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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph James Bond: Now Disc. "Skyfall" Video Blog by Sam Mendes

Discussion in 'Community' started by big_boss_nass, Jun 12, 2003.

  1. severian28

    severian28 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 1, 2004
    ^^^^what he said. A smoking hot female James Bond thats a chauvinist towards men. One movie only. In my opinion it would work. I dont think Gina Carano would be cast in the role because shes American and something tells me she cant do accents very well lol. I dont think a James Bond or Bourne " spy type " of character would work good, either ( or as good ) because thats been done and not to the success of the better Bond movies. I do think gender bending the exact role would. Of course top level talent in front of and behind the scenes will be crucial, but a variation like this could be successful. Judi Dench completely works as M and actually has incredible chemistry with the Craig Bond. I know it's not the same thing but it proves that the franchise is powerful and can (and does) experiment once in awhile. I wouldnt mind seeing Sean Connery playing the role one more time. He already played the " aged " Bond, why not the elderly. He's still cool as @#$!.


    P.S. - let me change my opinion on one thing. Carano doing her own character with a good supporting cast and behind the scenes talent would definitely work. She is a beautiful woman and not the worst actress as far as action stars go.
     
  2. Rox

    Rox Administrator Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 24, 2000
    James Bond is a guy plain and simple. It's all about the total package. Super suave ladies man, super spy and most importantly being a man.
     
  3. timmoishere

    timmoishere Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 2, 2007
    We already have a female Indiana Jones. She's called Lara Croft.
     
  4. Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon

    Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2000
    Croft isn't a female Indy. She's a spoiled English heiress who goes on violent treasure hunts. It's like calling Ellen Ripley "the female Han Solo".:p

    ---

    Here's what I still don't get, guys. Why is it okay for Bond to move into the 21st century and wean off the racism, but not to do the same for the sexism? What is so appealing about chauvinism? Is it like the y-chromosome equivalent of how so disturbingly many white people read/watch Gone With the Wind and are somehow able to think, "Wow, what an adorable society," and actually pine for a time when people could own other people like cattle?

    Or is it an antihero thing, where we like the character in spite of this major personality flaw? But if that's the case, why not keep the racism?* What is it about sexism that's so much more forgivable or acceptable?

    The way I see it, every argument for getting rid of the racism also applies to the sexism, and every argument for keeping the sexism applies to the racism.

    *(for the record, I think they both should go. That's more or less what they did in the Dalton movies - or at least as close to non-chauvinist as 80s blockbusters COULD be - and it worked just fine. Heck, Licence to Kill is in my top five of the series.)
     
  5. drg4

    drg4 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 30, 2005
    That's a very good point, JKH, and honestly, I don't have a salient answer to offer. It's true, that even while balking at the sparse racist bits in early films such as Dr. No (?Quarrel, fetch my shoes!?), I find myself resisting any attempt to expunge misogyny from Bond's character. A ?sensitive? 007 just feels wrong. He's a monster, and an integral facet to this would be his utter contempt for women.

    What disturbs me is that this chauvinism is often played for laughs (a la Goldfinger, with all the ass-slapping and the pseudo rapes that serve as lesbian-conversions). Better that Bond's darkness be served straight up, allowing the audience to fully grasp the consequences of the Vesper Lynd fallout.

    In essence, every time a new Bond film plays, I want to hear reverberations of ?The job's done. The b---- is dead.?
     
  6. DarthBoba

    DarthBoba Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 29, 2000
    There's even mild racism (more general cultural ignorance) in the Dalton films. Remember when Bond tells his new girl that some word means "I love you" or whatever in "Afghan"? That's all well and fine...or would be if there was any such language as "Afghan". There isn't. People there speak either Pashtu, Dari, or Farsi.
     
  7. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Because it's a defining feature of the character, that's why. If you strip away everything that's remotely un-PC, you end up with a bland everyman who could be absolutely anything. Why are you even watching James Bond if chauvinism upsets you? Not dissimilar is the fact that he doesn't some anymore - Fleming's creation was self destructive and took refuge in vice, but the cinematic incarnation is already in serious danger of becoming totally generic.

    What will we be left with? You can have the quips, but they'll have to be toned down. You can have the martinis until drinking in public becomes taboo. You can have the fast, exotic cars until driving anything that runs on petrol is a cardinal sin. Isn't the fact that he shoots people kinda inappropriate as well?

    To hell with this obsession with all our entertainment being completely and totally PC. It's the opposite of entertainment.
     
  8. SithLordDarthRichie

    SithLordDarthRichie CR Emeritus: London star 9

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2003
    ^ Agreed entirely

    I care not how real Bond is, I don't care what his hair colour is, I don't care if he's racist or sexist either. I care about entertainment, what makes Bond interesting is partly his flaws, he's not perfect and he makes no secret of that fact. How he became that way can be explored, but he should be that way. After all you are basing him on a character from a book and that is how he is written so why can't he be that way?

    I don't dislike Craig as Bond or his movies, but they seem to be losing sight of what Bond is. Thankfully having Q back in Skyfall makes it sound as though they might have gadgets again.

    As for Gina Carano - She can do a female spy character if she wants, but it shouldn't be Bond it should be something different.
     
  9. Winged_Jedi

    Winged_Jedi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2003
    The guy's a heterosexual Anglo-Saxon male fantasy. Frequent sex with beautiful women, regular violence against rival men and demonstrations of superiority over other races. And all guilt-free.

    This, broadly speaking, is the appeal of James Bond. IMHO, it's dishonest to pretend otherwise. The stuff about how he can't be black because his Scottish/Swiss heritage is "part of his character". I'd wager most people aren't even aware of that heritage aside from knowing that the Connery version was obviously Scottish.

    He's an outlet for desires that modern society tends to frown upon. Why tiptoe around that fact? This too is part of the purpose of entertainment.
     
  10. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Doesn't smoke anymore.

    What I meant to say is that the character is not, and should never be a role model. Men should want to be him, sure, but as an escapist fantasy, never a standard.
     
  11. Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon

    Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 2000
    But racism and sexism weren't part of Bond's unique appeal to begin with. Those things were just inherent to the culture. What made (makes) Bond stand out is the glamorous globe-trotting and exciting espionage.

    There's no more reason to hang on to sexism than to insist it's not really Bond unless the women wear go-go boots.

    I'm not talking about PC. I'm talking about the evolution of basic human decency since the series began.

    Bond can still indulge in all his vices. He needn't be a "Mad Men"-style misogynist to be a rampant sex fiend (though again, the more chaste Bond of Dalton's films works just fine for me).

    Do you not enjoy the Bond of OHMSS, TLD, or LTK?


     
  12. Winged_Jedi

    Winged_Jedi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 28, 2003
    Don't you think that Mad Men's outdated attitudes are part of the reason the series is such a success? There is a reason, too, why Connery's Bond is consistently the most popular despite being objectively reprehensible as a human being in a way that the others aren't.

    As Four_Dot says, Bond isn't a role model, nor should he be.
     
  13. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    Bond has to have a nasty streak though. And it can't just be him killing a few people in cold blood. If you were to look at him objectively, you wouldn't necessarily "like" him in the true sense. It's just that his perspective is the one we always get (I'd like a Bond film from the girl's perspective for once). He's a brutal thing whose humanity has been hollowed out, and the important thing about his vices is that he has total control over them. He can't get cancer, he shouldn't get drunk (naughty naughty QoS), and he can essentially "use" women to further his goals.

    Even Dalton's Bond does this - he deceives and manipulates Kara, he shamelessly uses whatserface to get to Sanchez, he doesn't trust Pam, nor does he take her seriously for much of the runtime (notable since Pam is nearly the only Bond woman actually worth a damn). He just doesn't bonk everyone because of the whole AIDS scare, not politeness.

    Fleming's and Maibaum's Bond is indecent, though. That's what makes him fun. The difference with the racism is that the racism was just a part of Fleming's world, whereas the misogyny is in a way an integral part of Bond's character.
     
  14. Mastadge

    Mastadge Manager Emeritus star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 4, 1999
    Yes, Fleming's Bond was basically a thug, but the movies have never been really comfortable with that, and so we get these situations that are trying to roll "family entertainment" and "self-destructive nasty piece of work" into the same franchise, and it doesn't really work, at least in the Bond films I've seen -- it often comes across as just making light of misogyny and violence. Then, Bond has never really been my cup of tea and I've never much loved the stories or the films, as much as I've sometimes wanted to, so I'll resume lurking in this thread.
     
  15. Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon

    Jedi_Keiran_Halcyon Jedi Knight star 6

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    Dec 17, 2000
    Absolutely he can. And I agree with Craig's comment a few years ago that Bond can just as easily "use" a man, should the opportunity present itself.

    Bond is generally misanthropic, and his "love-em-and-leave-em" approach to sexual conquest should be an extension of this. There's no reason for him to be particularly misogynistic above and beyond that.

    How so?

    I do, and it's one of several reasons I'm a decided non-fan of the show.


    Several reasons, actually. He was also the original; his films set the templates for the franchise, he's in more good Bond movies than any other. Connery himself is also much more of a "star" than the other actors.

    And for what it's worth, Moore's Bond is easily as reprehensible - especially in his first few outings.

    But yes, there's a lot of conscious and subconscious racism and sexism behind many people's enjoyment of the Bond franchise. Personally, I don't think that's such a good thing, and would prefer Bond films that don't encourage feelings of racial/sexual superiority.
     
  16. Penguinator

    Penguinator Former Mod star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    May 23, 2005
    I have to admit that's a reason why I've grown to detest Mad Men, but modern Bond (that is, the Craig movies) makes that sexism and "user" nature of the character into something akin to actual character flaws. Of course that doesn't really apply to the older movies, though, so it's admittedly not the greatest argument.
     
  17. The_Four_Dot_Elipsis

    The_Four_Dot_Elipsis Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 3, 2005
    It's a part of his limited world view, it's a character flaw (and every character should have them), and unlike racism it is tied intrinsically to his behaviour and actions. The character itself is a product of a certain era, and while you can update that, you have to carry elements over. James Bond befriending a woman is out of character, James Bond slapping a woman is par the course. Something I think Fleming did subtly (and the filmmakers, occasionally) is blur the line between Bond and his direct adversary, several of whom are just as bad or worse than he is when it comes to women. It's ingrained into the dynamic of Fleming's universe and how it functions.

    Race itself, however, is never a central focus in Bond. It might a device sometimes, but most of the time it's just window-dressing, just part of a description.

    I don't even know where this complaint comes from though, in terms of modern Bond - the villains are more misoginystic than Bond ever is. The most recent Bond girl barely even functions as a Bond girl at all, whereas the villains are indulging in rape and abuse and whatnot.
     
  18. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 4, 2008
    I was under the impression that this was what the Internet is for. :D

    Hard to disagree. Is that Lucius Fox's son (you know, because he's black), or is it a conceptual "African-American Bruce Wayne"? Either way, I like what I see except he needs more cowl.
     
  19. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 4, 2008
    This is what I'm on about. Certain characters have an unbreakable, inviolable "look" that may include skin and hair color. Now that I've conceded Batman could work as a non-"Caucasian" (whatever that means; his ancestors were from England, which is nowhere near the Caucasus Mts.), I'm holding firm on Superman and James Bond as required to be "white" (meaning peachy-goldish-pinkish) by dint of their historical iconography.
     
  20. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    This is persuasive and I agree with all of it. Bring down the race wall; these are fictional characters. I'm with you...

    ... right up to this part, then I go cold. Here in central Texans I've known enough small-town Mexicans and Indios to have long ago dissociated "blue-eyed white dudes" from small-town America. Superman is required to be "white" (peachy-gold-pink) not because he's All-American (which in my view we all are, Natives and interlopers alike), but because that's what he looks like. It's a physical characteristic, like his black hair. If you wouldn't cast a freckle-faced redhead as Superman/Clark Kent, you can't make the case that Superman's "race (meaning skin color)" is not essential to his character. His suit is blue, his cape is red, his skin is peachy. His look -- his historical iconography -- is what's essential, IMO. YMMV.

    Supe's suit variations have been very minor over the decades (up to and including the recent DC reboot); they always keep the same colors: red, blue and yellow. An occasional alternate suit will appear for a story arc, like Rise of the Supermen and so on, but the classic red-and-blue always returns. It's visually iconic and its creators know this. Clark has never had curly red hair or freckles, or blond hair, and he should never have brown skin for the simple reason that that's not what he looks like.

    I'll get back round to Bond in forthcoming posts, but the same basic argument applies to 007 as to Supes.
     
  21. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 4, 2008
    Craig's hair is about a shade lighter than Roger Moore's, but it's darker when it's wet. We have this conception of Craig as being straw-haired blond, when really he has a tan color that darkens drenched in sweat... just like Roger Moore. But whatever, Fleming described Bond's hair as being "dark", and I grew up with Moore as THE one and only 007 (I didn't see a Connery till the 80s), so for me it works either way.

    The rest of your post I tend to agree with, though at this late date I'm starting to see a case for Bruce Wayne being black. Wealth and prestige have been available to African-Americans (from the standpoint of societal acceptance) at least since the 70s; Bruce's father could have been a successful doctor, who parlayed his earnings into the stock market, then industry. Where the Wayne family money came from is not as important as that it's there. As to Batman himself, his face is so often in the shadows one scarcely has a chance to register what hue it is. And because he has so little of it showing, Batman's skin color is not tied to his iconography so strongly as Superman's... or Bond's.
     
  22. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    Carano may be cute but that doesn't earn her the right -- or the rationale -- to do a "gender bending", "smoking hot female James Bond thats a chauvinist towards men". Pardon me, but that is one of the worst ideas for a "reboot" I've ever heard. The whole core of chauvinism derives from the idea that women are the weaker sex -- which, from a standpoint of sheer physical size and strength, they generally are. Chauvinism goes a step beyond, into a might-makes-right mentality. The casual, almost angry promiscuity and the shoving all derive from that core conceit.

    A gentleman, on the other hand, recognizes that women are inherently awesome, and that this piffle about their comparative physical weakness is a red herring, a sidebar to women's due respect and admiration. Bond pushes women around because he can, and because, presumably, he gets off on it. The reverse of this, a female chauvinist, who thinks that women deserve to be in charge because they're physically larger and stronger than men, would only seem laughably insane. Who is this girl kidding? With that attitude, she's setting herself up to get beaten down by a normal-sized man with adequate fighting skills. By and large, this is just the nature of the (human) beast. Sexual dimorphism is a beyotch.

    Even if you have a tough, hard-hitting, Onatopp-type character who pushes men around and bonks them into comas, this only works against wormy, submissive men. Where's the fun in that? If we're doing the reverse of the Bond franchise, in place of the bikini-clad babes there will need to be broad-chested hunks. The women in the audience will want to see well-muscled stallions -- not squishy ninnies too meek to fight back against a pushy girl. I'm not buying a word of this.

    Rogue-1-and-a-half has the right of it: the interviewer was leading Carano to agree with him, but it's not a realistic or workable idea in the least.
     
  23. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 4, 2008
    I disagree, personally, that the "demonstrations of superiority over other races" bit is part of "the appeal of James Bond". For one matter, beyond the first film in the franchise I'm hard pressed to think of an instance of overt racism (I foresee a flurry of responses postulating same...) being condoned or encouraged in a 007 film. Certainly international settings require the villans (and allies) to be, well, international.

    On that score, what are we to make of Bond's many triumphs over Germans and other Northern Europeans? They are "white" and "Caucasian" and even "Anglo-Saxon" too. What a mixed message the filmmakers must be sending. ;)
     
  24. Merlin_Ambrosius69

    Merlin_Ambrosius69 Jedi Master star 5

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    Aug 4, 2008
    I'm with Four_Dot on most of this, and may I say quite well said, too. I see Halcyon's point but ultimately I view the sexism as part and parcel of Bond's character. Vesper screwed him over, or so he believed, and in a way she did, but in a way she saved him, and either way she killed herself over it -- no wonder he's temperamental with women.

    But I want to object to the claim that "[t]he most recent Bond girl barely even functions as a Bond girl at all"... If you mean Camille Montes, I submit that she is in the tradition of Domino Derval and Melina Havelock, all sultry brunettes who want revenge for their family's deaths and, through Bond, achieve it. Also, it's laudable that 007 declines to put the moves on her, because their relationship is unique. Bond gleefully beds Agent Fields because she means nothing to him; with Camille there's a deeper simpatico, it seems, which keeps them from casually boinking.

    EDIT: Aaaaand I'm done for the interim. Sorry for the multiple posts, but there were too many responses to format them into one huge post. :cool:
     
  25. Ramza

    Ramza Administrator Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 13, 2008
    That's actually David Zavimbe, alias Batwing from the eponymous ongoing by Judd Winick (Who, in a rare turn of events, is actually writing well). He's a member of Batman, Inc. who operates out of the DRC. Seriously good comic book, probably best described as Batman meets Iron Man in Africa, if Bruce Wayne were a cop. Check it out if you get the chance.