Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter
With less than nine months before the 25th installment of the James Bond film series, the blog had a few basic questions about James Bond, agent 007 (?, at least where Bond 25 is concerned).
Is Bond a hero or anti-hero?
This is a subject the blog has explored before and the answers remain murky.
Michael G. Wilson of Eon Productions, maker of the Bond film series, said seven years ago that Bond was an antihero.
Barbara Broccoli, Wilson’s half-sister, said the same year that Bond is “a classical hero, but he’s very human.”
That makes for a split vote by the two principals of Eon.
An anti-hero is defined as “a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.”
Is Bond a misogynist or a male chauvinist?
A misogynist is defined as “a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women.” Woman hater is a synonym.
A male chauvinist is defined as ” a male who patronizes, disparages, or otherwise denigrates females in the belief that they are inferior to males and thus deserving of less than equal treatment or benefit.”
Since 1995, the Bond film series has gone with misogynist. In Judi Dench’s debut as M in GoldenEye, she calls Bond (Pierce Brosnan) a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur.”
Brosnan’s successor, Daniel Craig, said in 2015 that Bond is “actually a misogynist.”
Well, that would seem to settle the issue, wouldn’t it? If the guy who plays the character calls the character a misogynist that would seem to trump what a fan thinks.
How smart is Bond?
Bond doesn’t always show signs of being a strategic thinker.
In Dr. No, Bond (Sean Connery) brings Quarrel with him to Crab Key to see what happens. He brings along a Walther PPK.
In the novel From Russia With Love, Bond knows a trap has been set. But he decides to stay on the train to see what happens.
In The Man With the Golden Gun film, his plan (such as it is) is to fly to Scaramanga’s isolated island and see what happens.
In Quantum of Solace, he brings along his trusty Walther to take on Dominic Greene and his many thugs at the hotel powered by fuel cells (apparently filled with Explodium). He’ll see what happens.
In Skyfall, Bond takes M (Dench again) from London (where she has been guarded ineffectively) to stately Skyfall manor (which has no security, though Bond & Co. manage to cobble together some traps). Bond is able to kill Silva (Javier Bardem) moments before M dies.
Filed under: James Bond Films | Tagged: Barbara Broccoli, Bond 25, Daniel Craig, From Russia With Love, Judi Dench, Michael G. Wilson, Pierce Brosnan, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, The Man with the Golden Gun |
The Spy Command 
Yep! Often made this point many times myself, specifically about Quantum and Skyfall.
When I saw Bond gun down Professor Dent in 1963 (1st US release) that was the precise moment that I became a fan. It was like a switch flipped on in my head. And, from that moment I understood that he was an anti-hero. Frankly, heroes are boring. Bret & Bart Maverick were the only Western characters that I related to growing up. The Devil always gets the best lines. Even John Milton understood this at least on some subconscious level, even if he refused to recognize it consciously.