This article argues that Rena Owen’s star persona has been constrained, and ultimately undermined, by essentialist definitions of her status as Māori on the part of print media, in particular women’s magazines, in response to her role as Beth in Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori, 1994), a role that thrust her into the international limelight. These ancillary texts served to emphasise two stereotypes, positioning her either in relation to the traditional Pacific Island female type of the ‘dusky maiden’ or focusing on her criminal past and current scandalous behaviour.
