Bond Girls will soon be on top, and staying alive

Gemma Arterton has reimagined her role as a Bond Girl for the #Metoo generation. Arterton played Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace, which was released a decade ago. Her character is seduced by 007 before being killed off by enemy agents – a fate so predictable that one wonders how the spy ever gets anyone to sleep with him.

Sure, he may be suave and sexy, but taking your clothes off in his presence is a licence to get killed. Indeed, the stereotype of the Bond Girl has long struck me as out of touch, and now Arterton has written a short story for a new book, Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (And Other Lies), in which her character rejects Bond’s advances.

“Maybe he is attractive, but he’s 20 years older than me, we’ve only just met, he’s a colleague…”

Cary Fukunaga, who will direct Daniel Craig in his final Bond film, adapted Jane Eyre for the big screen in 2011, and we all know the book is an early feminist work.

Could things be about to change for Bond Girls? We wait, and hope, with bated breath.