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crabby_lionessI 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.
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.
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Date: 2012-11-15 08:43 pm (UTC)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.