Babs Broccoli claims that next James Bond could be black or female

http://www.ladbible.com/entertainment/celebrity-film-and-tv-007-producer-says-next-james-bond-could-be-black-or-a-woman-20171229?c=1514541714117

Of course, she has uttered such statements before and they have all turned out to be hogwash.

I suspect she's trying to score points with the PC crowd, but when push comes to shove, she'll just cast a white actor. There is no way they will mess with the formula to the extent that they would cast a woman.

I'm in the Idris Elba camp, but it's unlikely to still happen at this point.

She's absolutely trying to please the PC crowd and don't for a second believe she will cast a black actor or woman. And rightly so.

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Article is clickbait bull. Babs doesn't explicitly say the things in the article title, just some vagueness about 'reflecting the times', 'pushing the envelope a little bit' and 'anything is possible'.

Everyone still angry about a black Bond or have we moved on from that?

It won't happen so nothing to get angry about.

FieldsMan wrote:

She's absolutely trying to please the PC crowd and don't for a second believe she will cast a black actor or woman. And rightly so.

Al Sharpton for M. Just don't have a black villain because that's racist.

FieldsMan wrote:

She's absolutely trying to please the PC crowd and don't for a second believe she will cast a black actor or woman. And rightly so.

Al Sharpton for M.

Just don't have a black villain because that's racist.

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Not to mention maybe Babs needs a new sybian? So she won't spout suck unfettered shit?

Control wrote:

Everyone still angry about a black Bond or have we moved on from that?

Nope. Still "angry".

It's not about a "black Bond". "Black Bond" is simply a symptom of the problem, not necessarily the problem itself. Problems are:

#1 she's been gradually revealing her political leanings when prior we never knew what the Broccoli Family cared about or who they voted for
#2 as her politics have become more vocalized they've spilled over into the way she's been running the series. It informs who she hires, what they write, what they direct, what they promote.
#3 The more her politics spill over into the series, the further away it gets from being entertaining and/or true to either what Fleming wrote or to even the film series.

I guess above and beyond all other issues is the fact that she never really seems to stand up for 007 himself. As if she's slightly embarrassed at who Bond is or was, and only cares about what she might be able to make him. She seems uncomfortable having made her millions inheriting the creative control of the series, not to mention the money from her father's estate that the series generated.

She could definitively state that Bond won't be any of the things listed in countless news articles that have been out there for 25+ years (the idea of a female 007 was put out there as early as 1993 when Brosnan and Goldeneye weren't even a thing yet) but she hasn't and she won't because she's given in to political correctness and doesn't want to alienate friends and allies in Hollywood who probably look at 007 through the #MeToo lens and wonder how Barbara can have anything to do with making money off a character that is part of a systemic, patriarchal culture of toxic masculinity and oppression.

For some too young to remember, Bond's scenes with M and Moneypenny in Goldeneye were a *direct* response to the new found "sensitivity" towards sexual harassment in the years between LTK and GE, when confirmation hearings to the US Supreme Court were rocked by sexual harassment allegations. Brosnan's Bond serves as a whipping boy to M and Moneypenny, but is allowed to essentially do his thing because he gets results.

I think Barbara finds it extremely difficult to continue making these movies and justifying her politics with her business practices, and #MeToo isn't helping any.

Like Jessica Chastain, she wants to have it both ways. She wants to make money off the corrupt system she then goes out and complains about.

But, no, I don't think Barbara will cast a black actor ultimately. If there had ever been a time for her to do that, she should have done it when Barack Obama was in office. With Trump in office, there's too much organized resistance to Barbara's sort of pc pablum. People all over the spectrum are starting to fight back against this intellectual facism.

No, I think Barbara will give it up after BOND 25. Just a suspicion. Both she and Michael seem to find little enjoyment in the series anymore, which I think is also reflected in how much longer each installment seems to take to be readied for release. I think she wants to do other things with her life. I hope she sells the series after BOND 25 because she's already sold out; might as well make it official.

A 25 film series, as successful as 007 has been, finds its situation growing more precarious after each installment. While the Bond films are somewhat of an institution, they can be brought down. A perfect example would be the NFL. Protesting players picked the wrong venue and the wrong object to protest. As a result, some erosion of ratings can be blamed on the players. Clearly The Commisioner (in this analogy Barbara Broccoli and her changes to the series) misread the fanbase for the NFL; they are not for the protests and the kneeling and the raised fists and the interlocking arms.

Babs can make substantive changes all she wants while she's in control, but she may find that one or two changes may be one or two changes too many, having reached a tipping point for which she can't come back.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

No, I think Barbara will give it up after BOND 25. Just a suspicion. Both she and Michael seem to find little enjoyment in the series anymore, which I think is also reflected in how much longer each installment seems to take to be readied for release. I think she wants to do other things with her life. I hope she sells the series after BOND 25 because she's already sold out; might as well make it official.

Odds are, Disney will one day own Bond and they'd screw him just as they've done Star Wars.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Like Jessica Chastain, she wants to have it both ways. She wants to make money off the corrupt system she then goes out and complains about.

With respect, but I don't think it's unreasonable for an actress to think that rape shouldn't be part of the deal if you want to work in Hollywood.
What Weinstein did went way beyond the 'casting couch' cliché.

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It's odd that you just assume that I believe in "justice via social media", when I don't.
I found what happened to someone like Justine Sacco incredibly disgusting and terrifying and I am the last person in the world to support anything like that.

I merely pointed out that what at least some of these actresses are asking for is not that outrageous.
Among Harvey Weinstein's supposed behavior was arriving unannounced at an actress' apartment, forcing his way inside and then raping her in her own bed. That's why I stated in my previous post that his behavior went beyond the 'casting couch' cliché. Obviously such transactional dynamics are far more complex from a moral point of view.

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Erica Ambler wrote:

And every man - and woman - knows a woman who fucked her way up the corporate ladder. It’s not illegal however offensive some may find it.

Depends....when tapes leak, 'offensive' can lead to some nasty law suits.

But I will concede there is a lot of consensual fucking. My friend is a news reporter, she told me her own sister slept with a then Member of Parliament and they had a mutual understanding. His wife didn't know.

bitchcraft wrote:

Erica Ambler wrote:

And every man - and woman - knows a woman who fucked her way up the corporate ladder. It’s not illegal however offensive some may find it.

Depends....when tapes leak, 'offensive' can lead to some nasty law suits.

But I will concede there is a lot of consensual fucking. My friend is a news reporter, she told me her own sister slept with a then Member of Parliament and they had a mutual understanding. His wife didn't know.

Slept with my boss too actually, but I am his wife so.....

Salomé wrote:

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

Like Jessica Chastain, she wants to have it both ways. She wants to make money off the corrupt system she then goes out and complains about.

With respect, but I don't think it's unreasonable for an actress to think that rape shouldn't be part of the deal if you want to work in Hollywood.
What Weinstein did went way beyond the 'casting couch' cliché.

Wooooaaah! Hold on. That's not what I was talking about.

I was talking about this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/movies/jessica-chastain-all-white-magazine-cover.html

She posed on this cover:



Then after getting criticized by left-leaning, progressive activists on Twitter, felt shame and sadness and criticized the magazine, the editors, the photographers and I guess the other 5 women in the shoot by throwing them all under the bus.

She apologized on Twitter for essentially being white and being on a magazine that didn't have a token black woman handy:

From Entertainment Weekly:
“It’s a sad look that there’s no WOC in this pic of us promoting our female lead [sic] films,” the two-time Oscar nominee — so far the only actress featured on the cover to comment on the controversy — tweeted. “The industry needs to become more inclusive in its storytelling. What were your favorite WOC lead films this year? I LOVED @salmahayek in #BeatriceAtDinner.”


So she not only apologizes for being a white woman, she also tries to show how not racist she is by pointing out her own personal favorite movie that had a lead WOC (Woman of Color, as if white, taupe, tan, cream and beige are not colors) starring Salma Hayek.

It's all very stupid. She did nothing wrong to begin with. Sometimes I don't know what's more offensive: that 6 white women can't be on a magazine cover without someone trying to turn it into a national referendum on race relations and "diversity", or how pathetically weak so many of these white-guilt ridden, politically-correct Hollywood stars can be as they are goaded into apologizing for just being who they are.

Jessica Chastain and Barbara Broccoli are one and the same: making money in a system that they pretend to decry, but somehow salve their conscience by contributing all kinds of money to political action committees and causes that they think advances their overall agendas.

That's *ALL* I was referring to re: Jessica Chastain. Nothing else.

And of course no one should be raped or harassed for a job. That should go without saying.

I noticed that the director's panel for the THR roundtable talks was 50-50 across gender lines this year, which must be a first.

Guillermo del Toro
Joe Wright
Denis Villeneuve
Greta Gerwig
Patty Jenkins
Angelina Jolie

And it's hard to argue against Gerwig and Jenkins being there. Gerwig's directorial debut was well-reviewed to an almost ridiculous extent and Jenkins made one of the best-performing movies at the box office in 2017, which was also largely well-received by critics. Not sure how Jolie fits in, but then, I haven't seen her movie.

The Broccoli quotes came from a recent podcast she did with The Hollywood Reporter. She spoke for almost an hour and the question came up near the end. It sounded as if she were deflecting the question in a polite, "we'll see" way.

If you want to hear it for yourself, here's the URL. The subject comes up at the 1:36:34 mark.

https://player.fm/series/awards-chatter-1401973/barbara-broccoli-film-stars-dont-die-in-liverpool

Welcome back NP! 

Thanks for the link. Crazy to think how such a trivial response has been blown out of proportion.