Zero Dark Thirty, Maya and the myth of the Calydonian Boar

Abstract

ABSTRACT Zero Dark Thirty depicts its female protagonist as a leading strategic character in the fictionalised account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Yet, as this study argues, she is paradoxically framed in terms of her capacity to disrupt the status quo. Kathryn Bigelow’s Maya (Jessica Chastain) is often marginalised by the male-dominated culture within which she works. This is a recurrent theme in military/combat narratives, evident as far back as Ovid’s tale of the warrior woman Atalanta. Research challenges the idea that physical and psychological differences make women less fitted to active combat, yet Bigelow’s cinematography and staging establish a narrative that expresses a mythological fear and mistrust of women’s inclusion into the fraternal unit. In arguing that the fate of Maya represents a cultural template which extends back to ancient mythology, this study unpicks the ideological forces which inform Bigelow’s framing of her female protagonist.