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
One more comment, when they were making the X-Men, if they had cast a white woman as Storm, I never would have watched it. Storm is black. I wouldn't have cared HOW good or great the white actress might have been in the role.
No I find the Bourne movies to be painfully dull and Boring. QoS may have borrowed certain elements but it sure worked in it's favor and made it Bond>Bourne as it should always be.
I agree with @chrisisall. I'm willing to allow the Bond films the indulgence of change but not without stint. There's a streak of madness in trying to alter Bond's skin colour. A black Moneypenny or Felix Leiter is hardly a matter of great portent in my book. They are secondary characters and carry neither Bond's weight nor fame as cultural symbols. Bond, however, has white, womanising, old-school Brit imprinted on him like a tattoo. It's not about being PC or not, it's not about being open-minded or not, it's about being able to differentiate between the importance of leaving Bond entirely 'in tact' versus doing so with other characters. There's a limit to what we can do with M, MP, Q and Leiter as well - of course - but I think most of us have never struggled with the notion of a female M, a black Leiter, a really young Q, ... Most of us would, however, struggle with significant changes to Bond's appearance or personality.
I did because she never really established any credibility like Lee, Brown, or Fleming-M.
But surely with Bond being an individual, and not a caucasian amalgam - that shouldn't matter? Idris Elba or Paterson Joseph aren't walking racial stereotypes - why there should their Bond be? They're not going to demand the writers to replace Fleming's scrambled eggs with watermelon, for cryin out loud!
FWIW, I don't support a black Bond, but I'm just playing devil's advocate here.
I wonder what happened here?
"I think he got the point" ;-)
Sorry. 3G connection dropping during posting seems to do this. I've had it happen a few times.
To answer, this is just my point. If it's deemed a case of hijacking the character, it's completely pointless. I'm not interested in casting Bond based on a cultural experiment. This isn't about demand for a black spy character either. The topic at hand is the appropriateness of a black man playing Bond. I'm not pro-black Bond per se, but I certainly don't see the problem with it. Someone like Elba would bring with him none of the 'cultural baggage' others seem to suggest a 'black man' would. Just to confirm I'm not out with my banner saying 'Make Bond Black', but given that Elba is basically a black Connery, I wouldn't have said no to his appointment. Why would I? For sheer suaveness, ruthlessness and elegant brutality he knocks Craig into a cocked hat IMO.
The problem--one of them, anyway--is that a non-white Bond simply introduces too much cognitive dissonance, needlessly, and probably for all the wrong reasons. Bond, to a significant degree, is a symbol of pre-multiculti England. Some people love this, some hate it, but it is what it is. That England had a very specific culture, and no non-white actor can emblematize that culture because they all spring from very different cultures. Broadly speaking, Asian culture is different from Islamic culture, just as white culture departs from Hispanic culture. Introducing a black Bond into the olde English cultural milieu would be as foolish as having an actor from the Trobrian Islands play the role of a Russian tsar.
I'll be fair and say know it was just an opinion and I shouldn't have written that bit, I was just getting frustrated at that point.
Yes when I say faithful to Fleming I mean in a CR 06 type way. Flemings Bond but more modern.
I understand where you're coming from but I don't see changing Bonds skin colour as that big of a leap forward, especially after how much the character has changed over the years (I'm talking appearance and personality now).
I'd say Pierce Brosnan is closer to Flemings Bond appearance wise than Daniel Craig but then out of those two, which one is praised for being faithful to Fleming?
Yes it'd be more faithful to Fleming if he was white. Just like it'd be more faithful to Fleming if Daniel Craig had black hair.
If Daniel Craig was black, would that mean Roger Moore was more Flemingesque in your eyes? I don't think Bond's appearance matters and changing his skin colour would at the end of the day only be changing his appearance.
There is no specific "black culture and behaviour". There are plenty of posh black blokes who went to Eton and it's entirely possible for a black man in 2013 to work for MI6 and to have had the same upbringing as Bond did.
Besides, we're not in Flemings world anymore. Bond is different now and I actually think that's a good thing. If the franchise stayed stuck in the 50s, in Flemings "posh Anglo world", then it would've died long ago.
@SirHenryLeeChaChing First of all, why rule out Northen Ireland?
Secondly, yes I'm black, but I'd like to think that I'd hold the same POV if I was white.
Sorry, when you said India and Asian, I thought you meant actually from India or Asia. My mistake there.
You make a good point here. I think Indian or Asian comes with a bit more cultural baggage than a black Bond would. In my experience, people except a black man as British much easier than they would san Asian or Indian.
Although I wouldn't really mind and I certainly wouldn't stop watching the films if it happened.
Exactly.
Very well said. This is a point that lots of people here seem to be missing.
Since you bring up Northern Irish, if a potential candidate from there has an Irish lilt like Brosnan's then I also don't see that as a good fit. His accent didn't ring of authenticity for me. The rest I will be redundant on, it's well known that my reaction to Brosnan is and was luke warm at best in his first two films and one that resembled horror in the end. I'd prefer someone ethnically white and of AS descent from the island of Britannia. Lazenby's Aussie accent didn't quite work for me either.
Just how I feel. Hope you understand.
@Khan- I could not possibly agree more with your last post.
What if they did an English accent? Most Welsh and Scottish actors would have to do this too if their accent was fairly thick.
I think it's a real shame that Elba will probably be too old and famous for Bond by the time Craig leaves. One of the coolest people on the planet.
Idris Elba as Ian Chrisisall's Brandon Clarke, 008 in NEVER LOSE AIM!
Look, I don't want to politicize this thing or take sides, it really doesn't concern me as an American or even as one proudly of full or mostly Irish descent living here for many generations that is Catholic and supports unification with Ireland. A half Scotch-Irish great grandfather is as close as I get. And does that even count as being a wee bit Irish? I'm mostly German-Lithuanian and a bit of an ethnic mutt when you throw in that, Swedish, Welsh, and some AS ancestry as in continental German. But from a neutral point of view, it seems to me that many Northern Irishmen have long resisted being a part of the UK and favor unification, and the main Irish government doesn't seem to want them.
@thelivingroyale- I suppose if an actor from Northern Ireland could do a full on Brit accent, I'd give him a chance to impress me. But would the British stand for it is the bigger question. Hell, while I am somewhat impressed that Hugh Laurie and Renee Zellweger can pull off the switch, I'd never want Bond to sound like me or Irish or Aussie either. It just doesn't compute with my ideals I guess.
@chrisisall- I dig Elba and wouldn't mind a bit seeing him as a 00 whether it's in a Bond film as a guy working with Bond or as a spinoff. He's physical and has acting chops too. Eye and hair color changes have happened, some are put off, but changing skin color or sexual orientation is a much larger leap that I cannot abide.
The fact that a very small percentage of blacks meld into upper crust, aristocratic, white British society is largely beside the point. That small percentage simply does not represent black society/culture in the eyes of movie-goers, and hence the cognitive dissonance.
And while it is no longer the 1950s, cinematic Bond, in the main, has remained as faithful as reasonably possible to Fleming's ancient archetype. It is that faithfulness which renders Bond distinct and attractive to the audience. Violating the spirit of Fleming's Bond so radically by changing his race would certainly be in keeping with the elite 21st-century zeitgeist, but it would also annihilate much of what he symbolizes, alienate a high percentage of Bond's most ardent fans, and in so doing, quite possibly damn the series.
So we're still doing this are we? Any chance of the mods getting us back on topic?
Anyway very astute post Khanners that pretty much sums it up.
So lets take your ridiculous hypothesis to its logical conclusion shall we?
So as long as the performance is more 'Flemingesque' then you would consider a one legged, Chinese, lesbian dwarf with red hair to be a better Bond than Moore or Brosnan?
So is Jose Mourinho. So was Henry Winkler in the 70's. Are they on your list of potential Bonds too? I didn't realise that that was the only criteria. I'd say walking off the street and blagging the biggest role in cinema in 1968 was pretty damn cool but there are plenty of people who think Laz was a shit Bond. And he was white.
I'm steering clear of this one. Over to you Draggers.
Well it's an opinion and as almost everyone disagrees with me I'd say it's fairly controversial, so I think we are on topic.
No because you're changing the character completely. Unlike you I don't consider these changes (aside from the hair colour) to be anything like making him black and neither of us are changing eachothers minds so I think we should just agree to disagree really.
I didn't say it was the only criteria did I? He's a fantastic actor that's cool, suave, can play tough guys well and is interested in the role.
I think we've met! Her straight twin sister that is ;)
You've perfectly described mummy...
Oh dear heavens.
Well, I agree with @thelivingroyale. His points are well taken. I have no issue with a black Bond that fits the style, attitude, Britishness, etc. of James Bond. His being British and having the same main style, attributes, attitude, etc. is what I need from Bond. And Elba has all that, including acting chops from what I have seen. I simply don't feel Bond being black is a strong disconnect; I just don't.
So many of us will have differing opinions on that and that will continue, but that's okay with me. Not trying to hit people over the head for their different opinion, but I just wanted to be clear on mine, too.
Agreedy . ;;)
The Bourne movies were an effective wakeup call for teh EON franchise and QoB went to far into the direction of copying and then did a very poor job.
But a blind preference for the Bondmovies is no flaw imho, but don't compare with better made movies when you really talk about the poorest effort of the whole franchise. Even EON & Craig admitted that QoB did require a lot more work and that the writers strike did hurt the movie. And in my view so did the choice of Forster as a director. John Glen would have blindfolded rung in a better effort.
Of course my opinion are not facts, well except for the creative force and the exciting actionscenes that the Bourne mvies have offered. Something QoB did not have for the most of it and tried to hide it behind a flurry of unexplainable edits. And most of the actionscenes in QoB have been done better in the history of the franchise, and less CGI was then involved.
I agree. They played it safe and tacked on a most cliched ending. Bond needed a little time to deal with his grief and it would have given Elektra's betrayal and death more weight.