On Sun, Jul 3, 2022 at 12:23 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > I wasn’t pushing back against your tone, which I did not find too preachy, > but more against the tone taken by my children and their friends, with whom > I have a (mostly) friendly running debate about this. > > But I also have a running (and far less friendly) debate with > acquaintances who love the Bond from the 60’s and 70’s (Connery and Moore), > and are outraged by suggestions of a non-white or non-male Bond. Not only > am I in favor of diverse Bond portrayals for lots of obvious reasons, but > one reason the outrage about it disturbs me is that it suggests a > reification and a seriousness about the classic era films and original > novels that is not justified. >
I’m not outraged by the idea, but they already made a successful franchise where Bond was an American woman… it was called “Alias” and I enjoyed it, too. At their first meeting, Judi Dench’s M referred to Pierce Brosnan’s Bond as a “sexist, misogynistic dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War,” and that’s the conceit of the character. I welcome a series about a secret agent who isn’t that, but I’d ask that he (or she) not be named James Bond. I would further make a motion that the next reboot of Bond be set back in the Cold War, because the farther you remove the character from his original setting, the harder it is to make it work. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed the Daniel Craig era, but Bond doesn’t really belong in the present day. Roger Moore himself criticized Bond diversity, saying that James Bond was > white, deal with it (in the same tone that Fox News anchors used to argue > for white Jesus and white Santa Claus). > > But of course, not only is James Bond not a real guy, but he is not even a > realistic portrayal of an MI-6 agent, nor is he really intended to be. And > the contemporary Bond is not fighting The Cold War (though he may still be > fighting Russians), and is no longer a creature of the 1960s, so there is > no reason 007 can’t be of West Indian, or Asian descent, or be a cis-woman > or a trans-man. > > > > On Sun, 3 Jul 2022 at 10:22 AM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Fri, Jul 1, 2022 at 9:23 PM PGage <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2022 at 9:57 AM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> The more I think of Bond, both in the novels and the movies, the less I >>>> like him. I'll grant there's a limit to how much we can judge characters >>>> from another era by today's standards but Bond is drawn to appeal to >>>> adolescent boys. He embodies the worst of white attitudes at the end of the >>>> colonial era and he is an out-and-out misogynist. >>>> >>> I now I am supposed to agree with you about this, but I don’t. The >>> western world was racist, misogynist and imperialistic in the 1960s. That >>> sucked. I was a kid in that decade, and even I knew that’s how it was, and >>> how much it sucked - I didn’t need Twitter in the second decade of the 21st >>> century to enlightenment me. But I don’t expect the cultural products from >>> the mid century to be censored or bowdlerized, not just because that would >>> mar the product, but because it would also cover up the fact of the >>> transgressive customs. See recent thread on the Julia Child mini series. >>> >>> I am a huge fan of Le Carre’, who is positioned as the anti Bond, but I >>> find I can enjoy both. I am not a fan of the Roger Moore era, but the Bonds >>> that followed were increasingly less chauvinistic, and even somewhat less >>> ethnocentric. >>> >>> The idea of a small group of intelligence service officers who are >>> allowed to make crucial life and death decisions affecting international >>> relations with potentially catastrophic consequences is I think an >>> inherently interesting set-up, and while Bond may not be as cynical and >>> world weary as George Smiley, he often knows enough to be almost as >>> distrustful of his own side, and of careerist conformity and ass kissing, >>> as he is of the other side. That’s not bad. >>> >> >> I'm not going to tell people what they should and should not enjoy. I >> have been developing these thoughts about the Bond franchise but I haven't >> shared them and I see my argument needs work so I'll be less of a scold. >> >> The thing I have become aware of, mostly watching European movies in the >> time of lockdown, is that there were films being made that went against >> Bond's world. Maybe they never made it beyond art theaters and college >> towns. If I'm sensitive to anything in this, it's not the existence of Bond >> movies, it's the idea that the movies are good clean fun and shouldn't be >> evaluated. >> >> Le Carré seems to me for adults in a way Bond is for teenage boys. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiHgxB8gisr6_t7175zM1r3dkazS04c7SGOxth2oTLH4ZA%40mail.gmail.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAJE-FiHgxB8gisr6_t7175zM1r3dkazS04c7SGOxth2oTLH4ZA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYLn3tYyops4eEFo20oe9BFXtmFRKDiVd2cC%2BOmyO91j4A%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkYLn3tYyops4eEFo20oe9BFXtmFRKDiVd2cC%2BOmyO91j4A%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKgmY4ADuoeYGHoCBDYmv2T5d8YOEBThoAYdewCvqxca2imJAw%40mail.gmail.com.
