Lauren Steimer | University of South Carolina (original) (raw)

Papers by Lauren Steimer

Media industries, Jul 14, 2032

$Research paper thumbnail of From \u3cem\u3eWuxia\u3c/em\u3e to \u3cem\u3eXena\u3c/em\u3e: Translation and the Body Spectacle of Zoë Bell$

The Worlds of <em>John Wick</em>, May 3, 2022

The Sociological Review, 2015

This article explores the role of stunt women in film and television production, and considers th... more This article explores the role of stunt women in film and television production, and considers their contribution to the construction of on-screen action heroines. Combining feminist theory with interviews with professional stunt women, the article illuminates stunt women's strategically hidden professional labour: on the set, on the screen, and in the popular press.

Transnational Stardom, 2013

Tony Jaa has commonly portrayed rural villagers fighting the ills of foreign invaders and moderni... more Tony Jaa has commonly portrayed rural villagers fighting the ills of foreign invaders and modernizing forces. A standard analysis of Jaa’s star text would most commonly (1) lend to a discussion of the martial arts icon as a national hero, (2) read the characters that he plays as symbolic of the national condition, and (3) analyze his performance as an articulation of the conflict between modernity and tradition. I am interested in Tony Jaa for the ways that he is linked to the nation not because of the characters that he has played, the symbolic conflicts between modernity and tradition that such characters face, or the traditional martial arts form, muay thai, that he practices. Jaa is iconic of the nation and in particular of the national film industry of Thailand because of the manner in which his body spectacles and virtuoso reception context have been determined by national economic predicaments and globalized exhibition cultures. It would be simple to address Tony Jaa as a nationalist icon with embodied connections to a state-sanctioned martial arts form through aesthetic analysis, but to do so without an examination of Jaa’s body spectacles as well as the “special effects” of the Asian economic crisis on the common production model in Thailand would serve to reinforce the naturalized absence of discussions of the labor arrangements, production hierarchies, funding structures, and exhibition cultures in cinema and media studies.

... The stars examined in this dissertation display modes of corporeal manipulation that stun kno... more ... The stars examined in this dissertation display modes of corporeal manipulation that stun knowing spectators into a state of awe though their production of martial arts body spectacles: Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Tony Jaa and Zo? Bell. ...

... The body spectacles of certain prominent stunt performers working in transnational film and t... more ... The body spectacles of certain prominent stunt performers working in transnational film and television production over the last two decades (Cyril Raffaelli, Tony Jaa, Todd Senofonte, Zoë Bell) are distinct in that the feats captured by the camera and trans-formed by ...

JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies

Discourse Journal For Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture, 2013

Discourse, 2009

Explores the role of stunt women in film and television produc- tion, and considers their contrib... more Explores the role of stunt women in film and television produc- tion, and considers their contribution to the construction of on-screen action heroines. Combining feminist theory with interviews with professional stunt women, the article illuminates stunt women’s strategically hidden professional labour: on the set, on the screen, and in the popular press.