Filmmaker James Cameron has good memory of a joke from Amy Poehler concerning his marital relationship with writer-director Kathryn Bigelow that dates back to the 2013 Golden Globes. At the time, Poehler and Tina Fey made a joke regarding the contentious portrayal of torture in Bigelow's film Zero Dark Thirty. It ended with Poehler's punchline, "When it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron." In a recent The New York Times interview, Cameron reminisced about the comment from a critical lens. The filmmaker said that Poehler made "an ignorant dig" at an event celebrating cinema. While acknowledging that he has the mental toughness to take such humour with a pinch of salt, the Avatar filmmaker also opined that Poehler went overboard with the joke.

"The fact that people found it funny shows exactly what they think of me, even though they have no idea who I am or how I work," James Cameron shared.

According to Cameron, Hollywood has attempted to compare him with Bigelow, taking note of the awards season of 2009 and 2010, especially at the Academy Awards. At the 2009 Oscars, Bigelow's The Hurt Locker won Best Picture and Best Director Oscar awards. Noting that he stood up and applauded Bigelow's achievement, Cameron said that the two found the Hollywood narrative around their relationship rather than the film to be funny and that it concerned them. Bigelow and Cameron, who got hitched in 1989 and stayed a married couple until 1991, also collaborated on 1995's Strange Days.