JANE BOND? NO WAY
Women deserve their own heroic roles
Some prominent female actors have recently said they wouldn’t be averse to playing James Bond should the iconic role be gender-flipped and proffered to them.
Gillian Anderson approvingly tweeted a fan-made poster of her as the famous British spy.
Quantico star Priyanka Chopra told Complex magazine she had no interest in playing a Bond Girl because “I want to be Bond.”
Their comments are probably as much about a desire for a Bond-like role as they are an expression of a desire to don a tuxedo, strap on a Walther PPK and introduce themselves as “Bond. Jane Bond.”
Predictably, their remarks prompted the usual round of complaints that women can’t play James Bond because of tradition, or for some other litany of excuses.
The complainers’ reasoning is wrong, but the conclusion is correct. Yes, women should get great spy roles. But they shouldn’t play James Bond.
James Bond isn’t required to be a man because only a man can carry off a credible action sequence, or only a man can romance a series of beautiful women, or only a man can credibly represent the British Empire, or any such similar nonsense. Women can do all those things in real life and we certainly should be permitted to do them on screen.
Instead, James Bond should be played by a man because the character is a study of masculinity in a particular context.
Having a woman play the premier spy in the British secret service, a character who uses her sexuality to gain information and advantage without being judged for it, and who goes to great lengths in defence of her country, would be fascinating. A performance like that would challenge assumptions of what men and women can do.
But it wouldn’t explore the thing James Bond movies are designed to explore: what’s considered desirable and admirable in a man at any given moment.
Casting a black man, like David Oyelowo or Idris Elba, as James Bond would give the Bond franchise a new perspective on the intersection of masculinity, race, sexuality and power, a particularly potent combination given the legacy of British colonialism and Bond’s place within it.
Casting an Asian man would push back against the way Hollywood has traditionally treated Asians and Asian-Americans as socially awkward, asexual nerds, especially at a moment when rising South Korean cultural influence is offering powerful alternatives to that model.
But beyond the question of what James Bond is for, I think it’s worth asking whether allowing women to step into roles previously reserved for men is a significant step forward for gender equality in the entertainment industry. As much as it might be a fun change of pace to see Anderson or Chopra in Bond’s shoes, she’d be an exception rather than the rule. And it’s the rule that matters.
If our goal is for Hollywood to create action-oriented jobs for women that will be available for decades to come, then we need franchises built around women. We need roles like James Bond or Jack Ryan or Captain Kirk that are designed to be occupied by a rotating series of women.
Borrowing Bond’s tux might be a fun fantasy. But real power means a role we don’t have to give back to the men.