When military or war genres are shown rather it be through film or any other sort of literature, many are painted in the light where the “American Hero” saves the day, and even though the film Zero Dark Thirty gives a “heroic” ending, it shows the grittiness and the nastiness that can occur to get said heroic ending. It shows just how far the effect of a traumatic experience involving so much loss can have through these characters, in which they will do anything and everything they can to defend their homeland and prevent more loss. In this essay, I will give an analysis of the film Zero Dark Thirty through the incorporation of Victor Shklovsky’s concept of defamiliarization, as well as Freud’s concepts of mourning and melancholia.

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Zero Dark Thirty begins after the attack on September 11, 2001 and follows the aftermath of the hunt and eventually the death for Osama Bin Laden. It progresses year by year, showing the story of Maya, a CIA agent, who will do everything and anything she can to get her hands on information to be able to piece together how Bin Laden and his inner circle of members work through the use of interviews, interrogations, torture, and sting operations. As these years go by, Maya and her team of undercover CIA agents uncover the home of Bin Laden’s message carrier, and despite some opposition from other higher up agents, conduct the raid through a team of special soldiers known as Seal Team 6. This raid deems successful, and the team is able to successfully raid the compound and kill Bin Laden during the night of the second of May in 2011. 

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This film has some differences from other war or military genre films, where instead of displaying only the “nice” and “heroic” parts of the military, they show the great lengths that some agents and soldiers go to get information and plan raids, which falls into the concept of defamiliarization. Proposed by Russian formalist Victor Shklovsky, defamiliarization is the way that literature can take familiar things and refresh our perspective on them (Parker 63). It allows readers to recognize and look critically at patterns that get taken for granted, where some might not have thought about certain topics before (Parker 67). In the film Zero Dark Thirty, it coincides with the way with some of the torture scenes were displayed; especially in the very begging, where a CIA agent, Dan, is shown torturing a prisoner, Omar, through tying his arms up to the walls and beating him and through water-boarding, as well as force-feeding which is shown in a later scene with a different prisoner, Faraj. One scene during the beginning that is very prominent of is when Dan put a dog collar on Omar and walked him on his fours to a small box, which he was then put in because he would not give up information. These scenes show just how far these agents will go to get the information and the dehumanizing acts that they will put said terrorist prisoners through, shattering some viewer’s predetermined notions of how exactly agents and soldiers get said information. This allows the viewer to have a more critical eye when it comes to this topic of torture of terrorist prisoners and allows them to form a more educated opinion through this defamiliarization.

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Because of Maya’s will to do everything and anything to obtain her goal of killing Bin Laden, she displays prominent features of the phenomenon Freud has explored in regard to loss and death. In Freud’s essay Mourning in melancholia, he discusses the two phenomena a person may experience during a loss or death of a person or object; mourning and melancholia. Mourning as defined by Freud is the “regular” conscious reaction to a loss, where because the love-object, or said loss, no longer exists, it demands that all libido should be withdrawn from the attachment to the object (Freud 243-244). Although melancholia may display the same outward effect, it is found more in the unconscious, and the subject may display some distinguishing features such as profoundly painful dejection, cessation of interest in the outside world, loss of the capacity to love, inhibition of all activity, and a lowering of the self-regarding feelings to a degree, which basically sums up to a major disturbance in self-regard, which is absent in mourning (Freud 243-244). Regarding Maya, throughout the film she displays these prominent features of the melancholia phenomena. At the very beginning of Zero Dark Thirty, Maya was introduced walking in to the CIA agency to begin her work in Pakistan, where two CIA agents whom introduced themselves to her began discussing her reputation for being a “killer”. This introduction occurred in 2003, only 2 years after the attack on 9/11, which is what Freud would define as Maya’s loss, as he states that a loss can be “of some abstraction which has taken place of one, such as one’s country, liberty, and ideal, and so on” (Freud 243). This 9/11 attack is what causes her to obtain this reputation of a “killer”, which is upheld through her obsession with her main target: Osama Bin Laden. 

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In Mourning in melancholia, Freud states that a strong fixation to the loved object must be present, and the object-cathexis, or the investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea must have had little power of resistance is present in the phenomenon of melancholia (Freud 249). Because of Maya’ strong obsession with Bin Laden, and because there is such little resistance with this obsession, it makes Maya a prime candidate for this phenomenon. For example, near the beginning of the film, Maya and another CIA agent Dan set up a sort of dinner for one of their terrorist prisoners, Omar, trying to display a bluff where they prevented a torture attack that Omar had known about and had a hand in. At this dinner, Maya is very expressionless, until Omar finally gives up some intel about a potential connection to Osama Bin Laden; his carrier known as Abu Ahmed. If Omar had not given up that information, she would have continued to be expressionless and uninterested, but because of her object-obsession with Bin Laden, it peaked her interest and got her more involved with this prisoner. This is also shown as the movie progresses through the torture scenes, where in the beginning Maya could not look at the water-boarding and the beating that Dan gave to Omar. However, as her object-obsession became stronger, she is able to get more and more comfortable around these acts, where she is able to watch Faraj’s water-boarding and is even conducts one herself by signaling one of the agents to punch one of the terrorist prisoners she is interviewing to gain information. 

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Even when other characters tell Maya that her obsession is no longer worth investigating, she continues on because this object-obsession is that prominent in her melancholia, which includes going against her station chief of the CIA; he tells her that her investigation into Abu Ahmed is no longer valuable, and she completely disregards this and continues on with her investigation because she believes that it is valuable. This is also shown later in the film, where when her team believes that Abu Ahmed is deceased, and shows her actual proof through a video interrogation of another prisoner where he confirms this death (even though later in the film it is shown to be his brother that is confirmed dead), she refuses to give up. When Debbie, a fellow CIA agent shows her a file containing information on the brothers of Abu Ahmed, she begins formulating a theory, which is then presented to her fellow colleagues. As she tells this theory, they ask her if it is true, which in return she slams the table and says she wants this to be true. This shows just how deep her obsession runs; even if she is shown actual reason to why she should stop her investigation, she completely ignores it, and continues with her obsession. “What else have you done for us besides Bin Laden?”, states George, a CIA superior: Maya responds “Nothing”. She lives and breathes her melancholia, which is fueled predominately through her obsession of Bin Laden.

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This object-obsession in melancholia according to Freud is due to the fact that the object-choice is affected on a narcissistic basis, so when obstacles come in the way of the object-cathexis, it regresses into narcissism (Freud 249). In other words, the ego, or the component of a personality that is represented by our conscious decision-making, wants to incorporate the object into itself, giving this narcissistic view (Freud 250).  In Zero Dark Thirty, this narcissism in melancholia is prominent in Maya, where after the death of Jessica, a fellow CIA agent and friend of Maya, she states “I believe that I was spared so I can finish the job”. This narcissism is causing her to believe that she is the only one who can capture Bin Laden, further fueling her obsession and therefore her melancholia. Another example of this is shown after she was involved in the shooting while she was backing out her car of her small complex she was staying in; after the shooting, she was expressionless, and even though she discussed it with her superior, did not seem to realize the repercussions; even after her superior stated that she is on the “list” of the terrorists, she has no words and is expressionless; because her narcissistic view is so strong, she believes that she is almost invincible, and therefore in any circumstance like the shooting, she will come out just fine. 

Maya’s melancholia is not only shown through her obsession with Bin Laden, but is also shown through subtle moments, such as the fact that when she gets home, she does not fall asleep, and when she does, it is on the couch and it is not for very long. This lack of sleep is one of the main symptoms of melancholia, as well as a lack of appetite, which is also shown through these small, more intimate scenes. In these scenes where eating is involved, Maya is only seen eating small snacks and drinking mostly energy drinks, which therefore can be attributed to this aggressive melancholia. 

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The only scene where this melancholia breaks in Maya is in the very last scene, where Maya gets on the plane and a single tear rolls down her cheek as the pilot asks where she wants to go. This is due to the fact that she is mourning her melancholia; because her object-obsession is no longer available, it proceeds to demand that the libido should be withdrawn from the attachment to the object, causing the person to experience pain until the completed ego becomes free and uninhibited again (Freud 245). 

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Unlike Maya, the CIA agent does not display melancholia, whereas instead she displays more of the symptoms of mourning. Her loss is not object-obsessed; she knows she has a mission to defend her country from more loss, but she remembers her children, and is observant of the people around her. For example, in a scene where herself and Maya are out for dinner, she asks Maya if she is alright since she can see the wear and tear her obsession is causing her; she is observant and cares about the well being of those around her in contrast of Maya. For example, in contrast, when Maya wants to deploy a team to points in Pakistan to gather intel about Abu Ahmed and track him through his cellphone and the leader of the team tells her no due to the fact that it would be considerably dangerous for his members, as well as the fact that they have not been sleeping, she responds by saying she does not care. Another example of this contrast between Jessica and Maya is shown when Jessica conducts the meeting with John, a doctor who has information about the terrorist group, she tells the guards to move from the barrier while he was driving into the meeting place of Camp David, stating that “it might spook him”; if Maya was conducting this meeting rather than Jessica, she would have probably kept the men at the barriers because she is not concerned with their well-beings, rather she is concerned with what would benefit her obsession more, i.e. keeping all precautions yet taking any means necessary to get the information. Instead of putting the barriers down if John’s car did not go through, she would have probably forced them out of the car by gunpoint. 

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A character that displays both melancholia and mourning is the CIA agent Dan. When it comes to his melancholia, his object-obsession is gaining information to protect the homeland country of the United States, and, like Maya, will go through any means necessary to gain information. This is seen especially during the torture scenes, where he conducts these dehumanizing acts to get said information. Dan even states that he would do whatever it takes, including breaking down the terrorist prisoners mentally and physically, to get what he needs to gain information, or fuel his object-obsession. Not only is this melancholia shown through the object-obsession, but it is shown through his diminution in self-regard. 

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According to Freud, melancholia can occur in a way where the person believes that their ego is worthless, incapable of achievement, and despicable, where these self-regards are reproaches against the object which have been shifted away from the object itself and onto the person’s own ego (Freud 248).  This is shown in the aftermath of the London bombing, where because Dan could not get any information out of Omar after the torture scene where he put him in a small box, the bombing occurred. He believed that he could have prevented it, and because of his feeling that he lacked when it came to getting said information, he failed the entire mission and it is all his fault. This loss of lives during the London bombing is what fueled Dan’s belief that his ego was worthless, therefore further feeding into his melancholia. However, unlike Maya, there are certain instances where his melancholia is sort of lifted, especially in the scene where he questions leaving the base in Pakistan because the superior CIA agents killed his pet monkeys. During this scene, he is experiencing mourning, where because the superior CIA agents decided to put this loss on Dan, you could say the situation and the agents he surrounds himself with have become emptier, rather than his ego. 

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In conclusion, the film Zero Dark Thirty displays both mourning and melancholia, as well as defamiliarization throughout. In both Maya and Dan, they both display the object-obsession that is associated with melancholia, where Maya is obsessed with her mission of killing Bin Laden and Dan is obsessed with gaining intel. However, the character Jessica displays more of the symptoms of mourning, where she is able to still consider the people and the world around her. These characters, as well as the film as a whole, display the concept of defamiliarization as well, as it shows some of the harsh realities that these agents have to go through to obtain information and conduct raids and operations to protect the homeland from these terrorists; it is not all rainbows and sunshine, rather there is a enduring and draining reality that they all experience.


Works Cited

Freud, Sigmund. Mourning in Meloncholia. XIV, The Hogarth Press, 1914.

 

Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies. Oxford University Press, 2015.