There’s Something about Maya

Abstract

Heroism has historically always played an important part in the shaping of culturally prevailing gender norms. And yet, because it traditionally articulates itself around a set of stereotypical masculine practices, traits and attributes, the status of “hero” tends to become problematic when applied to women.1 Bearing this in mind, I shall consider, in the film Zero Dark Thirty by Kathryn Bigelow (2012) and the television series Homeland by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa (created in 2011) both the figures of the two female CIA officers and the war on two fronts in which they fight. Primarily devoted to key issues of gender and power negotiation, my comparative analysis will mainly focus on the initiatory journey the characters undertake and the verticalization of power relations implied to reach a heroic status. In this chapter, I will explore how the woman director Kathryn Bigelow engages with the complex relationship between heroism and femininity in the war film genre today.

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