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But it's not a case of them looking through all the white male English actors. Eon will have a select number of actors who they think will be right for the part which may include a black actor. Therefore, they have as much chance of being Bond as the rest of them. I very much doubt Barbara and Michael are gonna go "he's a great actor but we can't cast him because he's black and it goes against what's in Fleming's novels." Who are we to say what Fleming would even want in this day and age? This whole idea of being against a black actor is just pure ignorance and you might say I'm wrong but it's what I think.
I'm not saying the next Bond actor should be black straight away but it doesn't mean that we can never have a black actor as Bond.
"The obverse is the laughable cultural affirmative action which portrays blacks--almost without exception--as victims meriting pity, or as saintly, just and sapiental demi-gods the rest of us should bow down to and worship. If you cannot see this then you are blind, or, much the same, have been so brainwashed by the dominant culture that you are incapable of judging it."
A sweeping generalisation that incites racial bigotry. I'm aware we are among those who live in a fifties Fleming-esque diaspora, but listening to some posters here makes me very, very sad. Especially given the age of those espousing such inflammatory bullshit.
Fleming's a relic of another era to be perfectly honest, but that doesn't mean the character he created should be altered so extensively.
The only thing that would change would be the character's skin colour. Every aspect of the character would still be the same.
I cannot be bothered to explain why, as there are countless posts earlier already explaining the 1950's upper-class, white attitude that Bond was surrounded in/brought up in, and which a black person from that era wouldn't have had the same experiences growing up.
If you are not a fan of the novels, and just love the movies, then this may not be a problem for many (including you).
Can someone decipher that post, as I really don't understand what it means, although I can understand there could be racist undertones to it.....
Quite. This is all about so-called "social justice." It's about breaking another hoary, old "racist" barrier. If it ever happens, you can be certain that Babs or whoever will make a big show about the "courage" it takes to blacken Bond. But in reality, this demarche is just another effort to topple a white cultural icon and to put him into the black camp (for an example, see the comic figure Captain America). It is rank cultural imperialism (the sophisticates call it appropriation when a white guy dares don a sombrero or suchlike) and it needs to be stonewalled forthwith.
I indeed do love the movies and the novels also. I've read them all and enjoyed them all. Each one differently and some more than the others, but I still read them and loved them. I understand your opinion and don't dampen it in the slightest, I just have my own one. I don't need to input into this particular discussion anymore. Good luck with the debate.
They're not mutually exclusive. You can love both, while recognising and encouraging evolution. What I find fascinating is the idea that the exploits of the cinematic Bond somehow threaten to sully the legacy of Fleming. Ian Fleming's novels are set in stone, they are untouchable works of art that evoke a specific time, but will out live us all. The purist argument is flimsy and I read a Fleming a month.
Nobody watches the Bond movies for Moneypenny.
I think this sums up everything I feel, very succinctly.
People are certainly allowed their own opinions, and Fleming purists may want Bond to stay as portrayed as a white male because that is how Fleming wrote him, and it is traditional. I can understand the desire to keep tradition. I like many traditions. But other reasoning on here, in terms of how our race defines us and a Bond with a different skin color would be ruining the series, goes far overboard - again, in my opinion.
Bond's skin color does not bother me at all, that is not a factor. For me: keep Bond British (which can mean any skin color), with similar traits yes, and find the best actor at that time of casting.
Casting Shaft as white would cause a lot more issues than having a black Bond. Shaft is much more explicitly about race. He is a symbol of black empowerment (albeit co-opted by Hollywood). Casting him as white would sort of negate the fundamental sigificance of the character. With a white actor he just becomes like any another bad ass detective.
Bond is a symbol of a fading, overwhelmingly white imperial Britain. But screen Bond has developed and changed a lot since Flemings novels. I don't see any reason why the Craig era Bond couldn't have been played by a black actor.
Plus MI6 has been actively and openly recruiting black and Asian staff since 9/11. So the real face and character of MI6 has also changed a lot.
Casting Shaft as white would cause a lot more issues than having a black Bond. Shaft is much more explicitly about race. He is a symbol of black empowerment (albeit co-opted by Hollywood). Casting him as white would sort of negate the fundamental sigificance of the character. With a white actor he just becomes like any another bad ass detective.
Bond is a symbol of a fading, overwhelmingly white imperial Britain. But screen Bond has developed and changed a lot since Flemings novels. I don't see any reason why the Craig era Bond couldn't have been played by a black actor.
Plus MI6 has been actively and openly recruiting black and Asian staff since 9/11. So the real face and character of MI6 has also changed a lot.
Bond is a symbol of a fading, overwhelmingly white imperial Britain. But screen Bond has developed and changed a lot since Flemings novels. I don't see any reason why the Craig era Bond couldn't have been played by a black actor.
Plus MI6 has been actively and openly recruiting black and Asian staff since 9/11. So the real face and character of MI6 has also changed a lot.
Good evening, sanity.
So now he's being penalised for being multi talented? Connery was a brick later, a milkman and the quintessential labourer but was a very good actor who eventually won over Fleming himself and to this day is the best James Bond. Skin colour aside, Elba ' s a fantastic actor but him having other talents and skillets in music isn't just cause to penalise the man.
But although the films have evolved, modernised, and kept with the times, in a progressive world which Fleming today would hardly recognise, the main character of James Bond has hardly changed at all, even though the world around him has.
You could argue that this is the reason why the franchise has managed to survive as long as it has - by this constant modernisation. However, Connery, Lazenby, Moore, Dalton, Brosnan and Craig are fundamentally the same 1950's character that Fleming wrote way back then.
Once you change Bond's original dated character concept too, then the series is no longer part of the world that Fleming envisioned. As it stands now, the Bond character himself is still the main link to Fleming, even though the films belong to today, and not 1950. Why would you want to change that too, unless there really was a serious shortage of white English actors to play Bond....?
Oh and for the record, I am all for a mixed or non White actor to play Bond, if he looks like a British white man. Is Jason Isaacs as a Jew considered White? I would have been all for him as Bond back in the 90s.
Isaacs would have been perfect as Bond, he actually looks a lot like Dalton, IMO. So yes, don't care about the background, as long as he looks like Fleming's description.
Lol Isaacs wasn't born in the heat of Israel. The man is very much white. Just like you get Jews of all colours, white, black, brown whatever.
In 2022 John Boyega wil be 30 years old
M on the other hand was not reimagined, as Judi Dench was never considered to play Miles Messervy. In order to cast Dench as M, a new character was created.
M is a title.
But there is only one Bond. He is not a code name or a title, despite what some might think (that's another discussion).
Bond is as Fleming described. Sure you could re-imagine him, such is creative license, but you no longer have Flemings Bond. You no longer have James Bond as created.
A Chinese-English Bond (ie Englishman of Chinese racial look and characteristics) would bring a different culural dynamic to the character too.
What @khanners is going on about several posts back, essentially translates to ( and khanners often does need translation ;) ) is that race is not as benign a consideration as some would like to think it is.
Race does participate in defining who one is. It does not make one bad or good. To believe so, would be actually racist, but it does help define who you are- not define one's humanity of course, but one's human identity. There is a big difference.
If Elba, or any identifiably black actor, is cast as Bond, you can no longer do the Live and Let Die story. How does that make any sense?
The LALD story demands that Bond be white and the villains be black, and that applies as much today as it did when the story was published and 20 years later when it was filmed.
Black criminal gangs still exist in Harlem, and the Caribbean islands are still very much as described. A white person still stands out in Harlem. A black person blends in. Bond blending in is not part of the story. Simple. The racial tension is part of the narrative. Race matters here.
Elba in 1954, 1973, 2014 or anytime, would have to be set aside for a white actor, so the story could be done.
Why cast someone who can't actually play the character in one of the defining iconic stories?
An Asian Bond would require a re-working of both Flemings GF and DN.
Even a black Bond would probably be a problem for GF. Would Auric play a round of golf with a black man? The guy was basically a Nazi.
Sure, cast a young Elba as Bond, but what you have done is reimagined the character.
Bond is suddenly a different animal, with a whole new ethno-racial frame of reference.
It would go over like a lead balloon IMO, not to mention make no sense whatsoever.