It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
It was crap.
Life is too short to spend a half/hour on a pointless video dishing on our hero.
I personally get tired of social media's negativity towards Bond, implying it's an outdated irelevent franchise. People today like to pass judgment based on what they read or see on the internet. Many of whom have probably never seen a Bond film older than SKYFALL.
Craig's Bond has done a lot to make the franchise enjoyable for all audiences. Today the films are no more sexist than any other mainstream film.
Recently watching the movies with my son shows me that what may have been okay or overlooked in previous generations isn't the same with the younger generations. I would hope that younger generations will still watch the movies and enjoy them for the entertainment they provide.
I would love to see a female villain in the type of Onattop or Fiona Volpe. Will we? Not sure as it seems the recent trend is that female villains have motivations that make them somewhat less villainess. Onattop is likely to get a backstory that says her using sex for her villainy was because of a poor childhood. Fiona wouldn't fly as a character as she is one dimensional and Bond bests her. We are more likely to see characters like May Day who turn against their male counterpart and strike a blow for female independence.
In terms of Bond immediately getting affectionate with women. Like Aki in YOLT, the secretary in TSWLM, etc. Those days are gone and rightfully so. However like Dalton's Bond proved, films with one main female lead are able to happen and should. Craig's Bond has some problematic portrayals of females. See Severine in SF. Shot and left beaten while Bond one-up's Silva. I don't think it sits well with audiences how that plays out in the movie.
I will be interested to see where they take things in future films.
This is interesting. I've always wondered about that. My first child is still two-and-a-half months away from being born, so I can't share your experiences... yet. ;-) But my students--mostly girls--are about 50% casual Bond fans and 50% not at all interested in the Bond series. Rarely do I meet a student who flat-out hates the Bonds. The sexism issue is almost never brought up, simply because there's no room for that in chemistry class. :-D Still, I'd be interested in learning how they feel about some of the older smack-on-the-bottom and blatant womanizing stuff.
What I'm also wondering--and perhaps I'm playing the Devil's advocate now--is whether young people's current disapproval of certain elements of the older Bond films comes from the heart, or is itself a form of conditioning that results from all the YouTube / Media / Twitter attention to which the issue is nowadays subject. In other words, do they really think it's wrong for a bloke like Bond to practically "rape-kiss" Pat Fearing, or have they merely been told once too often that it is wrong? (I may have answered my own question. ;-) )
Either way, I'm convinced that the MPB--the Magic Penis Bond--will not make an immediate return to film any time soon, but I hope that a more innocent form of womanizing or playful seduction can still happen. "I'm the money." [Looks more than pleased.] "Every penny of it." That sort of thing.
Incidentally, I don't want to suggest that young people have gone cold on Bond, but a 16-year-old today was born the same year CR was released. Craig's Bond was struggling with middle age when they were 6. A new wave of popularity for Bond among the teens is probably on the horizon with the casting of a new, younger actor in the role. I started teaching in 2005 and those 16-year-olds back then, who had grown up during the Brosnan years, were then also actively looking forward to seeing Craig's first film. I recall CR being a very hot topic of discussion at school. So I'm quite confident that Bond fandom can leak back into those age ranges. But, indeed, the "sexism" may have to be toned down. Most of us can easily digest it, I guess, neither rooting for it nor being disgusted by it; but modern teens may struggle a bit.
That is certainly true.
Probably a bit of a side track to this thread, but I do think villains - especially Bond villains - can be unusual in terms of which audiences relate to them. Take Wint and Kidd from DAF. On paper they should be dated, homophobic cliches, but if anything they're two characters who are praised nowadays by gay Bond fans (at least from what I have seen, so take this with any amount of salt you'd like) for being quirky, memorable and if anything fun characters. It helps that they are seen openly holding hands and are rather straightforwardly depicted (for the time anyway) as a couple without there being any nasty undertones about it. I see far more praise for these characters than I do a villain like Silva in SF.
I've noticed it can be similar with female viewers and characters like Fatima Blush from NSNA, May Day, Onattop etc. There's something about them as characters - their look, their campiness, the sense of outlandishness/fun around them that appeals more so than a Jinx, Wait Lin, Vesper or Madeline Swan. I'd personally love to see a female Bond villain or henchwoman in this vein. A character whose outward traits - their style, their femininity, their androgyny or whatever it is - depicted rather openly without the need for it being tied to some sort of 'sympathetic backstory' in order to justify why they are villains.
This was exactly Tracy.....But a bit more antagonistic.
Tracy got the best of both worlds, she could be a good girl, and could be a femme fatale.
I don't disagree in the least. I think a man or a woman can have many partners if they choose. But it is so rare with action films these days. The emphasis is more on the action and the glib one-liners than it is on any sexual tension. I remember watching Deadpool of all things and was pleased that time was spent on developing the relationship between himself and the female lead.
But that seems to be the exception to the rule. Most action films downplay romantic entanglements and that seems to be a shame. Bond could stand out for this reason and be different from other action films. Daniel's portrayal of Bond to my mind downplayed the casual affair and when it did go there (Solange and Severine) the character was quickly deposed of and Bond moved on. I really hope the next Bond plays up the relationship with the leading lady.
I don't think my generation (millenial) is in favor of desexualization at all. If anything I hear friends, even American ones, say they would prefer an approach with more well executed sex and less poorly executed violence. But I think it's always been represented in one singular 'type' of way (e.g. heteronormative, catering to the male gaze, playing into rape culture, etc. which is especially associated with Bond films) that has become source of dissatisfaction.
Yes, since about the 1970s Eon have been trend followers and not the trendsetters they started out as with the 1960s Bond films. They've been mostly jumping on the bandwagon of film trends and popular culture ever since. It would be great to see them return to a sense of originality and unadapted Fleming material or continuation Bond material would surely offer them the best chance of achieving this.