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Does Bond appeal to our darker side?
chrisisall
Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
Does our fascination with Bond appeal to the dark, disconnected side of ourselves that flings off the idea of a loving God, spirituality in general, and the good in humanity for a world of greys and indeterminate causes for conflict & human suffering? Do we enjoy Bond's sometimes easy-to-comprehend exploits as a catharsis for the more complex and troublesome world in which we live? Is Bond himself a symbol of Nietzscheian philosophy? An existentialist, postmodernist and post-structuralist construct of modern day man?
Or is Bond just great entertainment? :))
Or is Bond just great entertainment? :))
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Comments
Dreams as wish-fulfillments? How very Freudian of you, @Murdock!
8-|
Some people never find love. Take Paul Kersey for instance.
He found it and it was taken away, like Hera took it from Hercules. Much wrath ensued.
That's EXACTLY the way I see it!
[Arnold voice]
Yeah, but dey were all bad.
I want to watch True Lies again now :-)
Good idea for a thread there, @chrisisall. I think you may be on to something there, at least in terms of why some general film fans and Bond fans more specifically enjoy watching the James Bond films. There is indeed no doubt the acting out vicariously of violent urges in at least some percentage of the James Bond film audiences, although I would argue that the James Bond computer games where the player can kill as many of the enemy (or even innocents) as they so wish. So, with that health warning on your thesis I would say "yes".
I do sometimes wonder to myself why, out of all the spies in the world that propagate the worlds of literature, cinema, television and gaming, Bond is the man I am most infatuated with. My love affair with Bond probably first came from the wide-eyed reactions I had to his exploits, where he was constantly putting himself in the line of fire for the beliefs he held in England, MI6 and M, collectively. As I have matured I love him more for who he is as a man: his concrete beliefs, his beautiful flaws, and everything that makes him who he is. He certainly has his tragic elements. He is at the bottom of the barrel, a puppet, some would say, of his government who does the dirty work nobody else will. And yet he does so with determination and dutifulness, never compromising those of a higher power, and always being the man to count on when things need to get done.
He's contradictory: a lover, but also a brutal fighter, a good samaritan and a hell-raiser, a loving husband and vengeful widower. He's everything I find interesting in characters because he connects so clearly to our reality. He lives a hypocritical life, makes mistakes, and sometimes handles situations in ways you wouldn't deem popular. He is human like us, and that's probably why he has and always will feel so real to me. He is a man who understands his line of work and doesn't make excuses when things inevitably cock-up. He works in a world of grays where "good" and "bad" are often synonymous. He's been beaten, shot, cut, thrown, tortured and physically wrecked to the point of collapse, and yet he still keeps going for some reason. Who is this man, and why does he have such a high opinion of his government and the foundations of domestic and international security that he will face every obstacle in his way without pause, no matter how serious the consequences to his health?
Bond's a great mystery no matter how much we think we know of him. His character connects to the core humanity we all live with each day and caters to our fetishistic desires for thrills, escapism, titillation, exotic imagery from foreign lands, and a spy who never lays down and dies. It's very hard for me to explain what or who Bond is as either a symbol or flesh and blood man in text, yet one scene in Skyfall sums up all my love for Bond that I've ever had in just a small scene, and made me see just why he is such a big part of my life. The first time I saw the scene of Bond running to M's recitation of Tennyson, the lines echoing both of them so gloriously, my eyes instantly filled with tears. They were natural and unforced, coming directly from the emotional connection I had to Bond in that moment as he once again curbed his own interests and safety and went to save the day. I was witnessing on that day, in his 50th year on screen the perfect tribute to who Bond is and why, no matter all his faults, he is a man to be cherished and looked up to. No matter how hard he suffers and no matter how much his dissenters want him to just drop-dead and give up, Bond will always disappoint them and keep on going. For all his flaws he is the man who will come running to the aid of the people and ideals he has nothing but staunch belief in, shoot his way to sanctuary when there's no bullets left to fire, keep fighting when the round was already won and battle on with everything he has though his victory has already been assured.
In many ways, he's everything we'd like to think we would be in that situation: determined, loyal, self-sacrificing and always taking the path less desired if it was the right thing to do in the end. Much like the bulldog M passes on to him, Bond is stubborn and will survive even the most devastating of trials, through both the loss of blood and love (Tracy, Vesper). In a world of changes, Bond is and always will be the constant, the one thing that remains when all hope is lost. Yeah, I'd say that's why I love him...