Kathryn Bigelow’s Forgotten Classic “Blue Steel”

Why this 1990 proto-feminist police procedural deserves a revisit

Ashley Wells
Sep 4, 2018 · 7 min read

Kathryn Bigelow has a reputation (mostly deserved) as the woman director who makes “guy movies;” and while I’d argue that it’s easier for a woman to make a film that captures a male POV than vice versa, due to the fact that we’re constantly inundated with the “male perspective,” I also want to credit her with being unusually good at it. Which makes it all the more fascinating that Blue Steel wears its femininity proudly without making it…

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