Dear Katherine Bigelow - We Are Not All Stupid Dumb Assholes - as you seem to believe

Zero Dark Thirty is a movie about capturing Osama Bin Laden.  In the movie, torture is depicted.   Not only depicted, but depicted as being critical to obtaining the location of Osama Bin Laden.  This is a fallacy and an untruth (in the old days we called them lies) because the information about Osama bin Laden's location was NOT obtained through torture.  In point of fact, the torture produced false information - since someone being tortured will say anything to get it to stop.  This has been noted by the CIA, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Diane Feinstein (a Democrat) and Senator John McCain (a Republican).  LINKS attached for each.
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None the less the Director (Katherine Bigelow) and the Writer "stand by" their movie where torture DOES play a role, saying - in effect, get over it.  Before I get to Kathryn Bigelow's quote (and my justification for calling her a stupid, self-important asshole), let me say that TORTURE is unAmerican.  We should not torture, not just because it gives wrong information (again, check the John McCain quote) but because it is intrinsically evil - and not who Americans should be.
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"If it saved 1,000 lives that minute would I gouge out a guy's eyes?"  Probably.   BUT that isn't the issue.  The issue is "If it might give some good information we can get a better way, would you set up a international operation to systemically beat someone, break bones, humiliate them and piss on their gospel because maybe they might have some information that might be useful.  Then answering yes doesn't mean you are a good American, it means that you will stoop to any level for power (which is why we revolted against British rule).
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On to the Assholes's quote....
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Ms. Bigelow explains why she is smart and
the rest of us are uneducated hicks.

During Monday night’s New York Film Critics Circle Awards ceremony, screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow accepted awards for Best Picture and Best Director, takinganother opportunity to defend themselves against the controversy–one that recently escalated into a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of the CIA for its relationship with the filmmakers.

Bigelow said to the room full of colleagues and press, ”I thankfully want to say that I’m standing in a room of people who understand that depiction is not endorsement, and if it was, no artist could ever portray inhumane practices; no author could ever write about them; and no filmmaker could ever delve into the naughty subjects of our time.”

Boal too said “we stand by the film,” adding, “I think at the end of the day, we made a film that allows us to look back at the past in a way that gives us a more clear-sighted appraisal of the future.”

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I am reminded of the people who thought I was too stupid to understand "Remains of the Day", I get that it is really not about 1950s England, it is a remark on the current class system in Japan - I'm not stupid, I just didn't like it.
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By the same token, Dear Ms. Bigelow - who thinks we are all stupid fucks from the farm, I do not think "depiction" is an endorsement.  However, "depiction" in a movie "based on fact" where the "depiction" provides key evidence in finding and killing Osama Bin Laden; that my dear condescending asshole, IS an endorsement.