Why do so many intelligent people like James Bond?

[crabby_lioness]

I grew up watching Bond movies with my Dad.  I've seen all the Connery movies, the Moore movies, and the Lazenby movie; and I find Bond repellent.  He's got a catchy theme song and cool toys; but he's a terrible excuse for a human being, and I say that as someone who likes many dark characters.  Yet many otherwise sensible people like him.  I don't get it.

Watching him as a child, I figured out early on that Bond is a thug in a Saville Row suit that the government lets off the leash of civilization to protect us from other thugs in Saville Row suits.  But he's still a thug who doesn't care who dies in the process.  He'd have sex with a girl, and if someone attacked him in the process, she would end up with the knife in her back.  Oh the story would tell you she was a "bad" girl who deserved it, but I had no doubt the same thing would happen to an "innocent" girl.  The only reason anyone came out alive from the vicinity of Bond was because he didn't happen to need them as a human shield at the precise moment they were within arm's length.

Yes, I know Kerr Avon would do the same thing, but Avon wouldn't let someone get emotionally close to him for that very reason.  That's why I like Avon and can't stand Bond.

This brutality might be justified if Bond were "the only one who could save us", but that's not the case.  The stories also make it clear there's a literal army of other people working with him.   Don't tell me someone there couldn't do a better job or find a better way.

And all the damage this does to his psyche is never addressed.  I have PTSD, I know about being one of the walking wounded.  I realized after Lazenby that any credible portrayal of Bond's psychological damage, even to the miniscule extent that they are addressed in Fleming's books, would meet with howls of outrage from the fanboys and so would never be seen.

And then there's the hilarious joke that when Fleming actually served as the British Intelligence liason to the American Intelligence forces, he condemned the very sort of behavior Bond exhibits as not being proper, effective, or British.

Or the other joke that Allen Dulles (CIA chief, 1953 - 1961) read them as escapist comedy.

So I get the catchy music, the sexy women he breezes through like toilet paper, the exotic locations, and the cool toys.  I get the darkness.  I get the fantasy about a civilized man being given a license to act out civilization's worst fantasies about barbarian behavior (as opposed to the way actual "barbarians" act) in modern settings with the latest high-tech gadgets.

I  even get that it's the Road movies with action scenes instead of musical numbers, and let's see how many people get that reference.

But once I've broken it down and put it all back together, I still end up with "Ewww."

Only now the girls are big enough (13 and 11) to run across Bond references in books and movies and ask me about them.  We've talked about it and watched the BBC "Bond car" special on youtube (That was so they could get the jokes in Cars 2.  Bond's car is so much cooler than Bond himself.)  Someday I'm going to have to sit down and watch a Bond movie with them.  IDK how I feel about that.

Comments

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Which Bond movies have you seen? I ask because, having realised some time back that I no longer wish to watch the Connery or Moore Bonds, I still enjoy Dalton and Brosnan. In Brosnan's first film, "GoldenEye", he's called out on some of this stuff. Judi Dench's M gives a hard time about his sexism, and his inability to adjust to the modern world. His enemy in that film is his old best friend, a man just like him, who happens to have gone over to the other side. Their blatant similarities are addressed, as is Bond's ruthlessness. In his third film, "The World Is Not Enough", he cold-bloodedly kills a woman, and you see that through M's eyes. It's quite clear that Bond is no hero. That's the mistake of the earlier films. We were supposed to want to be like him in the old days. Nowadays, I don't think we are.

My favourite Bond film is Brosnan's second one, "Tomorrow Never Dies". In that one he has an awesome sidekick played by Michelle Yeoh. Perhaps a good one for you to try with your daughters? There's a smart Moneypenny in the Brosnan movies as well, who stands up to Bond nicely.

I may not be the best person to answer your questions, as I mostly like the movies for the action scenes and the fun; plus, in the case of the Brosnan years, it was good to see him in the role he'd always wanted. I like the OTT bad guys he went up against, and the fun stunts. I guess I don't think about it as much as you do!

They do address some of the damage it does to him - if briefly and in passing, so as not to get in the way of the action. "GoldenEye" shakes him up a lot. A former lover is murdered in "Tomorrow Never Dies", and he goes off the rails and loses all caution and common sense as a result. The whole case in "The World Is Not Enough" is him shook up and suffering. The lack of a constant narrative from movie to movie is an effective reset button though of course. That does rather prevent any proper addressing of the pscyhological issue.

Short version! Give Brosnan a go if you haven't. Just not his last one. Please!

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

If you can't deflect the girls any further re: Bond, might I suggest one of two approaches.

Have them read the Fleming books and discuss them as period pieces, reflecting the culture of the time - put the racism and misogyny into context. Not to render it "okay", of course, but more as a way of making such racism and misogyny look particularly outdated and "old". I first read the Fleming books in the mid/late 80s and it was the first time I'd encountered the word "Negress". I was so shocked I dropped the book. Yeah, my life had been pretty sheltered...

Or.

Start with the most recent film, Skyfall.

No, Bond never really faces any consequences for anything he does but, in Skyfall, he IS damaged (although I suspect my reading of some of the mental damage he's got going hinges on knowing the story of Casino Royale plus maybe I'm projecting so I could be talking through my hat in that regard)

Your daughters are smart. I don't think they'd get suckered into thinking that Bond's typical behavior is admirable.

Me? Well, you know how I feel about the films. They're escapism and, like 98% of any entertainment out there, it has problems. But my enjoyment is sufficient that I can tolerate those problems, which is totally other from my opinion of projects like "Dollhouse"

Anyways, good luck!

ETA (having read swordznsorcery's comment) I don't think Brosnan's Bond got nearly enough kicking around and that's a shame as I think it would have improved the character. There was a constant teasing promise of seeing a more "realistic" and "damaged" Bond it was always just that: a tease. "Die Another Day" was particularly annoying in that regard, but that's just my $.02)

[ella-caramella.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I've never been a Bond fan, never liked him as a character and frankly some of the old films were just nonsensical stunts. But at the same time I'm strangely attracted by Daniel Craig's Bond, can't really guessed why as I don't find Craig attractive at all as a man, and Casino Royale was the only Bond movie I liked.

More to the point, I've always found the whole concept of the "Bond Girls" totally repellent and insulting. I guess, if you take the Bond movies in the context of period pieces and mindless escapism *heavily directed to a male audience* you can watch them in passing and forget about them the moment the film is over. I have yet to see the new one, I hope they worked a bit on his personality otherwise I will keep finding him a one dimensional character I couldn't care less about.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

I know. If I'm going to watch an improbable movie with beautiful women set in exotic locations around the world, I'd rather watch their predecessors the Road movies.

(The best part of Spies Like Us was when they referenced that fact.)

But tastes have changed.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Or Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies, which blatantly take the mick out of the early Bonds. I lost interest in the Road movies as they went on, but the first few are excellent, certainly. Have your kids seen them? I know children today are supposed to hate black and white, but that doesn't seem to be true at all.

[sistermu.livejournal.com]

I enjoy them because I know they're not real, in the same way I can enjoy Donald Duck and Chip 'n' Dale with my children. In the same way I used to enjoy superhero comics before they just became TOO repetitive and lacking in any real character development, or indeed consistency, and irritated me into ditching them. I don't analyse Bond, I don't try to convert it into reality, I just sit back and let it appeal to my base and uncivilised instincts - lizard brain, is that the term?

Sometimes I do just want to slap people. Sometimes I do just want a strong attractive man, regardless of moral position. Sometimes I want to pretend there's someone out there who will do whatever it takes to save us from the nightmares that selfishness, greed and megalomania build into our lives. Sometimes I want to pretend that there's an easily defined 'bad guy' whose defeat will make everything better. And sometimes I want to pretend that I am beautiful and sexy. I know none of this is true. I wouldn't want Bond to be true, the sheer ethical horror of the number of guards he kills alone is enough to put me off if I think about it. So for a couple of hours I don't think about it. And, as I said, it isn't as though I don't know that none of those people are actually dead. I guess that's a nice part of it too, in a way : after all that silly violence, the actors get up and walk off to have a beer or a cuppa.

For me Bond equals a cartoon or a superhero comic and sexism, I just discount it. Anyway, regrettably, not a lot of TV or film deals with psychological consequences. Wasn't there an episode of CSI where Stokes went through a very traumatic experience and then the actor didn't want to show him dealing with tge psychological consequences because he thought it would make his character 'look weak'? *sighs*. And all the X-Men in the comicbooks should be deep in therapy by now. I was very disappointed by the Star Trek Reboot because it made no effort to continue the original series courage in bucking the sicial prejudices of its age. To be true to those roots it should have had a gay character, a disabled character, a character dealing with mental illness, and characters not just of other races but characters with distinctly different nationalities.

If you're looking for social and psychological realism in genre TV or cinema, I think you'll have to travel far from the mainstream.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

Avon > Bond, 100% agreed!

The Prisoner > Bond as well.

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

The Prisoner is 100% mindfuckery, with no additives, preservatives, or artificial flavours.

[petranef.livejournal.com]

That would be why I like ti so much! :D

[eandh99.livejournal.com]

If they really want to see Bond - then Goldeneye is a great suggestion, as is Skyfall in terms of hitting all the boxes on the James Bond checklist so that you can discuss what makes a "Bond" movie and how they are problematic, as well as giving you a tough, capable female M. The Bond girl in Goldeneye is smart, useful, lives to the end and walks away from Bond because he's incapable of a real relationship The Brosnan Bond in general isn't the thug in a suit, and does show glimpses of damage underneath, less than Brosnan wanted to though. Craig in Skyfall has definite physical and emotional damage and the Bond girl "role" is taken by the ever brilliant Judi Dench as M rather than by a pretty girl in a revealing outfit.

[acechan.livejournal.com]

I never really liked any Bond movies either, until Casino Royale and now Skyfall. The thing about those two movies is that they fairly explicitly acknowledge Bond to be a terrible person, who knows he is a terrible person, and who works for the British Government (or, more specifically, M, who seems to have his trust and personal loyalty) because he does not know how to stop being a terrible person, so he might as well be terrible in the name of a good cause. That's not a hero I admire, really, but it is a character I can appreciate.