Bond, James Bond
“History is moving pretty quickly these days, and the heroes and villains keep on changing parts,” Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond wrote in 1953.
When I was growing up in the 1960s, attitudes of most people were much different from what they are today.
I read the 12 books by Fleming in the James Bond literary franchise. While the books are about Bond’s adventures as a British spy who is licensed to kill, Fleming was able to sneak in a lot of commentary on many of the social issues of the day.
The original Bond books were like a photograph that captures a fraction of a second in time. The Bond books captured the attitude of the day on many things.
Fleming wrote those books from 1953 until his death in 1966. He died while writing “Man with the Golden Gun” and the book was finished by another writer.
Later this year will mark the 70th anniversary of the publishing of the first Bond book “Casino Royale.”
Ian Fleming Publications Ltd, the company that retains literary rights to the series about the iconic British agent, has decided that the books as Fleming wrote them contain some offensive language.
So that company has decided to give the books a “sensitivity review” before publishing them again.
Racial slurs towards black people will be removed.
In a statement, the company said: “We at Ian Fleming Publications reviewed the text of the original Bond books and decided our best course of action was to follow Ian’s lead. We have made changes to Live and Let Die that he himself authorized.
“Following Ian’s approach, we looked at the instances of several racial terms across the books and removed a number of individual words or else swapped them for terms that are more accepted today but in keeping with the period in which the books were written.
We encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published in April.”
Fleming said it best: “The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.”
As Fleming wrote him, the character of Bond drank too much, smoked too much, gambled too much, frequently used women for sex and killed people for a living. The character of Bond was not a nice man.
Not every insensitive thing is being removed.
In “Casino Royale,” Bond’s thoughts on women were: “Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them.”
In the book “Goldfinger,” Bond seduces the female lead with an unlikely name. She was played by Honor Blackman in the 1965 movies.
The woman is a lesbian until she has sex with Bond. After that encounter, she became straight and turned her back on being a criminal.
In that same book he wrote: “Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and
‘sex equality.’ As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits--barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them.”
Nothing has been said about changing the books when it comes to offending the LGBTQ crowd.
The “me too” generation will likely find some things very offensive in the books such as this quote from “The Spy Who Loved Me: “All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.”
Fleming’s depictions of other ethnic minorities will remain. The famous character “Oddjob”, a Korean character henchman of Goldfinger, will remain unchanged.
Before buying the new “sensitive” version of the Bond books, people should recognize the actions of Ian Fleming Publications for what they are -- a marketing tool.
This move is less about being “sensitive” than it is about gaining free publicity that will be used to sell their product.