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I think Bond asking Paloma to turn around was a joke.
Oh. Ok.
Something in the water tonight?
My humle take is this: Fiction - movies and books - have always impacted society, inspired change, and shaped culture and society in profound ways, for better or worse (Griffith's 'Birth of a Nation' made it cool to be a member of KKK, Spielberg's 'Jaws' made everyone fear sharks and Fincher's 'Fight Club' caused several real fight clubs to be started around the world, etc)
I think it's well-established that filmmakers or (known) writers have the potential to drive positive change and contribute to a more inclusive society. It can be environmental awareness, creating role models or something else.
But the question is: must they? I wouldn't want every blockbuster to carry some sort of "message" whether it being social or cultural. This limits creativity. Most often I just want to be entertained, and if the protagonist is slapping women around because it fits the script (maybe portraying a darker side in the character) if people get killed left and right or the lead does drugs and robs banks, it's all fine with me.
Look at what happened to comedy. I have grown up spending a lot of time laughing at the Monty Python series and their movies, and the movies from the Zucker brothers. John Cleese is right: no one dare make movies like that any more because those sort of jokes and scenes are no longer cultural appropriate.
So how does the character James Bond move forward? Should he be a role model (for the new generation) then he does have to "behave", treat all women with respect, be environmentally responsible etc. But if he is (still) a flawed character, we needn't condone everything he does.
More specifically, I don’t think people are saying he needs to treat all women with respect, but it seems pretty obvious that Bond slapping a woman or abusing a woman isn’t something we should have back. It doesn’t achieve anything whatsoever and if you feel like you’re missing out on something there, then I’d be quite troubled personally. To clarify as well, there’s a difference between Bond, for example, fighting against a female villain or henchwoman and Bond slapping and abusing a Bond girl because he doesn’t like what she’s said or done. Nothing is lost from this. James Bond is still James Bond.
All I will say, is that when it comes to respecting women in general. Part of me, can’t believe I’m having to explain this. If we want to believe that this woman would stick around with Bond, beyond a one night stand, then respect for her he should have. If that’s something that develops over time, fine and that’s probably more interesting, but for me, that relationship can only be believable if there’s mutual respect. Otherwise we end up back to the days where even the main Bond girl was nothing but “arm candy”.
That’s not actually true at all though is it? If Python and the Zucker stuff had anything in common stylistically it’s that they were extremely silly. Being silly is not culturally inappropriate at all and it hasn’t passed out of fashion- there’s plenty of silly humour around. You can cherry pick one or gags from each which would be a bit more frowned upon now, but they’re not representative of the whole and both remain very popular and well-regarded- much like the Bond films, really.
Those particular things have stopped being made because the people behind them are very old/dead, not because they’ve been outlawed (although that hasn’t stopped an upcoming Naked Gun reboot, which I’m slightly hesitant about- regardless, it’s being made, contrary to this idea that ‘no one dares to make it’).
As for Bond slapping women, I don’t think it’s complicated. Audiences can feel something take them out of the film. I think for a lot of people today, seeing Bond slap Andrea or Tatiana is weird viewing that has that effect. I think to some extent it always did to be honest. They were meant to be ‘shocking’ scenes. And you can argue they’re not in the precedent of the character - as was said Fleming’s Bond didn’t slap women in anger. In fact any hint of domestic/female abuse in the novels was associated with violent psychopaths like Milton Crest, or Largo etc. Bond’s not completely virtuous but he is heroic. I don’t think those scenes convey that. There are plenty of much more interesting and even memorable love interest/Bond scenes from the mid Moore years onwards.
That's true, and of course they did. A lot.
But other than maybe a gag or two in The Meaning Of Life, that's probably about as edgy as they got. And it's still a massively beloved film today.
It's funny because I've always thought that Connery had more chemistry with girls than Moore.
The reason why things like Python and Airplane are still watched today is because they have very broad humour (I mean this in a good way) and because they’re so easy to watch. It’s all stuff like puns, visual humour, slapstick, even a good dash of childish gags. They don’t really veer into anything too edgy thematically even if there are big ideas there (even the backlash to Life of Brian at the time was in very particular circles to some extent. Famously the Bishop/other guest who debated the film in that famous BBC interview with Cleese/Palin hadn’t even watched the film beforehand beyond clips. I know people who are religious who love that film/wouldn’t say it mocks Christianity).
It’s always worth saying no film - especially comedies - would be done the same in different time periods. So whenever the typical ‘they wouldn’t make [insert beloved film here] today’ comes up it misses the point. Anyway, I always find the examples can become increasingly contemporary depending on who’s saying it (ie. ‘They wouldn’t make Blazing Saddles today’ becomes ‘they wouldn’t make White Chicks or Tropic Thunder today’. That then can become any number of comedies from throughout the 2010s).
And Michael Deacon makes some excellent points:
The BBC wouldn’t dare make a comedy like Monty Python today
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2018/08/04/bbc-wouldnt-dare-make-comedy-like-monty-python-today/
He lists a large number of examples. Examples you would call "silly" and not culturally inappropriate? Could you imagine a sketch today that "gives you a chance to have a go at wops, krauts, nigs, eyeties, gyppos, bubbles, froggies, chinks, yids, jocks, polacks, paddies and dagoes!” or one where a singer reveals that “I put on women’s clothing and hang around in bars” – prompting all the other characters to walk off-screen in disgust?
Agreed, and to be fair it’s not an issue with Bond. It’s more a Jack Bauer thing to torture people/go into how effective it is.
Much like outright violence against women, torture is actually something in Fleming’s work more associated with the villains. If anything torture is something Bond experiences and has to overcome.
To be fair the Lumberjack song is still pretty funny. It’s about this stereotypically manly man doing something very typically unmasculine. I think something like that could/would be done today with that idea in mind to be honest (again, not in the exact same way - no piece will ever be the same outside of its time, but I can see it with the irony in mind).
Plenty of recent comedy plays close to the line. Actually I think the opposite is often true too and isn’t said as much - you couldn’t make a lot of the stuff back then that you can now (and I mean literally in many cases). If you liked The Dictator Cohen’s Who is America a couple of years ago is pretty hilarious. I’m sure there are plenty of tv show comedy examples from the 2010s/2020s too including something like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I’m a fan of anything a bit juvenile/absurd from the late 2000s/2010s - Superbad, The Inbetweeners, the Jump Street films, the Hangover movies, Anchorman etc. Not ashamed to say I laughed out loud watching Cocaine Bear in the cinema last year (more a horror comedy b-movie riff, but it’s absurd). A lot of it depends on what you find funny really.
Sure, lot's of comedies are being made, but most are not for me. I found the original Fletch movies from the 80's a laugh riot, but the remake with Jon Hamm didn't make me laugh once. Likewise I am not really into the Will Ferrell/Seth Rogen/Ben Stiller kind of comedies because they lack the clever wordplay and absurdity that makes me laugh.
As if I like women being slapped, abused or killed in movies? That depends. I would be pretty dissapointed if it didn't happen in a "Saw"-movie, but if James Bond happen to slap a women who didn't have it coming - like a female henchmanwoman or femme fetale - the only reason that could justify this would be that the filmmakers would want us to think less of him.
Fair enough. Never seen any of the Fletch movies. I’m a fan of things like Airplane and Mel Brooks films which have a lot of that wordplay/subversions. It’s just a different kind of absurdity to a lot of those examples (if anything something like Hot Rod or Walk Hard - films I find particularly funny - have more in common with Monty Python to me with their randomness, although they’re both spoofs in the same ballpark as Airplane too and have a lot of similarities).
At the end of the day comedy can be subjective. I know a lot of stuff I find hilarious (often things like toilet humour, sex gags, even a lot of tongue in cheek jokes about quite serious issues comics back in Python’s time couldn’t openly make) funny while others might fold their arms at them. It depends really.
So your point is that this idea that everything is 'culturally inappropriate' extends to absurdism in totality? That it's not seen as appropriate? That is, ironically, pretty absurd.
Comedy is subjective, that someone hasn't found anything to laugh at in 12 years isn't necessarily a sign that wokery has somehow destroyed comedy and more a reflection on that person; and to pick two comedies which are still incredibly well-regarded, even in these times in which they supposedly are rejected, which were based around mostly being incredibly silly and not satirical or mean or edgy at all as being signs that today's society is too uptight or something, doesn't really add up very well.
I'll just repeat something I said in the post you're responding to: 'You can cherry pick one or gags from each which would be a bit more frowned upon now, but they’re not representative of the whole and both remain very popular and well-regarded'. I'm not going to take anything from the Telegraph seriously because it's gone down the rabbit hole in recent years.
And yeah, honestly I think the lumberjack sketch probably would still work if it were written today. It would be written slightly differently perhaps with different wording, but it still works. The focus of the joke is on the supposed 'manly man' machismo of the lumberjacks and to undercut that, which is a joke that actually seems even more apposite today.
It is true to say that a show like Monty Python wouldn't get made today, but that's nothing to do being culturally inappropriate (because hitting men with big fish so they fall in a canal isn't culturally inappropriate) and more to do with the fact that the BBC doesn't have the money to make sketch shows anymore thanks to being starved of cash. It also is less likely to just hand a six part series to a load of university graduates without asking them what they're making anymore.
Again, it’d be done differently but not fundamentally so I think. In many ways it’s very relevant. In fact if anything I think it’d get more push back from internet reactionaries or even skittish broadcasters/distributors (who have always been around, especially so in Python’s day) than any other groups.
No. That wasn't what I was saying. At all.
Should I really begin every sentence with "In my opinion"? Like I said - most comedy today is not for me. That doesn't mean that comedy isn't being made to the joy of people with a different taste of humour than me.
You really assume a lot about me.
So I'd take it that you completely dissagree with John Cleese and several others who have being trying to make that point.... because you think it's a money issue?
I don't follow what you're saying then. You like the absurdism but no one dare make it anymore?
I thought I'd made it pretty clear I disagree with Cleese on this, I don't understand your point about money.
Cleese is a brilliant man and highly intelligent and I agree with him on a lot of stuff, but he's also quite bitter at times and has been oddly desperate to get involved with all the culture war rubbish, which is beneath him.
This is leading nowhere, and I find it a shame that one single paragraph (of mine) regarding comedy amidst a discussion about Bond, kickstarted by the great questions from Burgess, instead lead to a discussion about modern comedy instead.
You disagree with Cleese. I agree with him. Let's just leave it at that.
What I do think you were right about was:
Because I think those aren't contrary views, Bond can be both sides of that coin. And he has been.
On the very simplest level, he's the murderer who saves the lives of millions of people. He is a sort of moral paradox.
A flawed character is always more interesting, I think.
Fleming's Bond was flawed. He made mistakes, and Fleming never made his stories easy on the character.
If Bond just zipped in and out of adventures, always being right, the films would lack tension and suspense and would quickly lose appeal.
Never make the story easy or convient for the hero. Make them suffer and when it looks like all the chips are stacked against them, that's when they deliver and come out on top.
And as for bad behaviour, yes, I don't think slapping out a woman was ever cool. It was a cheap and lazy way of showing how "cruel" Bond can be. In cases like these, I will do as the producers claim that they do: go back to the source material. James Bond was/is savvy enough to put pressure on a woman, without resorting to violence.
His tactics may be uncomfortable. They may skirt a fine line, but they're still inside the border of fair play for a hero. Case in point: the Pushkin scene in The Living Daylights. Bond has put himself in a very dangous position. He's broken into Pushkin's mistress's hotel suite (after a brief and cool scene where he's scoping them out). Pushkin's armed guard is just outside, and when the Russian signals trouble, Bond thinks on his feet:
He uses the mistress as a distraction, pulls her into him, rips off her clothes, and sets her in front of the door, so that she is the first person the guard sees.
Bond takes him out with efficiency, and immediately turns back to the mistress, tossing her some clothes to cover herself, and orders her in the bathroom (and lock the door).
Totally in control in a tight spot.
Uncomfortable and skirts a line, yes. but;
Ingenious and improvised thinking (that doesn't cross the line).
It was a fantastic scene and shows us a lot about James Bond's character and how he thinks on his feet (rather than accusing a woman of being a liar and smacking her out).
James Bond wouldn't ask a girl to turn around while he undresses. Watch David Zaritsky's video with Analyze this Mr. Bond, he makes the point and I agree.
Then, eat a hat.
From here on out, MTM has ordained us to never dislike anything in a Bond film ever again.
Number One: I don't need a YouTuber to tell me how to interpret a scene.
Number Two: if you agree with him, great.
Number Three: what's the point in telling a stranger to eat a hat? I found that scene funny, and a subtle joke. So did my wife. My kids. The cinemas we saw it on had a collective chuckle. I don't agree with you that it was meant to be taken seriously. You don't agree with me that it was a joke. No biggie. So why the aggression?
Don't take everything so seriously. I was only joking. Don't interpret my comment incorrectly. You said I poisoned my water, so why the double standard?
I didn't say you poisoned the water.
My point was that people were seemingly getting testy over the silliest things.
And usually when one makes a little joke at the expense of someone else in text form, it's often followed with an 😂. That's all.
Yeah exactly, and I think CR was a great example of this. Bond was often supercool and totally in control (his entrance into the Ocean Club security zone with the Range Rover parking for example) but he also messed up occasionally and made some pretty massive mistakes (like in the Miami bits he's always taking his eye off the ball and missing things: the key tag goes missing in the Body Worlds exhibition, he loses the guy he's tailing in the airport; in the opening he kills the assassin in an embassy, he loses all his money in the poker game etc.), he trusts the wrong people (Vesper being the most obvious example) - he's flawed, but still Bond. He even does things most audience members wouldn't approve of, but that's the point of 007.
There's a line there which we wouldn't want to see him step over, though: we wouldn't forgive him anything. If Sean Connery had been up on the screen killing innocent children to get the baddie then that wouldn't have been cool. That a few things have moved over that line now, like the hitting women which peter mentions, isn't a massive surprise given that 60 years have gone by. But he's still Bond.
I wish you followed your own words then. But its not about getting testy, it's legitimate criticisms of the character choices in No Time to Die. A little while before that, we see Bond lick his fingers, maybe a trivial critique but this is something you expect to see from John McClane not the man who orders Dom Perignon '53.