Snowflakes on a Scarred Knuckle: The Biopolitics of the ‘War on Terror’ through Steve McQueen’s Hunger and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker

Abstract

This review explores the various micro-struggles at the heart of the biopolitics of the ‘war on terror’. Through a discussion of the ethico-political and aesthetic dimensions of Steve McQueen’s Hunger and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, it critically evaluates questions of humanity, solidarity and conviviality under the most extreme and Manichean situations of occupation and colonialism. The article focuses on how contemporary strategies and techniques of power intersect and oscillate between biopower and sovereignty. It argues that the body remains a central site for violence and protest, while sites of exception — such as Guantanamo Bay — clearly symbolise not only the boundaryless and limitless reach of this war, but also the nexus of identity, security and law that binds life in the ‘war on terror’. An appraisal of these two very different films thus opens up new ways of interrogating the technologies at work in our post-9/11 landscape.