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There’s a story arc in the new Master of the Universe series where He-Man heroically sacrifices himself and is temporarily killed for a few episodes, but YouTubers like Doomcock and Midnight’s Edge (who are part of the so called Fandom Menace) have been calling that a devious feminist agenda of sorts because there was a female character trying to step up after He Man’s demise. The story arc wasn’t even finished yet, but those YouTubers were crying “misandry!” because they know there’s a segment of fandom that gets instantly triggered by terms like “woke” and “feminist” and that drives up YouTube views.
It’s incredibly calculated and exploitive of “male fragility”. And Aston strikes me as someone that fell for that narrative.
Agreed, and even if she is 007, all this “wokeness” mania is from tabloid drivel made to agitate and button-push to drive clicks. From what everything I’ve read from Lashana, Cary, Phoebe, etc. there’s more to Nomi than the tabloids and her demeanour in the trailer would indicate. In fact, it seems like some of the bravado that is rubbing people the wrong way is SUPPOSED to play that way. Let’s watch the movie before we take out the pitchforks and get our undies in a knot. Unfortunately, I know the ship had sailed for some the moment Lashana and her character were announced and those people probably won’t give her a fair shot purely out of a desire to be right (or desire to dislike this character) superseding the desire to enjoy the film.
On your second point though, I do think Spectre is OHMSS 2.0, it’s just a terrible one 😂.
That's because it's also possible to be the equal opposite of the hyperbolic "anti-woke" caricature. :))
Exactly. To Bond it would be as meaningful as someone taking over his phone number. A non-existing concern.
+1 Great post
This Bond doesn’t care outwardly about anything, it’s not really his style; but making her 007 would take it one step closer to him, make it a little more personal. I think if she’s not 007 then it’s a missed dramatic opportunity.
I expect it is, that’s nothing to do with what I said though. At the point we’re at, ‘woke’ is pretty much a term of hyperbole in itself.
Yep, it’s hard to see any circumstances where he would get it back, and I doubt he rejoins MI6 full time. Maybe they both get called 007 like in the Niven CR :D
I was referring to the apparent inability to have ever detected fair points about overreach among members of one's own tribe, and a seeming inability to even imagine such overreach.
Indeed, and you’ll notice I said I expect that’s true, but still nothing to do with what I said. ‘Woke’ is a term of innate hyperbole which just replaces the discussion topic of ‘progress’. To use the term is to be hyperbolic.
I still wonder why Nomi hasn’t been a surname in publicity. Is there something being hidden (like ‘Eve’ in Skyfall) or is it just Eon’s style? I guess the other guest characters are all known by one name too.
Solange
Fields
Camille
Eve
Severine
Paloma
Nomi
Etc...
Well, you make an assumption that attacks on "wokism" are attacks on "progress". You don't seem to consider that the "woke" moniker, which was not invented by opponents, is meant to refer exclusively to overreaching or silly levels of social justice activism. And just as some may mischaracterize actual progress as being silly and woke, others mischaracterize critics of actual silliness as critics of progress. Equal opposites: people think that folks standing slightly left or right of them are no different to more extreme versions and are providing cover for them. This is relevant to your suggestion that you've never heard a legitimate critique of anything falling under this "woke" umbrella.
You'll recall our previous conversation about my finding the overly-contrived diversity casting of Rogue One annoying. Despite my saying that the problem would disappear if they had cast fewer white people, my opinion was characterized as "making excuses" for "not wanting to see BAME people onscreen", which is obviously ridiculous. There are folks on both sides tilting at windmills and assuming the worst about everything.
I entered this discussion critiquing an anti-woke view, but instead of seeing an ally, you seem to have seen an opportunity to suggest that I'm no different to a position I dismissed as "caricature". It'd be nice to see less of the "brow-beating" @Birdleson mentioned.
I've wondered this too. Nomi and Paloma are, I think, the only characters without surnames. The male characters all have them, I'm pretty sure....
:)) If this film can resemble DAF in any way, I'm all for it!
He should also make a few clones of Paloma.
Get her away from him!
A sort of Schrödinger's 007 :D.
I'm imagining Bond sitting at his desk, turning the sevens on printed material into little guns, just like EON's logo. :)) "What the hell can I do with a 004?!"
Agreed. Look - Bond knows the job he does and that he's very much expendable. The number is too. I think he made his peace with it the minute Le Chiffre thwapped his knackers around. He may have one little minor 5 to 10 second gripe (albeit, quite possibly internal), but it's not going to be made out to be an all singing and dancing part of the movie like "ha ha, I have your number, you do not."
Thank you!
Yes I think you're right. Bit weird, really.
I do, yes, because it is. Or attacks on diversity.
Just because it's occasionally done clumsily is no reason to be suspicious of it or to be 'anti' it, any more so than a Bond fan who didn't enjoy the way Spectre was made should be suspicious of the whole idea of Bond films.
Is it though? The characters in Star Wars are supposed to all come from different planets- one of them is even a seven-foot dog. Two of them are robots. But somehow the idea that some of them being women or BAME is too much? That's too diverse? It's a bit rum isn't it. Was Mads Mikkelson too Danish?
What is the solution to your complaint about Rogue One? How would you fix the casting in it to feel less contrived to you? Is there an answer to that which feels good to say?
Don't invent arguments in order to try to draft allies please.
That would be great! :D
@-)
Sure, the one I mentioned: they could not have the white actors. But in lieu of clogging up the thread with this rubbish, I'm always game for an absolutist brow-beating by PM.
You don't like having white and non-white actors together? I just find it a struggle to get into this mindset. And you wouldn’t watch an all-white version?
As I said: they had the seven foot dog with white actors. And the Danish one too.
I doubt I'll read it to be honest, I barely did last time.
It's like the chicken and the egg. Are the film's choices really "leftist" or "feminist propaganda", therefore incredibly "woke", or have people just created a term that allows them to create unfair criticisms so that they can avoid any kind of positive change or even just natural decision making on the part of filmmakers?
Let's not forget, people of different ethnicities or even strong female characters aren't new to the franchise. Yes, the franchise isn't innocent in perpetuating views that are no longer accepted in most societies today, but at this point in time, how do people know that the character Nomi isn't just a natural addition to the franchise? Because now, in 2021 following the #MeToo movement and Hollywood's attempts at progress in terms of race and sex, opposing audiences now have this term that creates this cage of argument around anything that resembles strong female characters? If that makes sense.
Now, don't get me wrong I understand there are cases where Hollywood just seems to be checking boxes, but these criticisms have now become such a juggernaut of opposition that it is just going to stunt any kind of process to the point where those who are against these choices have shot themselves in the foot before they've even seen whats on offer. And it's already happened with a lot of media recently.
Again, I hope what I've said makes sense.
Excellent post ^:)^
As we saw in the Star Wars thread, people are so ready to be triggered into these reactions by a newspaper invoking the word 'woke' - even if it's being massively misleading (and they quite often are), that it really is just a term of hyperbole now. Yes, it wasn't invented by its opponents (as if that matters) but it's been seized upon by the (mostly right wing) press and altered in meaning, just as its predecessor 'politically correct' was 20 years ago.
This falsely engineered culture war is just a massive distraction, and quite artificial.
It’s okay to have ethnically diverse casting, it’s okay to have multiple ethnicities represented, it’s okay to change the race of a character particularly if you’re rebooting and/or if the ethnicity of the character isn’t really that relevant.
Yup. The best post on the topic in quite a while, @Denbigh!
That's why forums are still the best place for discussion, if we don't let the aforementioned dynamics take hold (hyperpolarization, tribalism, gaslighting, ..., amongst others). It's not that all opinions are valid and it's not like we have a divine right to uncaringly share our views, but all sides are opened to discussion here, and if someone insists on their point of view ad nauseam just for the sake of destroying the system (whatever that system may be. Here, it's the forum system, very close to the Greek agora), or to impose their own sense of power, or to superimpose a personal angst as if it were an agenda of sorts, we end up with very complicated forum dynamics, and I, for one, react badly to those abuses, to that I so humbly admit.
Thankfully, sensible posts like @Denbigh's and @Birdleson's, created to better illustrate logic and sense, exist in this domain and should be applauded. Here's my thumbs up for both.
About the "woke" thing - and we must be careful so we don't name things that are a deturpation of others, like some do with the PC term - I too think these culture wars, and this History-washing, and cancel culture, and so on and so on, are hysterical hyperbolizations of real and important issues, and they end up hurting these issues more than solving them.
Doing something like Ghostbusters 2016, He-Man:Revelation, or those period pieces in which they so blatantly change characters in their gender and race, will always ignite people the wrong way, and I have to hopefully believe this tendency will self extinguish and give way to the more inclusive and respectful dynamics and values we all, as intelligent beings, want to see portrait on screen.
BTW, if Bond does this right, it'll be once again a culture mammoth that defines the art more than it is defined by it. Bond could very well show the way, with a diverse cast and empowered female figures, without making an issue of it, or a statement. In fact, as @Denbigh said so very well, it was always that, Bond was almost always that. Let's hope it carries on being just so, without hysterical hyperbolised statements that only fuel division and hyperpolarization.