James Bond in 'Skyfall': Hero, Patriot and... Exploiter of Sex Trafficking Victims?

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sexism-is-forever-as-bond-takes-a-backward-step-20121123-29ygg.html

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Sexism is forever as Bond takes a backward step

Accusing James Bond of chauvinism is a bit like saying the Hulk has a problem with anger management. This is a character who treats most women like his Aston Martins; beautiful objects to be used then abandoned when damaged beyond repair.

Bond's womanising is as ingrained a character trait as his cool head in a crisis and finicky taste in martinis. But the films need not be as offensive as their hero. For the franchise to remain relevant, it must be clear that 007's chauvinism is a flaw. And who better to expose him as a sexist git than a Bond girl?

The only kind of Bond girl that makes sense these days is one who can match him. She knows how to handle a gun and a car and, when the shooting stops, meets Bond's slimy come-ons with cutting repartee. She most definitely does not have a name like Pussy Galore.

The franchise seems to be aware that bikini babes with bedroom eyes no longer cut it. The introduction of Judi Dench as M, the head of MI6 and James Bond's boss, was inspired. Feminists cheered when she derided him as a ''sexist, misogynist dinosaur'' in GoldenEye.

For more than a decade, there have been promises of a new kind of Bond girl. In 1998, the director of The World Is Not Enough, Michael Apted, said he wanted to make a less sexist film. ''We want to bring Bond into the 21st century,'' he said.

There have been a few successes (Michelle Yeoh's athletic brilliance in Tomorrow Never Dies; Eva Green's sceptical, duplicitous Treasury agent in Casino Royale) and some spectacular failures. Famke Janssen's Xenia Onatopp (seriously?) moans with pleasure in GoldenEye as she crushes men to death with her thighs.
Then we come to Skyfall. It all sounded so promising. An expanded role for Dench. A Bond girl in Naomie Harris who doesn't even - gasp! - sleep with Bond. But what a disappointment. There are scenes in Skyfall that would not be out of place in the Bond films of the '60s and '70s, when Sean Connery effortlessly seduced lesbians and Roger Moore capered with airheads.

The biggest casualty is Berenice Marlohe as Severine, an old-fashioned Bond girl in the worst sense. A victim of sexual abuse since childhood, she nonetheless makes no objection when 007 slips unannounced into her bathroom, removes his clothes and joins her in the shower. By the time she comes to a messy and perfunctory end, she has done nothing but look scared and seductive by turns.

Harris has made much of her character Eve's complexities. ''We've moved on so far in terms of the nature of these roles that they're not really stereotypes any more,'' she told Time magazine. It is perplexing, then, that the film opens with the most hackneyed sexist cliche in the book: chicks can't drive. Or shoot. Bond has a dig at Eve's driving skills as she wrestles a jeep through the streets of Istanbul and when she misses a tricky shot, she is never allowed to forget it. It would spoil the film to give away her eventual fate but it broke my little feminist heart.

Dench's M fares better; her grudgingly respectful relationship with 007 has some critics declaring Skyfall a less sexist Bond film. She has some magnificent moments, facing a parliamentary inquiry into her competence with aplomb and effortlessly handling Bond's ego in the office. Once she steps into the field, though, the power balance changes. In the second half of the film, she is utterly reliant on Bond's protection.

Some will say it doesn't matter. A Bond film is not a lesson in gender politics; it's just fun. But Craig's Bond films practically beg the audience to take them seriously. He spends more time brooding than he does delivering bon mots. In Skyfall, he is dealing with childhood trauma and an existential crisis.

What's more, this Bond film is at pains to show how the franchise has moved with the times. Q is no longer an elderly boffin but a smug young hacker, who equips Bond with nothing more than a gun and a radio tracker.
''Were you expecting an exploding pen?'' he asks. ''We don't really go in for that any more.''

If the technology of the Bond franchise can move on, surely it's about time for its female characters to do the same?

Women drivers...

Stamper wrote:

Women drivers...

I drive... :affraid:

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What's more, this Bond film is at pains to show how the franchise has moved with the times. Q is no longer an elderly boffin but a smug young hacker, who equips Bond with nothing more than a gun and a radio tracker.
''Were you expecting an exploding pen?'' he asks. ''We don't really go in for that any more.''

If the technology of the Bond franchise can move on, surely it's about time for its female characters to do the same?

I guess the "old ways are best" theme went over this writer's head, or how Bond practically steps back in time for the Macau and Scotland chapters.

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Feminists cheered when she derided him as a ''sexist, misogynist dinosaur'' in GoldenEye.

If feminists don't like Bond, why do they watch it?

"Everybody needs a hobby"

The question is not who takes Bond seriously, but who takes feminists--at least of the above sort--seriously.

Control wrote:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sexism-is-forever-as-bond-takes-a-backward-step-20121123-29ygg.html

Sexism is forever as Bond takes a backward step

Wank wank wank

I'd just like to point out that The Age is the Aussie equivalent of Teh Grauniad and should be avoided like the plague unless the works of ageing Marxist degenerates are your cup o' tea.

"....the film opens with the most hackneyed sexist cliche in the book: chicks can't drive..... Bond has a dig at Eve's driving skills as she wrestles a jeep through the streets of Istanbul"

This woman is not familiar with the works of Master Fleming apparently.

“Women are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In general, Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as the highest potential danger, and two women nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other’s faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person’s expression, perhaps to read behind the others’ words or analyze the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other’s attention from the road ahead and four women are more than doubly dangerous for the driver not only has to hear and see, what her companion is saying but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking about.”
― Ian Fleming, Thunderball

Fleming I'm sure might have added that it is a man's job to keep a woman's eyes on the road when riding shotgun, as Bond does here with Eve.

Fleming's assessment of female driving skills was bang-on, so to speak.

On the quiet Bond seems to find himself at the mercy of a woman driver often or at least he was: Fiona, Aki, Tracy and Anya movie-wise.

Wouldn't say he was sexist with Eve...he at least bailed after a point.

Did she smash a mirror? Yes. She deserves the harmless quip.

If Eve was Asian, there'd be hell to pay.

CJB wrote:

If Eve was Asian, there'd be hell to pay.

And if she was a Volvo driver.