How Bond stays relevant a er #Metoo
Writer Simran Hans on how Danny Boyle should bring 007 up to date — without losing his essence
WHEN ASKED HOW his Bond girls would fare in the wake of #Metoo and Time’s Up, director Danny Boyle told the room that he would be writing in “the modern world”. But where does that leave 007 himself? He’s a resourceful chap, but does he have the gadgets to survive a post-weinstein reckoning?
Bond’s relationship with women has been acknowledged both on screen and off. In Goldeneye, Judi Dench’s M called him “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur”, dismissing him as “a relic of the Cold War”, while Daniel Craig once referred to his most famous role as “a lonely, sexist misogynist”. If Bond’s sexist attitudes are woven into the fabric of the character, it’s hard to imagine those threads being unpicked without the whole franchise unravelling.
One option would be to update that sexism, which remains a modern-day problem for most women. Picture it: Sean Connery’s patronising arse-slapping antics circa Goldfinger could be swapped out for scenes of Daniel Craig leaking someone’s nudes; instead of strangling a woman with her bikini, like in Diamonds Are Forever, perhaps he could gag her with a feminist slogan T-shirt. And as for Bond’s usual tactics of sexual coercion — gaslighting is timeless!
It’s true that some scenes in Bond instalments as recent as 2012’s Skyfall play particularly badly in a cultural moment where consent is so important that it’s being added to school curriculums. It’s uncomfortable enough when he cracks onto Bérénice Marlohe’s Sévérine after discovering that she was a victim of sex trafficking, and worse when he wanders into her hotel room, uninvited, to join her for a shower. (This image feels particularly icky given last year’s reports about several women’s experiences with a bathrobeclad Harvey Weinstein.) When Sévérine is shot dead, glass of whisky balanced on her head, his only response is regarding the “waste of good scotch”. Six years later, and with the guarantee of an online backlash, it’s difficult to imagine those scenes making the final cut of a 12A-rated family film.
Yet, the impulse to fashion a freshly ‘woke’ Bond has the potential to backfire too. The virtue signalling in blockbusters from Solo: A Star Wars Story (think Phoebe Waller-bridge’s activist droid) to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (in which a female veterinarian is decried a “nasty woman”) feels shoehorned in, like an out-of-touch boardroom executive’s desperate attempt to stay relevant in a rapidly shifting world.
In Bond movies, the girls are as important as the gadgets, and to strip the series of all sex appeal would be doing it a disservice. What’s more, the spy’s macho aloofness and virile energy is part of what makes him so watchable, for both men and women. Perhaps by digging into his weaknesses and insecurities, Boyle could quietly question Bond’s particular brand of flawed masculinity instead of glamourising it. His Bond girls’ scantily clad bodies might also enjoy some agency. And instead of barging into someone’s bathroom as a form of sneak-attack seduction, his Bond might knock first, before saucily asking if they might like company.