes of the series. In fact, I’ve come to read it as Gabrielle’s queer feminist nightmare; a hallucination where she’s forced into Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique.
When Gabrielle wakes up in this fishy suburban dreamworld, she’s saddled with a “husband” she doesn’t know or want. She’s expected to smile, cook, fit in, and keep up appearances for the neighbors. The whole thing is played with a laugh-track energy, but it’s suffocating in a way that feels intentional. This is Friedan’s “problem with no name”, the malaise of being told that housewifery and marriage are the pinnacle of fulfilment, even when they feel empty. Only here, it’s played…
Very well said.