ABSTRACT
Some critics have hesitated to call Bigelow an auteur because of her personal and professional association with James Cameron, the creator of such muscular action movies as Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) who also produced Point Break and wrote and produced Strange Days. Certainly her biological status as a woman has entered into the discourse surrounding Bigelow, with critics and reviewers often referring not only to her gender but also to her physical attractiveness – hardly the kind of discourse that generally surrounds male directors.3 Yet close analysis of her films reveal a remarkable consistency of style and theme that, as with most canonical male auteurs, works in relation to the parameters of genre.
