BOND, JANE BOND?

Daniel Craig supports the idea of a female taking over the role, but Vinay Menon has other ideas,

The strange push to turn James Bond into a woman is gaining steam.

In recent days, the two most recent Bonds — Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig — have embraced the idea of a 007 gender-swap. “Of course” the brooding spy could be female one day, Craig told Variety this weekend, while in town for TIFF.

Brosnan, who was at the Deauville Film Festival to collect a career award, was more direct. As he told the Hollywood Reporter: “I think we’ve watched the guys do it for the last 40 years. Get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there. I think it would be exhilarating, it would be exciting.”

Right. Or maybe it would be an abomination.

One of two things is happening right now: I am losing my mind or the world has gone insane. Look, I am all for equality, diversity and apposite representation on screens, big and small. Popular culture should be a reflecting pool of society. But casually giving a sex change to the character novelist Ian Fleming created in 1953 makes about as much sense as reimagining Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet as a hipster dude or casting Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattison and Jaden Smith as the new Charlie’s Angels. Why don’t we turn Chewbacca into a chick? Why should the Wookiee narrative be a regressive bastion of furry male privilege?

I’ve lost all respect for Brosnan. Bond should now be a woman? Really? That’s what you’re telling us, sir? Why didn’t you raise this between 1995 and 2002, when you held the role for four films and raked in more than $40 million? And why did you say the following in 2015: “But a female James Bond, no, I think it has to be male. James Bond is a guy. He’s all male. His name is James, his name is James Bond.”

Producers should bring Brosnan back for a new instalment: The Virtue Signalling Spy Who Loved Me Consensually And Then Used the Hashtag #MaleFeminist.

Personally, I blame former British prime minister Theresa May. No wonder our friends across the pond are trapped in this dark comedy of a Brexit mess. Two years ago, May said a female Bond would be “a great move for girl power.” Soon after, actresses — including Gillian Anderson, Emilia Clarke, Elizabeth Banks and Priyanka Chopra — championed gender change in this make-believe world of male espionage.

And, somehow, all of these otherwise smart ladies completely missed the point.

Turning James Bond into a woman isn’t progress — it’s identity theft. And you know who should be most offended by a female James Bond? Women. It’s an insult. What it says is, “We’re not going to create new characters for you broads. We’re just going to dust off this postSecond World War caricature of a deeply flawed alpha male and you go ahead and refurbish it for modern sensibilities. Instead of cigarettes and dry martinis, maybe you can vape and imbibe the occasional Aperol Spritz? Maybe you can convert Bond’s womanizing into bonding rituals with sensitive secondary male characters who yearn to understand you as a person? Maybe you can kick ass and use newfangled gadgets to blow things up responsibly?”

The world needs a Jane Bond as much as it needs a Larry Croft.

This is not to say female characters in the Bond universe, for the most part, have not been reduced to sexist caricature. The fact they are called “Bond girls” says it all. The sobriquets alone are indistinguishable from porn star names. Honey Ryder? Pussy Galore? Kissy Suzuki? Holly Goodhead? Xenia Onatopp? Octopussy?

We get it, Ian Fleming. You were a creep.

But that’s even more reason for women to stay clear of this franchise.

We don’t need a female James Bond any more than we need a male Wonder Woman. This is a dream world that was created more than a half-century ago. It does not need to be recalibrated for the present day, especially since we already have cinematic showcases of female action heroes who are worth the price of admission.

Are you kidding me? Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman? Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow? Trinity in The Matrix? Anne Hathaway as Catwoman? Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen? Uma Thurman as Beatrix Kiddo?

This is true female empowerment. Those performances are burned in my brain.

The laughably weird tokenism of a hypothetical Jane Bond is not “girl power.” It’s a patronizing kick in the mascara. As Bond’s producer, Barbara Broccoli, explained it last year to the Guardian: “He’s a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male. And that’s fine. We don’t have to turn male characters into women. Let’s just create more female characters and make the story fit those female characters.”

Exactly. And God bless you, Ms. Broccoli, for not pandering to progressive lunacy.

Ladies, by all means, create a new woman of international intrigue. I will watch and I will cheer on her exploits. I will buy my daughters the merchandise.

But James Bond is a man. He’s always been a man. He will always be a man.

Attempting to change this is not enlightened — it’s dishonesty at its darkest.

It is an affront to men and women everywhere.

Pierce Brosnan, who played James Bond in four films, had been insistent that the character should remain male. He’s recently said, however, that he now supports a woman taking on the role.