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 "Yes I do hate James Bond"

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tiffanywint
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Triviachamp
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PostSubject: Re: "Yes I do hate James Bond"   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 7:12 am

tiffanywint wrote:

I would never accuse Bonds 1-14 of being pc. Rather Eon attempted to be politically quiet, not quite neutral, but not provocative either. In GF and YOLT, GF and Blofeld were the big villains. The Chinese were only their clients. It was perfectly understandable in that decade, that the Red Chinese Communists would be happy to take advantage of the services of these super-villains for hire. I don't think anyone batted an eyelash. In otherwords there were no howls of outrage from anyone complaining that Bond was pc. Now we do have reason to howl.

Eh they were hewing pretty close to the liberal Hollywood line of "the Soviets are just like us and not really evil" throughout the Cold War. I'm sure if you were a rabid Cold Warrior or a hippy you would have had plenty to complain about in Bond.

Red China are backing Goldfinger and Blofeld because at the time it was okay to attack Maoist China as being really evil, like how it is okay to today to attack North Korea.

Also how come no one is addressing JW Pepper or Baron Samedi? I mean the former was created for the sole purpose of having an idiot white character in the movie and the latter had a scene at the end to show a black man having some sort of victory over Bond.
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PostSubject: Re: "Yes I do hate James Bond"   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 7:21 am

CJB wrote:
I imagine Deaver's dull-as-dishwater "Bond" spends his nights posting in The Guardian's comments section about what a fascist Ian Fleming was.

laugh

tiffanywint wrote:
laugh Deaver's Bond was a piece of work. I think I'd laugh at him if I ever met him.

"Got a light there Jimmy?"

" No I don't smoke and I never have, xxx number of people die from smoking related diseases every year..."

"Actually, I just wanted to fire up the bbq, but thanks anyway for the lecture"

"Ahh, those are low-fat burgers, I trust?"

"Yes of course, they're from low-fat cows, now buzz off"

Bond: "Doesn't matter, anyway. I'm a vegan."
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PostSubject: Re: "Yes I do hate James Bond"   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 1:35 pm

Perilagu Khan wrote:
Triviachamp wrote:
lachesis wrote:
. But the real point is that Bond is different, Bond stands apart from most modern fictional hero's, he is flawed, he isn't idealised or sanitised which is all to the good for its only when we cease to see those flaws that it can ever become a problem.

Aren't flawed heroes pretty much de riguer these days? And I thought everyone here is complaining about Bond being protrayed as a flawed character?

Flawed. But not in any way that would offend the PC set. Any "hero" that does that is automatically a villain. Thus, in order for Bond to remain a hero, Micolli have gone a fair way toward turning him into a generic, cardboard Hollywood action hero. And while I haven't read Carte Blanche, I gather Jeffrey Deaver did the same to Bond in that piece.

Pretty much this, the flaws are sanitised and generalised, as ever it comes down to what degree do they impose before the character becomes one with the crowd. Bond has always adpated with the time, but in the case of this article Bond is beiing rexamined and criticised for not having the values and pc sensibilities of today back in the past, it is an increasingly common attitude and it rides on the back of a dogmatic unwillingness to place the character in context and has many real implications for imaginitive fiction and more importantly historical learning moving forward.

The largest change in modern action heros is the aim behind the introduced flaws, in Flemings and Conan Doyle's day they made the character different from the mainstream, they made them stand apart, they often opened the otherwise heroic character to legitimate criticism as a means to compensate for their other 'abilities'. The modern approach to 'Heroic character flaws' seem aimed make them more generic or more everyman, but that in itself is a problem imo, because the scenarios and 'job's being undertaken are not ones 'everyman' is either trained, equipped for or should really be made to feel empowered in. There are distinctions that need to be maintained in the character, flaws that we, the audience, are allowed to recognise to distance them from ourselves or from the real world.
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PostSubject: s   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 3:28 pm

Triviachamp wrote:
Perilagu Khan wrote:

Thus, in order for Bond to remain a hero, Micolli have gone a fair way toward turning him into a generic, cardboard Hollywood action hero.

How is this different from making sure that Bond doesn't hate the Soviets too much or making sure that LALD has a redneck Southerner and a black man having the last laugh? Seems Broccolman (Saltzolli?) were busy trying to appeal to the PC types of their time.

Also should Bond be flawed, even with flaws that are non-PC? Connery/Moore Bond isn't very PC today but I wouldn't say they are flawed. And DeaverBond is apparently (I haven't read Carte Blanche) too much of a goodygoody which is the exact opposite of being flawed.

And didn't Fleming Bond like to brood all the time about women and killing people, which sounds a lot like the "Emo" attitude that everyone on the internet is complaining about these days despite being fond of GRIMDARKness.

As CJB said earlier, yes, earlier Bond films tapdanced around the Soviets a bit, but this was a much milder form of PC than M upbraiding Bond as a sexist, misogynist relic of the Cold War or whatever. It is further still from the actual anti-Western theme that arguably undergirds QOS.

And as for JW Pepper, yes he was a southern redneck, but I thought the character came off as rather sympathetic. Could you imagine how Micolli would portray a southern redneck today?

I agree that non-PC traits are not necessarily flaws. Quite the reverse--they often reflect a rational, clear-eyed appreciation of reality.

I would also agree that there's a bit of "emo" in Fleming's novels. Indeed, a major part of Fleming's Bond is an ongoing battle between Bond's desire to be cold and tough in the face of danger and turmoil on the one hand, and the emotions that boil within him on the other.
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PostSubject: Re: "Yes I do hate James Bond"   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 8:37 pm

Quote :
And as for JW Pepper, yes he was a southern redneck, but I thought the character came off as rather sympathetic

The point is JW Pepper was created in order for there to an idiot white man as there was a lot of fear of LALD being called racist. Seems they were worried about Bond being racist back then.

And the Bond series did bend over backwards to not make the Soviets look bad. The liberal orthodoxy of the time was that the Soviets were just like us and not really evil and the Bond series did a good job of following it. This orthodoxy has been forgotten today as almost no one wants to admit they thought that Soviet communism was an acceptable political system or a serious economic and military powerhouse. Seems they were worried about Bond being a Western Imperialist even back then!

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PostSubject: s   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 9:15 pm

Triviachamp wrote:
Quote :
And as for JW Pepper, yes he was a southern redneck, but I thought the character came off as rather sympathetic

The point is JW Pepper was created in order for there to an idiot white man as there was a lot of fear of LALD being called racist. Seems they were worried about Bond being racist back then.

And the Bond series did bend over backwards to not make the Soviets look bad. The liberal orthodoxy of the time was that the Soviets were just like us and not really evil and the Bond series did a good job of following it. This orthodoxy has been forgotten today as almost no one wants to admit they thought that Soviet communism was an acceptable political system or a serious economic and military powerhouse. Seems they were worried about Bond being a Western Imperialist even back then!


I'm sure Eon was terrified of being called racist back in '73. Hell, the Frito Bandito was essentially banned a little before then. And Eon avoided contemning the USSR, although I hardly think they "bent over backwards" in doint so. There were Soviet villains, after all, even if they were usually rogues.

The whole point is that, while the films may have taken some pains not to tread in the corns of pious Leftists, this mincing behaviour was not as egregious as what we've seen in the Broz/Craig years. I don't think it even rises to the level of PC.
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PostSubject: Re: "Yes I do hate James Bond"   "Yes I do hate James Bond" - Page 2 EmptyThu Jun 07, 2012 9:50 pm

Perilagu Khan wrote:

The whole point is that, while the films may have taken some pains not to tread in the corns of pious Leftists, this mincing behaviour was not as egregious as what we've seen in the Broz/Craig years. I don't think it even rises to the level of PC.

Yes, I think Eon handled things pretty much perfectly with Bond, back in the day. Pepper might have been created to offset charges of racism, by lampooning a redneck sheriff, but so what, the Pepper character was a caricature, funny as hell, and yes even sympathetic - very much so as we saw in the TMWTGG. Plus there was nothing racist about portraying blacks as villains anyway. Only the usual suspects would think that and they're not worth listening to.

I'm glad Bond stayed away from cold war politics in the 60's and beyond. The Soviets as villains would have been dull as dishwater. Bond fighting supervillians is where its at, eg GF, No, Blofled and Spectre. This is what gave Bond it's heft -this escapist fantasical world he inhabited.

The Soviets were best ignored if only for reasons of pure entertainment value. Bond fighting Spectre- that I cannot get enough of. Bond fighting USSR- pass the wake-up pills.

Nu-Bond needs fresh supervillains, or do something big with Quantum, or bring back Ernst :cheers:
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