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Tbf, we live in a more Starbucks culture these days, so everyone is more on the same page. Meet a Jew, and they will be fairly Westernised and the same as everyone else, but back a few decades they might be immigrants from Eastern Europe, foreigners basically, or Orthodox so not as integrated. Same goes for all other races/nationaliteis, though generally you can differentiate if you are praising and being positive, but if you're being negative then it must be wrong, it must be racist, so the thinking goes.
That said, often people talk of racism these days when really they mean xenophobia. I mean, if Gary Lineker, the sports presenter, can be accused of racism for saying jokingly on air 'Au Revoir' regarding the French football team when they get knocked out of a competition, who can really say any more?
Seems to me racism in this country applies differently depending on the race.
For some a seat in the House of Lords for others the Prime Minister comes out and says its completely fine for people to keep using offensive terms.
I had no idea! It is an interesting interview, he seems to know his Bond well.
I have read The Man From Barbarossa twice but I'm afraid I don't remember.
Yep, be interesting to see the other parts of the interview?
Hopefully he knows Bond better than Fleming, for heaven's sake.
http://techland.time.com/2008/08/27/the_quantum_of_racist/
Big oops or small oops, read and decide for yourself.
I myself do not worry too much about retcon PC-ness, but some of the examples given here are indeed not proof of Flemings better writing.
By Matt Selman Aug. 27, 2008
It’s common knowledge that Ian Fleming’s James Bond spy thrillers were hardly politically correct. They were packed with outdated, but probably deeply-felt, sexism, racism, and, yes, even homophobia. (Not to mention the relentlessly kick-ass sadism.) Those who haven’t opened the books in a while may assume that Fleming’s old-timey notions lurked in the subtext of the novels. But a recent re-read of Goldfinger revealed the hate-speech was hilariously explicit.
Much of the racialist invective is reserved for Koreans, particular poor old Odd-Job. As a reward for showing off his karate skills, bad guy Auric Goldfinger gives Odd-Job a special treat:
Goldfinger took the cat from under his arm and tossed it to the Korean who caught it eagerly – “I am tired of seeing this animal around. You may have it for dinner.” The Korean’s eyes gleamed.
That’s right. Koreans love cat meat. Got it. (Clearly Blofeld and Goldfinger weren’t in the SMERSH kitty club. Too bad, that white Pekinese on Blofeld’s lap looked delicious.) Later, Goldfinger explains why he hires only Koreans:
“They are the cruelest, most ruthless people in the world… When they want women, street women are brought down from London, well-remunerated for their services and sent back. The women are not much to look at, but they are white and that is all the Koreans ask – to submit the white race to the grossest indignities.”
Okay, but Goldfinger is a bad guy, right? He’s supposed to be racist. However, later in the book, he tragically seems to have won Bond over to his point of view:
Bond intended to stay alive on his own terms. Those terms included putting Odd-Job or any other Korean firmly in place, which in Bond’s estimation was lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy.
LOWER THAN APES? Oh James, how could you? We knew you were a little rough on the ladies, but a crazy backwards eugenic evolutionary theorist? Were you in MI-6 or the Klan? I’d love to see where the rest of humanity is fits in on “Commander Bond’s Official Ranking of Racial Superiority.” However, Bond soon redeems himself later by repeatedly making a point of calling Odd-Job “ape” to his face. A promotion to full ape? Not “lower than?” Good show, 007.
Okay. One more awesomely wacked-out notion, written about a woman who amazingly enough, rejected Bond’s advances (and, sort of, died because of that rejection).
Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterson was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed-up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and “sex equality.” As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits – barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them.
Who know Bond harbored such a deep hatred for women’s suffrage? Does Q know about his homophobia? Because Q doesn’t just stand for “Quartermaster.” He’s Q, he’s here, get used to it.
Finally, at the end of the book, Bond redeems his rejection by “sexual misfit” Tilly by achieving every idiot male’s moron fantasy. He’s bedding Pussy Galore, who up until now has been described as 100% lesbian, when we get the following exchange.
He said, “they told me you only liked women.”
She said, “I never met a man before.”
As Bond later bragged to M, “Any girl who says she’s gay hasn’t met me yet.”
Read more: http://techland.time.com/2008/08/27/the_quantum_of_racist/#ixzz2fqkDWVTd
Well, if oral sex is subtly implied then I think it's okay but something more than this would be in poor taste in a Bond book I reckon.
Yes, it was these sorts of comments that lead me to think that Fleming was more racist than the norm back then.
Language of the time old chap.
Read Haggard, Buchan,Rohmer, Charteris, Sapper, Wheatley et all and you'll find elements of the same and if you were to read contemperaries of Fleming like Mayo, Leasor, O'Donnel, Munro,or God help you, Spillane you would find that in some regards Fleming was relitavely tame!
Homosexuality was illegal in the UK for all of Fleming's life, yet Noel Coward was a great friend of his - they were constant companions in Jamaica and Noel's house was very near Ian's.
Believe you me, he was no homophobe or racist but if people are going to read historic fiction they should take some perspective!
I should have said that it's not mentioned as such, only referred to in the sense that Nina Bibikova would do things "that most women would draw the line at" or a phrase like that. It appears twice in the novel and is a reference to oral sex. It's easily missed though, as Gardner obviously uses a euphemism here.
Interesting interview released by his publisher in the week of launch!
Part 2 is now up on YouTube (why they don't release the thing in one go defeats me) and is also very insightful. It looks like he has really drawn on Bond's past to give depth to his interpretation.
Something that his '69 setting allows.
There is also a good French interview up on YouTube (Boyd speaks excellent French) were he talks about how sad Fleming was at the end of his life. He describes his death by alcohol, tabaco and drugs as a long suicide.
Very interesting. Boyd seems to know his subject then. I'll have to look out these You Tube interviews with Boyd. Can you furnish the links here, @Villiers53?
Well old chap, language of the time does not always cover the cargo. However I agree with you if the old days allowed for a more what we would call racist labelling as society then was far less PC and more orientated towards a European/American audience of mostly white skin.
Fleming was a racist by our definition, but as he lived in different times it would have perhaps been more common than not. I still like his books but it is indeed some stuff that is in them that does not tickle my fancy.
Sorry @Dragonpol but unfortunately (and I mean that) the "links" thing is a bit beyond me.
I'll have to get my son to give me some IT one to one but if you search Solo by Wiilliam Boyd on YouTube, you'll find it.
Oh, sorry. I quite understand. Just me being lazy. To copy a link from You Tube you simply use your mouse to right click on the link in the bar at the top of the page (it will go blue to show you have highlighted it) and then click on 'Copy' when the little square box comes up on your screen. Go to the thread you want to put the link in and right click your mouse on a new line and then click 'Paste' and it will paste the link for you. Try it out. Hope this is of some help, @Villiers53.
@villiers53 is completely correct and frankly reading Fleming in isolation and drawing conclusions about racism and homophobia without researching it within the context of Fleming's contemporaries or predecessors lacks any credibility and is simply uninteresting.
What next - perhaps @ Bounine and @SaintMark will determine Walter Mosley a racist because of his extensive use of the 'N' word?
Yes, indeed. As I have said above, I intend to set the record straight on my blog with an all-encompassing article on Fleming, race and racism in the Bond novels. I think such a defence of Fleming is long overdue, though perhaps it has been done before. I'm not sure?
Apologists aplenty, I do not mind Fleming being somewhat racist perhaps due to the "other"times he lived in. Yes indeed the world was different then and so were the views. However the apology the fact remains that the examples given from GF in this case do show that Fleming was occasionaly wrong and somewhat limited in his visions.
My personal library does contain a large amount of writers from Fleming and before Flemings times so it is not that odd if I say that while Fleming has his literary talents the man is not as Saintly as some of you want him to portrait. Boyd is right in that aspect. A Current Bond would not be acceptable if he were sticking to the blueprint Fleming gave his character. A 007 in these modern times stands up to a far more scrupulous audience than those of 50 years ago. It does not cleaning up in the newer releases even if they play in the past.
And the homophobia & racism of 50 years ago while easy to place within a context still does not mean that they are right about it.
That said it does give us a vision on a different era, also said should be what was its influence on a general audience who were not as well traveled as Fleming and were willing to believe and take the stuff for granted that this writer of exotic spy novels delivered?
I find it rather curious the way everyone is so eager to proclaim as loudly as they can how bad Fleming's mainstream (of the time) views were when it comes to racism and how glad they are we've moved on but nary a word is said against Fleming's sexism (again commonplace for the time).
I've read countless tiresome and repetitive dissertations on racism in the Bond books but I dont see very many people attacking the 'why cant they leave men's work to the men' or 'now Vesper had got herself kidnapped and held to ransom like a heroine from a strip cartoon. The silly bitch' comments from CR or the hilarious rant against women drivers from TB - which, like the N word, if said in today's workplace would see you on a disciplinary charge. And of course Bond's treatment of women as disposable sex objects is well known.
Where are all the articles bemoaning Fleming's shocking sexist views? Or is it that it is no longer the fashionable cause celebre among Guardianistas?
I'm so glad I live in today's far more enlightened society where some people's causes are deemed more important by the media and Islington intelligentsia than others and we only demonise chavs, immigrants and muslim fundamentalists. I'm sure in 60 years no one will criticise any of us for holding such views.
Well said, Ice. I can only agree with your eloquent points, sir.
I can easily place Flemings sexism & sometimes racist remarks into the era they were made. And they do not upset me that much otherwise I would not have so many of Flemings books lying around, mostly I remember the man for his 007 stories that were well & excitingly written. What I enjoy most about his writing is the eye for details the writer had and how he could write about them. I find golf at best tediousm but based upon Flemings detailed description of that match in GF I did want to go out and play the game myself. That is great writing imho.
However his sexist, homophobic and sometimes racist views are easy to find in his books and because he is a published writer he will always be confronted by these less than positives attitudes. But they are only a little part of what he created and that is perhaps more important. That said it does not excuse his remarks in any way.
The enlightment of our current society seems to be a get-out-of-jail card to apologize for Flemings past behaviour. WHich is rubbish, if you are aware that you talk racist then you are perhaps even worse than IF.
Ian Fleming was a writer that did write some sentiments that are now considered racist, sexist & homophobic. They were then as well, and perhaps better accepted in those days of pre-internet and global reparting. They are still what they are.
And what we consider in 60 years, who knows, but do not try to cover it up in nonsical rhetorica. The truth is that humans can be very negative about their perceptions and the stuff they do not know enough about that they fear.
I do agree with Boyd that his 007 needed some cleaning up from Flemings version, if he were to sell these days. Only neanthertalers would want to keep life as it were.....
Moving back to 'The Incompetent Marketing Programme' did anybody hear Lucy Fleming's interview on Radio 4 this lunch time?
If you had you would have been a little amused by her lack of knowledge of the subject at hand.
Evidently she sits on IFP's board (God help us) and appears to think that the main differences between the books and the films are that Bond only has one woman per book whilst in the films he has many in each film! And you can reinvent Bond with each film whereas with the books there has to be a continuum of time line of give or take a couple of years.
Obviously she slept through John Gardner's '80s re-boot, slipped into a coma during Benson's tenure - don't blame her for that - flickered to life for Faulks' '60s abomination and then dozed back off again for Deaver when the board approved the cheque and gave him Carte Blanche to write a complete load of baloney!
One can only wonder at that company but my God isn't Ian the gift that keeps on giving. A brand must be bloody strong to withstand this sort of damage.
I just hope her other job isn't on the board of RBS!
A little surprising and alarming for sure, given her place on the IFP board but in her defence I recall her presenting a radio show on The Letters of Ian Fleming as well as on a TV show about Fleming where she said that the literary character created by her uncle Ian was very different from the character in the books. It sounds like she's been reading Amis' works on Bond.
Intelligently put and how correct - @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7 deserves the prize for letter of the week for this one!
@Bentley I never accused Fleming of being a flat out racist but because of some of his comments it occurred to me that he may have been slightly more xenophobic than the average person back in the day . As I said though, I really don't know for sure because I have read very little if any books from this period. Most of the spy thrillers I've read are from the 70's. Even if Fleming was more racist and sexist than the average man, I really don't care in the slightest. These two facets have no bearing on why I like and dislike the odd part of his books. In terms of the latter, it's some of the exaggerated names of the odd character like 'Pussy Galore' which I've never liked. That's not to say that I support racism either. For me, Fleming's comments are all water on a duck's back unless of course his sentiments strongly resembled those of someone like Hitler whose beliefs are so strong that they extend into killing or to a lesser extent, believing in the existence of apartheids.