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No, it actually isn't. This is:
JAMES BOND IS A MALE CAUCASIAN BRITISH!!!
FFS!
Oh, why do I bother...
Does he have blue blood or red?
And what color is his hair?
I' guessing red, if you're literal about it. Also red if you're figurative, btw. He's a warm blooded male heterosexual, caucasian, British. If that offends anyone, I'd say that person is homophobic and racist.
I guess being heterosexual, male or white is a big no no these days. Gonna hide now from the PC police. @Pierce2Daniel will post a couple more black actors as James Bond possible candidates. Someone else will say Bond just needs to be British and ethnicity doesn't matter. Pish-posh-people, I call them. @Pierce2Daniel is a brilliant internet scavenger, a valuable member and a very opinionated person, but, but, he also believes his stance on race and gender equality is a big unifier. It's not. It's divisive and it's destructive, as it destroys the identity of a beloved character to serve an agenda, whether he insists on not having one or not.
James Bond is a literary character created by an author who went great lengths to describe him to a great detail. Reimagining him to full extend is downright disrespectful to his creator.
I'm soooooooo tired of this endless discussion about Bond being black or asian, or a woman, or gay, or whatever. He can't be purple or an alien, damn it. James Bond is a male caucasian British.
Want other things in your life, go find them. Really, go find other character that better suit your sensibilities. Heck, create one if you will. Write about a black British spy. Make millions out of it. I'll probably love it, if it's done right. Please, by all means, do it. And stop pestering this crowd about your fantasies of a black James Bond. James Bond is not black. Nor a woman. Nor an alien. Nor a chihuahua. Nor a giant fire breathing monster. Nor shark. Nor you. James Bond is James Bond, as his author created him in his many written pages, which I'm guessing you've never read. Have you, @Pierce2Daniel? Have you read Fleming? All of it? Are you in favour of respecting an author's view on his own characters? If not, shame on you. How disrespectful. I thought you were a modern sympathetic moral man. Guess I was wrong, then.
Rant over.
Jet black. There happens to be an actor playing James Bond right now, and that actor is blonde. I, for one, don't like that he is blonde. Although I do like the actor who plays him. But I won't pretend hair colour is the same thing as ethnicity or gender. If you say it's got the same weight to it, you're delusional.
If memory serves, there was another actor whose hair color was also far from jet-black. His personality was not quite like Fleming's Bond either.
When it comes to determining which actor should play Bond, I don't think the color of any body part is important.
What's the point really? Like seriously, what would be won by having a black actor play James Bond? What would be accomplished for either the Bond franchise or for Black actors (and people, i guess)
Because from the Sound of it you, and many others, seem to think there would be this huge social accomplishment or something.
I just don't see what it's supposed to be.
You make it Sound like having a black Bond is like electing a black president. Yeah black people have such low self esteem collectively, and no culutre to be proud of, that they REALLY only wait for Bond to finally turn black so they can celebrate in the streets lol.
All i see is pissed off Bond fans on one side, and pissed off black people on the other who would feel like being tricked into watching Bond flicks by turning the character black without any good reason.
("jumping on the black Panther bandwagon, cheap")
Let black heores be black and white heroes be white. We need more black heores, more repesentation (IF there is a market and audience for it, no one likes to burn money), sure, but keep it true and original! Would anyone here care to watch a white Blade film? That would feel just... *shudder*
Hear, hear. Best post I've read in a long time on here. Time to stop your crusade @Pierce2Daniel . Fun's over.
Check out BlacKkKlansman.
Seems more like you want to feel good about yourself for supporting the idea, since the actor being the best would just be a bonus.
And @Pierce2Daniel I know that half of what you do is to shit stir and then sit back and watch but we are a family here and you need to keep this crap to yourself.
How you have never received an official warning on here from the mods by now I will never know!
What 'crap' do I need to keep to myself? Expressing a view about a talented actor who could play the role of James Bond is the point of this thread. If you don't like the option, then by all means express that opinion. But by stating that my rationally explained choices deserve an 'official warning' feels a little unwarranted.
Yep, I've read all of Fleming.
Have you read any Shakespeare? I saw three productions of Hamlet within the last few years. Each featured an actor with a different ethnicity. No one had the conversation of respecting the author and ensuring they hired a white actor of Danish heritage.
The Bond films are art and art is capable of interpretation by the artist. I want to see different interpretation on the art-form.
As explained above, my decision has absolutely nothing to do with identity politics.
Now an actor who stars in a top British thriller series has been talked about alot. He's discussing with this management team about 'coming out' before his big superhero movie debut next year...if he becomes Bond will that affect your enjoyment of his protrayal of Bond?
The literary protrayal of Bond ended many years ago, there's no excuse for having a right colour of Bond actor argument. No excuse.
It would be the fear that the writers would use it as an excuse to change Bond's background and inject a racial element into the portrayal.
Now if you cast a British black actor and just say here's our new Bond and don't pay any attention to his skin colour, fine I'm willing to accept the idea of it.
Although I don't think anyone here could guarantee that having Bond played by a black actor wouldn't stop a writer from getting creative with who Bond is and where he came from.
There is a fear that someone would see this as an opportunity to address other racial issues and if we get into that however subtle, the blonde, not refined and brooding complaints of the Craig era would seem like chicken feed in comparison.
So can anyone who is in favour of this truly say with all conviction that a historical changing of the actor playing Bond would not be exploited?
If there is no fear of this and Bond is just Bond he just happens to be black then fine.
To be honest it won't happen - the chinese and the american box offices - the two biggest in the world, will not accept a colourful Bond. Look at the shameful way they treated the Star Wars' posters for China and the way fan boys reacted to a black storm tooper - idiots, seriously, idiots. anyway. I'm out of this non-argument and I hoping for a future of peace and harmony.
To quote another Guy Hamilton movie: 'repeat please, repeat please'.
You know exactly what utter male-cow excrement is beeing reffered to, but I'll spell it out for you:
'repeating the same propositions over and over and over again, claiming you don't have an agenda, letting that Hamlet argument come up again, then claiming half the British elite schools are black these days so it makes sense to paint a white character black, etc. etc. And for what? to be able to sit on your high horse and claim those who oppose to be racist, really? 'So badly they can't even see it themselves', thus disqualifying them and 'winning' the argument? We've been here before and it's the entitled argumentation of a PC crowd that thinks it's got the sole rights to the truth. And we all know what happens to those who believe they, and only they know the truth.
I didn't bring up 'racism'.
Listen to my point. Film is an art-form, it about story and character. It is a director's medium.
Therefore, in theory a Bond film can be anything the director wishes it to be. You could have an avant-garde silent movie, you could have a period film, you could even do a science fiction film.
You have a myriad options to develop a film. I'll give you two examples:
Alphaville:
Jean-Luc Godard took a well-known detective character and redeveloped him as a weary old PI who lived in the future for a sci-fi story.
The Long Goodbye:
Robert Altman took Raymond Chandler's hero from the old film noir tradition and transplanted him to the hippy-dippy 1970s.
I'm talking about artistic expression. The notion of taking a character's race provides just one opportunity to reshape a familiar story and provide a new contour.
It's a time honoured tradition of the theatre.
If you read my posts - which you evidently have (nice to have a fan) - you'll see I am not virtue signalling, I'm not calling people racist. I'm just trying to present my view intelligently.
PS: I know most of Shakespeare’s work by heart and I tend to select adaptations which are closer to the source material. I have little love for most modern takes and variations, with rare exceptions. You see, I like Othelo to be mourish and not the mongolian from venice. Same for Hamlet. But hey, art is art and its subjective. Not that I concur with that statement, but I get we’re you’re coming from.
PPS: Bond films being "art" is something many people here will disagree strongly with. They just want a formulaic good time with their favourite character. Heck, so do I. This "let's evolve the character, let's make him vulnerable, let's introduce this or that..." has just worsen the series, IMO. Almost every single time. Yes, I've said almost. Craig did make it work in CR. But I'm tired that they're ashamed of their own product and want to make it worthy of Oscars and critical praise, when most fans just want a good Bond triller, akin to the source novels, which were not good literature, not at all, they were pulp and had a soul, but they were no Balzac, FFS. Like Hitchcock used to say, it's just a movie. Not "art", not a statement, certainly not a vehicle for social and political agendas. It's just a movie. A BOND movie. At a certain point, formula became a bad word. Too bad for us, I say. Because it was a grand formula, and it worked for years and years, and IMO, would still work today.
Too be honest, since we have to rule out Fassbender, Hardy and Elba for being too old.............I feel there aren't many yet. I'm kinda gutted that Henry Cavill is a terrible actor and already a major iconic character in another series as he would have been perfect. I don't think the next Bond has arrived yet.
Though I think Jamie Dornan has something...
I think you need to keep an eye on Nicholas Hoult and Jack O'Connell....though neither is ready quite yet
We'll have to see how things play out. But I feel like others have almost ruled themselves out through their own actions. If Cavill ever had ambitions he shouldn't have took so many lead roles in known properties. Supes, Uncle and now the Witcher? Its too much. But I wish him well.
You don't have to bring anything up whilst implying something. But ok, even though we've also covered this part of the discussion before, the 'art' theory:
Hamlet was a one-off stage play, which was set at the Danish court, but the setting didn't need to be Danish at all. There's nothing distinctly Danish to that story.
James Bond is a running series of films, in which a strong connection is laid between films, implying that we're dealing with one single character with certain character traits. Every film therefore is an extention to the storyline, whereas every Hamlet depiction is a different take on the same story.
Hence changing Bond's ethnicity would be the same as making Hamlet a lady half way through the story. That's not art, that's rubbish storytelling. Now if all the rights would be given up and some other production company would make a new series of 'Bond', they could change something like that. Who knows how the pulbic would react, but it would be a new incarnation of an existing story. However, EON can't do that as they've strongly implied this Bond, even with the reboot, is the same as in 1962. They've taken more liberties with the surrounding characters. M could change, as it's only a job title 'I hear the new M is a lady'. The current Q is again a different one than Desmond's, etc. etc.
So as long as EON is telling the story, prolonging the story by coming up with new adventures for our main protagonist, he can't fundamentally change (without killing off the frenchise).
And before you come up with Dr. Who: it's incorporated in the story of the timelord that he can come back as anything. Even a pink hippopotimus in a grey tutu would be possible. James Bond's story has been layed out already too much for that to keep the story plausible, believable and enjoyable for the public for that to happen.
=D>
James Bond is Art, sure.
But it's as much a business and a brand. EoN can't mess around with their brand too much or they loose their customers.
Changing the ethnicity of an established character that has been, and still is successful for 50+ years without any good reason other than 'yeah we just kinda wanted to try something new, i guess' will not be received well by the public at all.
You don't use a persons skill color to generate hype. That in itself is appaling, and should be to any self respecting black actor as well.
In the same quote, Elba went on to say that landing the role would put him in a no-win situation:
“And then if I get it and it didn’t work, or it did work, would it be because of the color of my skin?” he said. “That’s a difficult position to put myself into when I don’t need to.”
Cavill had no other choice. Turn down all roles, go on unemployment benefit and hope Craig quits the part?! The guy has to take other roles to sustain a career.
2005 is the only time period this century that an actor has had a realistic chance to play Bond. One year out of nineteen (2000 - 2019)! All the other years Brosnan or Craig was Bond. Cavill had to move on with his career post 2005. He couldn't turn down roles like Superman because he had no crystal ball to know if he had another chance at Bond. It turns out he didn't. Craig did give the impression he was leaving the part after SPECTRE but changed his mind.
Yeah, imagine how big of a story it will be when the seventh actor is finally chosen. There will be a generation that wasn't alive to see the last time that happened. It will be global headline.
It's a massive event, that the press love to get involved in. The actor taking on the role has a massive pair of shoes to fill, being compared to all that have come before him. It's certainly not a role that any actor can just take on. It's more than being tall, dark and handsome.
We're still quite sometime off from EON being ready to cast the next actor. Although I would imagine that they have a shortlist of potential actors, they might want to screentest down the tracks.
Actually it would be cool to time it with the 60th anniversary, the actor reveal. That'd be Awesome.
Well said, both of you, @CommanderRoss, @00Agent, well said.