Is the Bond girl a sexist RELIC?

As actress Gemma Arterton says they’re a cliche and she’ll never play one again... NO

LeT’S keep things in perspective. When woke women decry Bond girls as sexist anachronisms, they are forgetting the context in which the films were made.

i’ve never regretted playing italian secret agent Miss Caruso in the 1973 Bond film Live And Let Die. The part was so sketchy that she was originally known merely as Beautiful Woman.

Objectified? You may think that if you look at the film from the po-faced perspective of 21st-century feminism, but it is, in essence, a cartoon. it was created not to be scrutinised by the politically correct, but with the laudable aim of entertaining families.

i featured in a scene worthy of a Whitehall farce in which Bond — played by that most gentlemanly of actors, Roger Moore (pictured with me) — unzips my dress with a magic watch. The dress was a preposterous creation, with a padded bra that enhanced my bust, and the ridiculous zip wouldn’t unfasten. So three people, two of them men, disappeared under my frock to yank it down. Did i worry about the indignity? Of course not! i still laugh about it.

But i would guard against trivialising all Bond girls and portraying them as the vacuous creations of sexist male writers. The redoubtable honor Blackman, who played Pussy Galore (yes, i know the name is a ghastly double entendre, but let’s remember this is comedy) was hardly a shrinking violet.

her character was skilled in martial arts and led an all-female aviation group. She was not a cipher, any more than Diana Rigg’s Bond girl was.

Far from being stereotypes entrenched in an era of casual sexism, the Bond girls have been trailblazers.

Moonraker’s Dr holly Goodhead, played by Lois Chiles way back in 1979, was a NASA aerospace engineer long before it became fashionable to urge women to study science.

‘A woman?’ Bond asks in surprise when he meets her. ‘Your powers of observation do you credit,’ she replies with glorious sarcasm.

Neither should we overlook the fact that Monica Bellucci was 50 when she played the first Bond girl who was older than the male protagonist. Another quiet triumph for older actresses.

Now, of course, we have been promised that Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who co-wrote the new Bond, No Time To Die, will bring us a cast of strong, exciting women.

i have no doubt that she will. i just hope that, with all the clamouring to appease the politically correct, she has not forgotten that what audiences need most right now is the escapism and glamour of 007 and his bevy of unashamedly sexy sidekicks.

‘ Bond girls like me have been ’ trailblazers