“A woman with opinions had better develop a thick skin and a loud voice.” – Anya Seton, The Winthrop Woman. With the weight of The Hurt Locker Oscar win hanging under her belt, Kathryn Bigelow set out to tell the (mostly) true events of torturing detainees for information regarding the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty. A twofold effort on the front of both the war on women and the war on terror, Zero Dark Thirty tells the story of an undercover CIA operative allegedly responsible for the successful disposal of the infamous terrorist. Maya, the operative in question, is a smart, authoritative, no-nonsense woman the CIA recruited “right out of high school”. Her capable, if obsessive nature is belied by an emotional resonance …show more content…
“Why would I assume a woman wouldn’t be involved in this kind of research? The wonderful thing about working on this film is, historically in movies, lead characters are played by women who are defined by men, whether it’s a love interest, or they’re the victim of a man, and Maya’s not like that.”
This critical element is one of the driving points of the film: the fact that Maya is simply a character, and not “just” a female character (a.k.a. “plot device”) to further a male character’s story, is crucial. Chastain goes on to add, “I don’t know that Kathryn Bigelow would make a movie like that, because…she stands on her own . . . she’s capable and intelligent, and I think she represents this generation of woman, and that was really exciting for me to discover on the page in the script, and to discover about our history.”
One could make the argument that Chastain refers to both American and feminist history. In lieu of feminism’s third wave, media is moving further and further away from the misogynistic overtones of females-as-plot-devices. But while media follows “trends”, reality is less keen to do the
The Central Intelligence Agency, hereafter referred to as the CIA, is one of the most well-known and fascinating intelligence agencies throughout the world. For the most part, when the CIA comes up in the news, it is to report that the agency failed in doing something. This paper will analyze different successes and failures of well-known operations of the CIA. The successes that will be analyzed are Operation Argo and the killing of Osama Bin Ladin. Operation Argo has recently become well known due to a movie being released about the operation. The killing of Osama Bin Ladin is probably the most popular case that the CIA had completed due to its significance in a time when the United States was quite vulnerable. This paper will review these two successes of the agency and analyze how these missions were successful and why. The two failures that will be discussed are the attacks on September 11, 2001 and the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 are crucial to the American people and to the Intelligence Community. It is important to analyze these attacks in order to figure out what, if anything, could have been done differently that may have prevented these attacks from occurring. The Bay of Pigs Invasion is an infamous failure of the United States as well as the CIA in which many mistakes were made. The CIA plays an essential role in the safety of the United States and its people. Due to its high importance, it is crucial to
The most prevalent and popular stereotype of the post World war II era in America is one filled with women abandoning their wartimes jobs and retreating into the home to fulfill their womanly duties. In Joanne Meyerowitz’s Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, she shows how far women departed from this one dimensional image. While Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is reflexive and focused on the mainstream, Meyerowitz’s analysis is a broader and more inclusive exploration of media, as she draws upon multiple sources. Although Friedan effectively unveiled the thought process and reasoning behind society's belief that the message of media was to make women think that their place was to be the happy housewife, Meyerowitz expanded her media archives and found a differing message in analyzing both female responses to media and exploring their stories.
Namely, losing her confidence when her experiment begins to fall apart. It starts to fall apart when her crush doesn’t accept her invitation to her farewell party and then when she finds out everyone’s going to Allison’s birthday party, a girl in her choir, instead. It gets worse when she messes up her solo at the choir concert and everyone makes fun of her. Maya stops talking to others and goes back to her old self. As proof of this, “Why did I believe I was anything but an inside joke?...I’m not special, I’m just a crazy girl in Grandma shoes. I don’t have balls at all...All my confidence and inner strength-how do I find it again?” (227-228).This reflects how Maya feels about herself. Maya brings herself down by letting everyone else get to her. She cancels her party and decides to give up on her experiment because she feels so bad about herself. Maya’s popularity disapears and even her friends have abondened her. Furthermore, Maya realizes that she was closest to popularity when “I was talking to people. It was when I opened up my introverted circle and allowed everyone I met in. It was when I included everyone” (230). As a result of this realization, Maya understands the true meaning of popularity. It was more then looks . It’s more than the right clothes, hair or what you owned, it was who you are and how you treat others. After determining this, Maya decides to invite anyone who doesn’t have a date to prom to go with her. Instead of excluding people like she did for her farewell party, she includes everyone. Maya beomces confident and positive again. By putting the past behind her, Maya can move forward and continue her experiment. In the end, Maya learns that to be confident, she has to let go, find that light inside of her and show it to the
When Maya has friends over she tries to keep them sheltered from that part of her life, because she doesnt want them to know about the kind of culture she belongs to. When you look out into the world many people relate to Maya, they all want to hide the kind of culture they grew up in and the kind of lifestyle they live in. These people will hide who they are on a day to day basis because of their culture. These people try to avoid the question “whats that” or “why is that hung up and what does it mean” or they just want to avoid being bullied because of
For example, at the height of the Women’s Rights Movement, women were very rarely seen within the sector of higher education; but today, however, women are more prevalent in higher education than at any other point in recent memory. Not only has higher education become more of an integral norm for women, but the increasing prominence of women within higher education is reflective of a fundamental societal shift – women are no longer being forced to stay within the confines of their home, but are now able to focus on their education as well as their increasing job opportunities. Additionally, women have also become more prominent within the political realm – both in terms of running for office and having the right to vote – as well as the higher tiers of corporate America; which illustrates that, as time goes on, they are becoming increasingly more powerful and are being afforded a myriad of desirable positions and benefits that used to only be available for men. With the indisputable progression of women in mind, it becomes challenging to comprehend how a film like She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry can capitalize on its foundation of activism within the current societal climate. Although there are still – and may always be – various opinions regarding women’s rights, it is clear that, since the Women’s Rights Movement, women have been presented with countless opportunities that they would not have been able to take advantage of approximately 50 years ago. As a result, a film like She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry almost seems redundant, if not somewhat
The loss of self-identity contributes to the loss of communication. Maya becomes mute due to the witnessing of a Sikh’s death on the hands of a Hindu. Self to self thoughts such as, “is my silence unfounded? No I do not deserve to be found. Or loved. ...sometime there's nothing left to say to another human being” (170-171). lead to Maya embracing her silence. Maya completely shuts down her sense of communication between others and herself due to the traumatic alienation that affects her. Alienation causes her to go under a mental state that promotes her isolation towards the world and full independence on herself, which results in the confusion of who she really is. The loss of identity causes her to become a vulnerable part amongst the environment she lives in. In addition, the loss of self identity promotes in the decrease of cultural identity preventing a positive world view. The reality of Maya’s Hindu and Sikh names, “really mean— is that [she] was born into a division that began long before [her]” (34). Also, as Ammar makes remarks about how “Maya means delusion,” and it, “is what Sikhs tries to escape from during his life on earth” (38). Maya begins to cry. The cultural differences that Maya lives through did not start from the external environment but rather from her own family at a very young age. She has been exposed to cultural identity crises that her parents fought over and which leads to a
Maya feels caught in a trap when the attorney asks her whether there were any sexual incidents with Mr. Freeman prior to the rape. She fears rejection from her family if she admits to the previous incidents, but
The term “Covert Action” brings with it a connotation of shadowy figures wrapped in secrecy and intrigue. It also brings with it a substantial amount of moral questions as to “what is right.” The use of covert action has been widely publicized since the early seventies, but trying to find out the truth to these events has been difficult to say the least. What is even more difficult, is historically recording these events into categories of successes or failures. These operations are difficult to dissect because of their secrecy and although events have been recorded, some facts simply aren’t apparent. This paper will seek to identify the complex issues associated with covert operations.
As she accepts her role and keeps looking for the chess piece, we can see her walking with a man, what means she’s completely dragged to the adult world.The moment she starts walking with the man, who changes 4 times, it represents the love life. When we enter the adult world, our main relation is with the opposite sex, and Maya symbolized this commitment as they were walking together through a road.
“Yes. I have always tried to find myself a church. I have studied everything. I spent some time with Zen Buddhism and Judaism and I spent some time with Islam. I am a religious person. It is my spirit, but I found that I really want to be a Christian. That is what my spirit seems to be built on” (Angelou). Throughout the story we continually see Maya battling with who she wants to be but one thing that stayed constant is that she always keeps her beliefs and reference to religion. Remember after the session in court and the police came to Maya’s home, Maya had thought God was upset with her for lying under oath. This is essential information to know because Maya Fears God even though she doesn’t fully understand Christianity and what it takes to be Christian, she holds on the Christianity just in case because that is the only stable thing she has in her life, this is why she acted so calmly about the things that that happened to her when she was a child, it kept her grounded and level headed through hard times. The fact is that most people use religion in a way to justify the answer they have about life; when they are confused, hurt, or scared, they held on to religion as comfort and assurance that everything will be okay. If we think about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself’ (MLK). Martin Luther King Jr. uses his faith in God to justify his actions, and
The bestselling author and journalist, Susan Faludi, wrote a book called Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Her book focuses on the progression of feminism, crushing myths in the media, and the statistical realities of women 's stance in this world (Faludi 2). “Feminism can be defined as the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social and economic equality to men” (Oxford
Since its humble beginnings in the later years of the nineteenth century, film has undergone many changes. One thing that has never changed is the filmmaker’s interest in representing society in the present day. For better or worse, film has a habit of showing the world just what it values the most. In recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to what kinds of ideas films are portraying (Stern, Steven E. and Handel, 284). Alarmingly, viewers, especially young women, are increasingly influenced by the lifestyle choices and attitudes that they learn from watching these films (Steele, 331). An example of this can be seen in a popular trope of the “romantic comedy” genre in this day and age: the powerful man doing something to help, or “save” the less powerful woman, representing a troubling “sexual double standard” (Smith, Stacy L, Pieper, Granados, Choueiti, 783).
Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.
Belknap, J. (2001). “The Invisible Woman.” Gender, Crime and Justice. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.
The presentation of women on screen is another highlighted issue in many of the gathered sources. Because men were ultimately in control of what went on the screen much of what the audience perceived were women from the male imagination or fantasy. Bernard Beck elaborates in his article Where the Boys Are: The Contender and other Movies about Women in a Man’s World that, “…women have been used to dress up a male story or motivate a male character” (Beck 15). Women were often insignificant and trivial characters. Although, Kathe Davis disagrees to a point. In her article, Davis offers a dissonant opinion to the fore-mentioned insignificance of the female character. She instead describes many female characters as “predators,” and analyzes the roles of lead women in three prominent films of the nineteenth century. In each film, she finds parallels and similarities of cases of “female emasculation” and instances where “women are turned into objects of male desire” (Davis 47-48). Davis does not perceive female characters as being insignificant, just stripped of their power and misrepresented. She discusses how females of power are often portrayed as crazy