2022
This chapter examines the specific positioning of martial arts stars within cinema and investigates the gendered construction of the female martial artist. It discusses the development of the muay thai film as a specifically Thai contribution to martial arts cinema and the genre’s vindication of the ideological construction of muay thai as an expression of heroic masculinity and patriotism. The chapter focuses on Jeeja Yanin to examine how the introduction of a female muay thai star affects the heroic/nationalistic narrative of Thai muay thai cinema and how this, in turn, affects the construction of Jeeja’s star image.