The Hurt Locker

Is it a good thing that The Hurt Locker is totally devoid of a female gaze? My gay male friend says, Yes, because that means you don't necessarily need a man to make a man's film. What kind of a female gaze do you want in a totally guy movie anyway?
Let's see. Aparna Sen had pointed out to a disbelieving me the femininity in Farah Khan's movies. Until then I had seen Farah's movies as unabashedly towing the '70s male-oriented style of movie-making, done so that she could laugh her way to the bank. Hats off to her, but Aparna pointed out how Farah makes fun of the He Man. The man tripping over his own muscles, the helpless bowing down to the woman of his dreams, etc (of course, she admitted she doesn't like Farah's second movie) -- it's subtle, but it's there. The feminine humour is a USP of Farah's films, one that I had thoroughly enjoyed but failed to see in all its subtlety. The Hurt Locker has none of that. In fact, not only is it a movie made out-and-out only for the boys, it has a scathing disregard for 'the others'.
The only protagonists here are American boys. Boys who love to play with bombs, who relish violence, who can't get enough of it and get mind-numbingly bored when at home on furlough. Sure, the danger faced by the American bomb squad is real. But why are the bombs there in the first place? Who's planting them? What is the bigger gameplan here? Kathryn and her fellow Americans don't care. Her protagonist William Chase is a hard-boiled, flippant, brash American soldier much like ex-husband James Cameron's protagonist played by Sam Worthington. His only moment of softness comes in the shape of an Iraqi boy who sells porn and plays soccer, the only Iraqi character who scratches beyond the mute 1D portrayal that dots Bigelow's landscape. The film is unashamedly pro-American to the point that the non-Americans here are less than even stereotypes. The Iraqis are mute unblinking faces at windows, sinister shadows merging into walls or sightless figures waving silently. Considering that the film picked up six Oscars, this criminal blanking out of 'the others' meets with approval across board. Besides the core of this film that turns me against it, the excessive outflow of testosterone put me off.
The Hurt Locker might as well have been made by a man, and I'm far from assured that that's a good thing.