Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for Best Director this year. She is the first and only woman to win this prestigious award since the first Academy Awards in 1929. Four women have been nominated for the award over the years- Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties (1976), Jane Campion for The Piano (1993), Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003) and Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2009). Much has been written about this as a triumph of feminism. Much has also been written about her film’s subject matter as a rejection of the feminine film tradition.
The Hurt Locker is a film about the Iraq War. It follows a United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War. The film shows the male soldiers diffusing bombs, dealing with the threat of insurgency and the tensions that arise between them. Male directors traditionally make the film genre of war and action movies. Bigelow makes films that look and feel as though a man made it. It makes people wonder if this is why she was allowed to win. A woman who made a male film can win, while woman who make films focused on female characters points of view have not won.
Looking at the other two more recent female directors nominated for Best Director, Campion and Coppola’s nominated films are more traditionally female. Campion’s The Piano is a drama about a mute woman and her daughter in the mid-19th century. The film brings up issues of women’s self-expression, freedom and pleasure. Coppola’s Lost in Translation is a comedy-drama about a young woman who is bored with her life and befriends an older man. It brings up issues of loneliness, isolation, and culture shock. These films have a lead female character and the topics are about relationships. They could easily be denounced as ‘chick-flicks’.
Is Bigelow succeeding by adopting the ways of successful men? Or is she just a person making a film about something she is passionate about? It is sad that a woman cannot be successful without her gender being a major factor, while a man’s gender is rarely discussed. Bigelow steers any questions about her gender back to the film. She is a director, not a woman director. She wants to be respected for her work, not for being a feminist pioneer. She also does not want to be known for being James Cameron’s ex-wife. She wants to be known for herself.
The fact that a woman won this award is a step in the right direction. It is always inspirational to see women break barriers. The bottom line is that she made a film she wanted to make. She told a story she wanted to tell. A film’s subject matter should not determine the gender of the director. It is strange that women directors want to neutralize their gender. They want to just be directors, and most do not like to discuss the role their gender does or does not have in their work and career. By refusing to acknowledge the binary of male/female, they are rejecting the stigma of woman and appropriating themselves as genderless-which equals male.
