Bond Beyond Belief

~ Opinion ~

The greatest suspension of disbelief in new James Bond is that afforded to human relationships...

I have only a modicum of experience with James Bond films. I remember a couple of Pierce Brosnan's films from my childhood - especially Die Another Day (2002), which is generally considered one of the high watermarks of silly in 007's cinematic oeuvre. When Casino Royale (2006) released I was a teenager, more likely to be won over by a gritty reimagining. But I was also a precocious young film fanatic, forging my path away from mainstream action fare that I deemed too shallow. Casino Royale did not impress me and I've stayed away from the series ever since. Until recently. It would seem I've found my way back to shallow, mainstream action fare. I haven't lost my critical eye for these films but I am far less attached to my assumptions about them. I was especially inspired by a ranking of James Bond films by The Back Page podcast, the perfect accompaniment to a long painting job. The ranking reflected a generally very positive judgement of the new films starring Daniel Craig, starting with Casino Royale. So I thought I'd give them a whirl. The elephant in the room for me and many others when it comes to Bond is misogyny. He is the ur-example of a predatory sleezeball who assumes women exist only for his pleasure. Without ever having watched much of Sean Connery's Bond, I can still clearly picture him lecherously smirking around the room, womaniser par excellence. He's a cultural icon, baby.

Despite the thorough effort to 'modernise' Bond for a new era, the Daniel Craig films (beginning in 2006 with Casino Royale) have failed to shift the sexist baggage of the spy hero. One interaction in Quatum of Solace (2008) is unwittingly revealing. After leading Camille towards her car (their first meeting having been a fine line between rescue and kidnap), Bond declares, "You're going to show me Dominic Greene's Tierra Project. Are you up to it?" Knowingly, Camille responds, "Do I have a choice?" Bond replies dryly, "Do you want one?" It perfectly encapsulates Nu-Bond's failure to update its misogyny: a belief that demonstrating awareness and giving women a little more attitude is sufficient. Camille's knowing line might be spoken as if it is assertive but, in the end, it's merely descriptive, the irony extinguished. In this moment, as in others, Bond decides for women, at times against their wishes and often without explanation. "There's something horribly efficient about you," says Camille. "What a compliment," says Bond.

In this page's lead image from Casino Royale, 007 forces a kiss on Vesper Lynd with no prior warning because he has decided it is necessary for their cover. When Bond asks Camille if she wants a choice, it seems to me he is really asking us: do we really want to see women with agency? Or do we just want to see them being sexy and doing sexy with our main man James?

What? smirks the ghost of Sean Connery. Did you hope for more? It may have only been four years, but a lot changed between Pierce Bronsnan's reign and the first time we looked down the barrel at Daniel Craig. Die Another Day (the final Brosnan joint, 2002) was released just months after The Bourne Identity. Next to the uber cool and deadly serious Jason Bourne, Bond was a camp romp. The '90s had been firmly sealed away by The Matrix, an intellectual action film that touched on cyberpunk and Buddhism with an uber cool and deadly serious leather-and-shades aesthetic that set a new bar for the genre. Action films were growing up. Casino Royale delivered a thorough reimagining that found success among critics and fans alike. Recasting Bond as uber cool and deadly serious, there was more brutal and high-octane violence. There were new themes of consequence and conscience. There was a conscious rejection of some tropes - gadget and cars - and playful subversions of others - tuxedos, primarily. There was generally an attempt to move much closer to realism (James' love of a vodka martini has, under Daniel Craig, become functional alcoholism) although, in the case of its protagonist, the attempt at realism ultimately fails.

To get the compliments out of the way, the action scenes of Nu-Bond are almost without comparison. Practical effects, large budgets, imaginative choreography and huge, elaborating settings. I enjoyed almost all the films for this reason. Is that enough complimenting? But no matter how entertaining these films are, that failure of realism when it comes to human relationships is what really strikes me when watching Bond. After all, how many functioning alcoholics are consistently victorious heroes?

In particular though, I'm talking about the main character's romantic relationships with women - because, frankly, they constitute most of the relationships in these films, and because misogyny is already the elephant in the room. But other relationships too strain plausibility and make me wonder just what these films and filmmakers are really interested in.

Pretty much every character in every one of these films is in thrall to Bond's charm. Whether it's Q and Moneypenny's mysteriously expediated trust or M's blinkered faith in Bond's righteousness, everyone believes in our hero no matter how much collateral damage he causes outside of his professional remit. Skyfall (2012) introduces a surrogate mother-son relationship between M and Bond, which sacrifices his stoicism in order to better motivate him in his fight against Raoul Silva. Silva, like so many antagonists, is also somewhat besotted with 007. Every villain makes the mistake at one point or another of foregoing their normal ruthless behaviour to toy with Bond for the sake of suspense. Yet more familial twists lie in wait in Spectre (2015), which fleshes out a reimagined for James backstory. That film notably struggles with reimagining, however, due to rights obtained between Skyfall and Spectre. The world around Bond requires substantial manipulation to make it fit the new storylines.

There isn't always tight and believable logic in action movies, and such flaws aren't necessarily enough to write them off. But in Nu-Bond, unconvincing story arcs are underwritten by unconvincing characterisation, like Mr White's turn from recurring villain to reluctant informant. Unconvincing characterisation rubs shoulders with unconvincing romance, like Madeleine's swift switch from "come near me and I'll kill you" to "I love you". The crucial shared failing here is unexplained character development. In the case of the first example, this occurs in the service of plotting. In the second, it occurs in the service of James Bond.

It is important to establish how much Bond's identify is wrapped up in the women he encounters. At the beginning of Skyfall, we see James' on a kind of vacation period. He is immediately shown to be sharing his bed with a woman who is neither heard nor seen again. Couple this with the title sequence of Spectre, which features female figures with shadowed faces fawn over Daniel Craig, it is obvious that power over women in Bond films are significant aspects of the protagonist. He is incomplete without them. They are accessories, mostly serving to double down on 007's (self-delusions of) (gendered) superiority - in other words, his toxic masculinity.

Female characters are just as superficial as the locations and look how those are treated: ludicrous pile-ups of collateral damage in stereotyped, aesthetic snapshots. İstanbul represented as sandy markets and carpeted opium dens. Mexico City a dusty beige hosting a Dia de los Muertos parade. It's crude, shallow and destructive in the name of entertainment. It is a harmful and unacceptable way to treat places - and women. It is not a small harm. To think otherwise is to claim unusual ignorance of domestic abuse, the gender pay gap, women's safety on the streets and institutal oppression such as the US sepreme court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Far from an exhaustive list. This is an age in which it is imperative to create art that fights for women's rights. Spectre, by contrast, barely goes fifteen minutes without another scene adding to James Bond's problematic love life.

In that film, villain C accuses M of being stuck in the past. It actually makes sense to see our heroes as emblems of the past. We are still being sold the same retrograde misogyny and that we cannot expect more. In No Time to Die (2021), Bond seems to concur: "In my humble opinion, the world doesn't change that much." What could possibly be the reason Bond is so stuck in the past? When a new Bond actor auditions for the character (one of the most iconic characters ever, don't forget), they have to perform one particular scene for the producers in order to prove themselves. It is the bedroom scene from From Russia with Love, the second ever screen Bond, as portrayed by Sean Connery in 1963. This scene actually contains very little except for Bond discovering Tatiana in his bed. At one point she says to him, quite out of the blue, "I think my mouth is too big." James Bond replies, "No, it's the right size. For me that is."

I hope it is unnecessary to explain the ick the comes from watching this scene. It seems incontrovertibly ridiculous to me that an exchange like this should be a character baseline from which to set the barometer of acting chops. If this is the vibe you're going for, it probably is my fault for expecting more. Producer Barbara Broccoli, who effectively controls the Bond franchise, said of casting Craig: “[we] wanted to focus on what a 21st-century hero would look like”. She added: “Daniel gave us the ability to mine the emotional life of the character … and also the world was ready for it." Barbara seems to see a different 21st-century world to me. The world I see is ready for filmmakers who engage with real-world issues and take responsibility for the messages they spread. It is one ready for proper gender equality, ready for art that works to erode the patriarchy. It's ready for characters (even men) with real human-to-human interactions. More than ready - the world has begun doing these things. "I think these movies reflect the time they are in, and there’s a big, big road ahead reinventing it for the next chapter and we haven’t even begun with that." I hope that whenever Bond returns, Barbara sees the world a lot closer to the way I see it. I hope that the world reflected in future 007 movies is one that believes in better human relationships.