Boom Boom Ba

Vid
Title:	Boom Boom Ba
Creator:	charmax
Date:	Oct 2004, remastered in 2011
Format:	digital, streaming and DivX download
Length:	4:49
Music:	Metisse
Genre:
Fandom:	Xena: Warrior Princess
Footage:
URL:	at AO3
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vid banner by charmax

Boom Boom Ba is an Xena vid by charmax.

Vidder's summary: "This video focuses on the sensual aspects of the show Xena and the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle. This was made originally in Oct 04 for a theme challenge and the theme was “lust”. This vid plays heavily on the lust, the swaying bodies and the subtext text."

Vidder's Notes

"Notes: So, I decided to remaster this video because a few folk requested a DVD version. That wasn’t my only reason but it was the final push I needed. Of late I’ve been thinking about remastering a few of my older vids and this came first because I thought this would be the least difficult. That was what I thought anyway...but truthfully it was a bitch. Most of my problems related to timing and colouring. I know what I did before but the same thing didn't work second time around. Of course I have fixed the timing but the colours are not the same as the original. In fact I think the colours are even better and that is one of the things that I wanted to fix with the new version. The other main difference is visual quality! Back in 04 I was still making vids at relatively small file sizes. This version is bigger and much less muddy . Let’s just say I have learnt a lot in the past 18 months. I did make a few changes in clip choices, not many, and only chosen to make it flow better. This new video, though slightly altered from the old, still remains true to my original idea. It was made as a "mood piece" and that is what it is."

Reactions and Reviews

"Hey wow! I really liked what you did there! Great use of editing, timing, colouring & well, scene choice! And yeah, you ABSOLUTELY captured the theme of lust! Thanks for sharing!"

"Super hot Xena video that’s one of the better play the motion to the song vids I’ve seen."

"This is the most sensual vid I think I've ever seen -- color, motion, emotion, it all adds up to intense sensuality and blazing heat. Everything in the vid is flowing and fluid, with a deliberateness to every motion that amps up the sensuality tremendously. It's unbelievably good."

"This show has a serious Orientalism problem. It's visible in a lot of the vids --Boom Boom Ba in particular uses a lot of it, if you want to get a sense of the aesthetic choices the show's making -- but it's not just set dressing, it's a structural problem with the show. Xena's conversion from evil to good involves visiting China and learning about love and magic and spiritual journeys from Lao Ma (who Xena later has to save from patriarchy, no, srsly), and Gabrielle's evolution as a character involves spiritually journeying to India. And part of the Xena/Gabrielle relationship, especially in fandom, includes this moment in which Xena and Gabrielle go to India and learn that they're "spiritually and karmically linked through several reincarnations" (I paraphrase, but it's something like that). On Xena, Asia is about spiritual journeys and romance and veiled women and sexiness and magic, and all good Asian people are always willing to teach said magic or sexiness or spiritual messages to Xena and Gabrielle. I mean, it's very telling that Boom Boom Ba, which sets out to be about the sexiness of Xena, ends up also being a vid about the Orientalism of Xena, because those two things pretty much can't be disentangled."

"At the Burbank con in January someone showed me a X & G video from their i-pod called 'Boom Boom Ba' which I found on You Tube and which has since been removed due to some violation or other (probably because it was REALLY provocative). Wish I could find it somewhere else. Anybody?"

"...a gorgeous and sensual exploration of female sexuality, marred by a seductive but troubling Orientalism."

"Really, go watch, if you're a Xena fan or not, this is such a gorgeous vid and it needs a wider audience. Lush, sensual, with a fantastic eye for color and movement. Watching it feels like taking a long hot scented bath. Possibly with an Amazon or two."

"Oh wow...

This is *so gorgeous*. Like, breathtaking so.

And there's just so much flat out *coolness* in it too! All of those seamless transitions and wipes and fades and freezes and glows and echoed movement and colors and just *wow*. Really really stunning.

is completely hypnotized::"

"I LOVE this vid. I think it's the best example of female sexuality I've seen in fandom (thank you thank you for it not being a voyeuristic thing, with the men looking on at all the crazah sexy amazons, which I have seen before *shudders*)...It was just so warm and loving and it also displayed the tensions as well (with the vampires), because their relationship was dangerous and fraught at times. And you really got the sense that these were two soul mates. Xena was a great show and you really did justice to it. The ending was just...wow...Thanks so much for sharing this. I really miss this show."

"I'm very late to this video, but I wanted to let you know how much I loved it. It reminded of what I love so much about Xena, the TV programme, and how their relationship was absolutely and utterly central to that. The music is a beautiful match for the images, and I love the way that you've made so much of the dancing into a duet they're dancing for and to each other. The beats of the Amazons on their drums and the part where there's a hand smoothing cloth along legs and round the feet just fitted the music perfectly."