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Duran Duran really changed the game when it comes to selecting artists based on popularity. John Barry would typically just have a songbird like Shirley Bassey, but then after Duran Duran that’s when we saw the trend of artists deliver songs on their own volition, rarely with the actual composer. That’s why it’s become so rare for the artists’ songs to appear in the score.
I honestly hope not. I'd rather they go back to the upbeat, electrifying theme songs, instead of another sad, melancholic one.
I think as soon as you get Bond passing too much judgment on the real life locations he visits or gives direct, specific opinions on politics and society it’s only going to lose a portion of the audience. A bit like when your drunk Uncle or whoever at a family gathering begins to share their political views. It’s either divisive or awkward.
I mean, it’s pretty explicit.
“Those terms included putting Oddjob and any other Korean firmly in his place, which, in Bond's estimation, was rather lower than apes in the mammalian hierarchy.”
That he emphasizes her lesbianism, his point being that her being gay what got her killed. Especially taking into account when he realized why Tilly was not taking to his charm.
It’s really the execution of it in GF that’s funny. Suddenly Pussy is acting subservient and taking commands from Bond. It’s definitely Fleming tapping into the “turning the lesbian” fantasy to an extreme, that a lesbian just needs a guy like Bond to turn her. That’s all before getting into Pussy bringing up why she was a lesbian, “my uncle raped me”.
Yep, agreed. If he said he hated going to Amsterdam or wherever, even though that's very book Bond, you're just annoying some people for no reason.
I guess you can make it fun sometimes, like the TLD hamper thing or his reaction to the grotty hotel in QoS: those are good jokes at the expense of his snobbishness. Or Dalton pushing the substandard coffee away in TLD, although that does feel incredibly actorly to me!
Ah yes, men turn 'em gay, and a real man turns 'em back again. Basically it's all about men :))
An example of Bond giving his opinion that doesn’t work I think is the Beatles line from GF and exemplifies the issue of Bond having direct opinions even just on popular culture. It always takes people out of the film nowadays because The Beatles is considered arguably the best band of all time. It’s a bit strange hearing Bond randomly being snarky about them and it makes him look snobbish in a pretty unattractive way. I suspect even at the time it was a random dig.
Dr No was released the very same day that Love Me Do, the Beatles' first single came out, fact fans :)
This is a James Bond forum, can we talk about something we actually like about the character instead of trying to sanitize him and turn him into a choir boy?
Genuine question mate: are you ok?
No need to get triggered.
Anyway, no need for hate :)
Cheers.
AFAK the Beatles remark was a friendly jab, and definately fit the times. But you'd have to ask people like @Since62 and @BeatlesSansEarmuffs about that one.
Sorry, but again I can't follow your logic: you're saying old forum members have left because we need younger ones instead? You do know that that's not how the internet works?
And by the way, why are you so against women anyway? You do know your mother is one, right?
That's interesting. It's always been such a weird line to me, probably in hindsight. I mean, from my point of view as a kid in the late 2000s/reading about this second hand Bondmania and Beatlemania were very much at the same time. Not interchangeable, and I suspect different audiences, but kinda cut from the same cloth. So it was always odd to me.
You are unbelievably thick. And I think when you start bringing up people's mothers is when you should go log off and get some sunshine. Please don't let the door hit you on the way out, whoreson.
I just don't remember this endless discussion about race and gender on this forum ten years ago, It's become like an obsession for some to talk about it seems.
How is it an obsession? We're not talking about it on this forum 24/7, or is talking about it at all that triggering for you?
The fact that you can't remember discussions like this, doesn't mean they weren't there.
https://www.mi6community.com/discussion/13367/racism-homophobia-sexism-in-james-bond
ten years old, there you go.
What a good way to put it. No one wants to see "drunk uncle Bond."
I don't think people in 2025 want to see Dink slapped on the arse, or Tracy hit by Bond and Draco.
The world has moved forward from that.
I get what you're saying. It'd be uncomfortable if your friend slapped a random girl on the bum in real life in your presence (many may even call out this behaviour, and not unreasonably so). If you heard they'd slapped their significant other you'd be worried.
I don't think it's a sign of our times either. When was the last time Bond slapped a woman? The films have done their hardest to keep his encounters consensual as possible too, and again not unreasonably (ie. we don't have Bond tricking girls into sleeping with him as in LALD, and even 'no-no-uh...yes' situations like in GF haven't been there in quite the same way even if Bond's womanising and seduction have remained, and certainly always should be there).
No reason Bond nowadays needs to be an outright sexist or highly 'old fashioned' in my opinion (at least in the 'women belong in the kitchen' way he was in Fleming's CR - and worth noting he was far more relaxed about working with a woman colleague by MR). He's a womaniser, a gambler, a drinker, an adventurer, and even quite arrogant. But he's also a young man in the modern world in his mid 30s - or will be in this next film presumably. Why would he slap women in a fit of anger or scoff at them working with him, or coerce them into sex? He's not an abuser and if anything Bond is a man highly adept at social interactions with women. Bond hasn't done those things in over 40 years. Why would they be his flaws now?
The Bond novels are racist and sexist. They’re also incredibly well-written and, at times, nuanced in their depictions and commentary. Fleming’s Bond (like Fleming himself) is a creation of Edwardian England. Yes, Bond was written in the new Elizabethan Age, but his thoughts, manners, attitudes and worldview were already anachronistic in 1953. That’s not a bad thing if an author can “pull it off.” Fleming pulls it off.
The problem with trying to cut around Bond’s own actions and attitudes from those of the third person omniscient Narrator is that both Bond and the Narrator are Fleming. Of course, it’s Fleming with a big helping of fantasy, but the novels very much reflect Fleming’s personality and hobbies and preferences. It’s disingenuous to equivocate between Fleming’s Narrator and Fleming’s Characters because they’re inseparable, on the whole, from who he was and how he thought. Fleming wasn’t the most racist or the most sexist for his time but he certainly was racist and sexist, even by the standards of that time.
The films have to contend with that aspect of Fleming’s legacy as much as it leverages the strength and popularity of the books. The Bond novels give the film series an air of cultural and historical legitimacy. In turn, the books have longevity and relevance because of the film series. Serious study of both must consider and speak to the racism and sexism contained in both. That doesn’t delegitimize Fleming or Bond. Facing the critiques head on, makes Bond worthy of scholarship.
I think Phoebe Waller Bridge summed it all up quite nicely: “It has just got to evolve, and the important thing is that the film treats the women properly. [Bond] doesn’t have to. He needs to be true to this character.”
The film’s have to address these things. Audiences in 2025 have different expectations in what a movie depicts and how a movie depicts than those in 1965. That’s just a fact. But it doesn’t mean that Bond isn’t a hero. It just means that the world around Bond needs to react to Bond’s presence as Bond, in turn, responds to how the world perceives him (or men like him). That’s what it means to have a well rounded character in 2025. This concurrent commentary shouldn’t be pedantic or heavy handed. It can be but it doesn’t need to be. This is where character, motivations, theme, motif and subtext all come together to say something. It may be as simple as a line of dialogue from a female M, robustly written Bond Girls and plots with personal stakes, like in GE, or a film for which the central idea is to explain why Bond doesn’t trust women, like in CR.
Wouldn’t say no, but she’s probably not in my ‘top 10 choices’ for the job.
I’ll add that the seemingly unarticulated (in this conversation) aspect of Fleming’s novels that could help us better frame our arguments is the classism in Fleming’s life and works. That’s not to say that all his novels invoke classism to the same degree but it’s there; it’s a key plot device in OHMSS and MR. That’s not to say that Fleming wasn’t magnanimous or loved or admired by the social classes that he (and we) would have deemed inferior.
Classism is a bit opaque to Americans. Money, for us, makes the man because any man can (all things being equal) make money. But class is more than that: breeding, lineages, education, social networks and having enough money not to care that one has it. For those Victorian and Edwardian peers, and administrators and soldiers and sailors and merchants who considered themselves to have it, class could rise above perceived racial differences if the “other” was royal enough. If I remember correctly, Bond admired Mr. Big in LALD or, at least, there was a begrudging respect for an intellect as equal in its criminal brilliance as the international masterminds he’s dispatched to kill.
Race mattered but royalty mattered more. Through the lense, I understand how racism in Fleming’s novels seems innocuous or superfluous. It comes across as matter-of-fact; as noticeable, yet shrug-able, as anything Bond takes in on any given day.
Tread carefully. Tomorrow is April Fool’s Day.
I really feel sorry for Sarah Connor, the main character in Alien (forgot her name), Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, Alice in Resident Evil, and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill? I think the people didn't realized that this trope of "woman had a central role, and she isn't subservient to men" have been existing for so long now.
I think the reasons people didn't liked those modern films are because of:
1. CGI - This is the major complaint, really, many modern films flopped because of this.
2. The storylines were not challenging or bad acting, seen those complaints in 'Resident Evil: The Raccoon City', I think those Dune films, along with Spiderman: No Way Home are loved because the stories were quite interesting.
3. Rehashing old films and tropes.
4. Repetitive or tiring ("this film is no different from that other film").
5. Bad character lines.
6. Miscast actors/actresses
7. RECENCY BIAS They hate it because it's new, but 10 to 20 years from now, they would re-evaluate it, and people would be telling again of how the films in the past were better than the recent ones, it's a never ending cycle, they hate it now, they love it later and compare it with the new release, it tend to happen in Music too.
Anyway, half of the Netflix movies were also flopping, and majority of them have nothing to do with 'Strong Women'.
Not all Bond Girls have been subservient to Bond, is Wai Lin subservient to Bond? Is Holly Goodhead subservient to Bond? Anya Amasova? Vesper Lynd? Jinx? Octopussy? Madeleine Swann? Helga Brandt? Fiona Volpe? Pussy Galore? Camille Montes? Natalya Simonova? Xenia Onatopp? Cigar Girl in TWINE?
Paris Carver even slapped Bond on the face 😅, Bambi and Thumper karate chopped Bond to the pool, Bond even became subservient to Elektra King, as she's the boss, not just Bond, but even Renard.
The majority of Bond Girls showed animosity towards Bond upon meeting them, and even in the middle of the film, they're never subservient to him, actually, those women who were subservient to Bond were very few like Kara Milovy, Pam Bouvier, Kissy Suzuki, Mary Goodnight, Solitaire, Domino, Tatiana Romanova, or maybe Honey Ryder.
Tracy and Melina both fall on the middle ground.