If 007 needs update, think ‘street’

ONE of the silliest things Ed Miliband did during the last election campaign – there were a few, I admit – was call for a female James Bond.

I never doubted the then-Labour leader’s commitment to feminism, but this smacked of something squeezed out of a Things Ed Should Say To Be As Inoffensive As Possible to a Narrow Section of the Electorate committee, rather than a remark he would come out with naturally.

I am not saying Ed wakes up every morning and says to Justine, “Stick the kettle on, will you, love?” but I doubt he was ever sensitive enough to oppose the Bond films, either. Now, of course, the Labour Party is about to elect someone who probably would not only want to get rid of James Bond, but also ditch the whole of MI6 because of its legacy of imperialism and a neo-liberalist agenda to rid the world of baddies.

Anyway, Daniel Craig, who is about to release what may be his final Bond film, has fallen for the same sweet delusion that women don’t like the original shag-and-leave-portrayal of 007, immortalised by Sean Connery but also camped up by Roger Moore.

Craig, in an interview with Esquire, says that previous incarnations of Bond, before he came on the scene in 2006, were “sexist and misogynist”. Bond is “very f****** lonely … there’s a great sadness. He’s f****** these beautiful women, but then they leave and it’s sad. The world has changed. I am certainly not that person.”

Oh get over yourself, Daniel. It’s only a film. Everyone – men and women – knows that you are not James Bond, but an actor who has clearly forgotten his down-to-earth background as the son of a naval midshipman from Chester – easily done when you are making millions out of portraying a “sad loser” forced to drive an Aston Martin and kiss beautiful women.

Ian Fleming didn’t create a righton geography teacher, after all. The character is who he is, and for Craig to apologise for it seems churlish, at best.

Sexist

To describe Bond as “sexist”, even at the peak of double entendredom in the 1960s and 1970s, misses the point about 007. Okay, so that era had the most ludicrously cartoonish Bond Girl names, yet they weren’t weak, demure women who ran away from trouble, but kick-ass pilots, such as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, or ocean-diving assassins, such as Honey Ryder in Dr No.

They are not forced into having sex with Bond – it is always two consenting adults. To misquote the old advert from the Inland Revenue, sex doesn’t have to be sexist.

Of course, it would be great to have a female spy also saving the world, but for this we don’t need to feminise 007 into Jane Bond, just create something new along the lines of Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

Personally, I find the Craig-era Bond a bit of a bore. Skyfall was spectacular and gripping, but that was more down to the plot and Sam Mendes’s direction.

Was it the psychodrama of 007 battling his inner turmoil that led Skyfall to be the most successful British film ever?

I doubt it. Yet every time there is a new Bond film, the associated PR commentary tells us that this will be the spy’s deepest, darkest moment yet. This tagline in itself is becoming as hackneyed as the way Bond takes his martini.

To be fair to Craig, he says he loves “all the old gags and everything that goes along with that”, but the actor seems so tortured by playing 007, you wonder whether he thinks he is Bond.

It is clearly time for a reboot. Idris Elba, who seems perfect for the role and is the bookmakers’ favourite, is described by Anthony Horowitz, the author of the new Bond novel, as too “street”, by which he obviously means “black”.

This is an outrageous way to describe a versatile actor.

If we can visualise a female Bond, then why on earth can’t we let an ethnic minority actor take on the role? – The Independent