Not too often is a political action movie with blood and torture directed by a woman. That is what sets Zero Dark Thirty apart from other films in its genre. Zero Dark Thirty was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and her female direction makes the movie have a few interesting twists that typically a male director would not have. The topic of gender isn't screamingly obvious in this movie, but it's the subtle cues that make it important and something worth talking about.
The main character, Maya, is a female. This obviously leads to a different dynamic in the movie than what would be if a male was in the lead. Maya is a very strong woman. In many action movies, when there is a strong female character, she is usually sexualized by wearing tight or revealing clothes (for example Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, Sarah Connor in Terminator or the Sarah Connor Chronicles, Halle Berry as Cat Woman, and the list goes on). It is nice to see her as just a strong female woman pursuing to get her job done in the business world. Her character is comparable to Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs, in the way that they are both passionate about their job, finding their killer, and bringing about justice without having to be sexualized because they are women.
One thing that I thought was interesting about Zero Dark Thirty is the fact that while the movie was definitely about the path of finding and killing Osama Bin Laden, the focus was on Maya, and how she took that journey to get there. Her struggles and passion was what the film mostly focused on rather than all the buzz and others which I'm sure brought to his downfall. I think this is a unique aspect about this movie. Yes, it is a political action film, but it is also one telling the story of a strong female and her struggles to get her job done.
Something that would have been for sure left out in this movie if a male had directed it, is the friendship that had developed between Maya and her coworker Jessica. We see the two start off as coworkers having a bit of subtle female competition, and then develop into great friends, shown when the go out to dinner right before the bombing of the hotel. When Jessica is killed, Maya is very obviously upset, but not crying, and I think that shows that she is trying to make herself stay strong and direct her mourning into hate and passion towards finding Bin Laden, the man behind all these deaths.
In the last scene in the film, Maya is to be taken somewhere on a plane, and one of the workers on the plane asks her where she would like to go, and you see her go through an emotional battle seen on her face. This is the point when Maya can have her true point of vulnerability. After Bin Laden is dead, she can finally mourn the loss of her friends, and the struggle that ten years brought her to finally bring justice. I think also at this point, she is trying to figure out what she is going to do with her life now that everything she had been living and obsessing over has come to an end. This final scene is something that I think is definitely something brought on by woman direction. With a male director, I could see the end being possibly more about the celebration that Bin Laden is dead; the patriotism and excitement that their terrorist no longer lives. But, instead, the scene is dedicated to Maya, because this story is really about her, and her journey. And now, at the end, she finally has her time to let out all of the emotions she had kept inside for ten years, and figure out where to go next.
Kathryn Bigelow's direction of Zero Dark Thirty definitely brought an interesting light to the story of the journey of finding and killing Osama Bin Laden. A male director would have for sure taken the movie in a different direction; that direction wouldn't necessarily be wrong, but it would have been different whether intentional or not. But Zero Dark Thirty definitely brings into question some of the gender roles and comments on women's place that would not typically be seen in a male directed political action movie.
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