If Bond’s technology moves with the times so should his women
Seriously, why do we keep having a conversation about the new James Bond film having a female writer?
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Daniel Craig channelled his inner James Bond this week when he unleashed a torrent of F-bombs at a reporter who questioned why there was a woman writer working on his final 007 film A Time To Die.
Obviously I can see where that question came from. I mean, imagine it. A woman! Writing some of the script for a James Bond movie! How could she possibly write double entendres as brilliant as this classic from The World Is Not Enough: “I thought Christmas only comes once a year?”
You see, he’s just shagged Denise Richards’s character and her name is … Dr Christmas Jones. Oh, it’s so funny, it’s enough to make you want to Blofeld your own head off.
And this new writer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag and Killing Eve) , doesn’t even have a properly Bond-style name. Surely she could only have got the gig if she was called Pussy Galore, like the girl from Goldfinger.
But seriously, why do we keep having this conversation?
Craig rightly pointed out that Waller-Bridge is a “great writer” and he wanted great writers on A Time To Die. Waller-Bridge, meanwhile, said her only desire is to see the film treat women properly but Bond “doesn’t have to”.
Yes, obviously those are crimes equivalent to planning to blow up half the world from your secret base inside a volcano unless you receive one trillion dollars.
Anyway, what’s wrong with Bond moving with the times a little? I can guarantee those internet trolls screaming in their basements about a woman writer working on James Bond wouldn’t enjoy the original books.
Author Ian Fleming had a brilliant imagination but he was also a wine snob and gourmand and thought nothing of spending most of a chapter describing a meal that Bond was having. Should we go back to that? Twenty minutes of Daniel Craig eating and describing in detail every mouthful?
I just don’t get this virulent hatred of any suggestion that women should be nothing more than sex objects in Bond movies.
Look, if you want to make it a period piece set in the 1950s, with all those outdated ideas, then go ahead. Have Bond eat a six-course gourmet meal with matching wines and then shag the waitress and finish the scene with a ridiculous double entendre. For excitement there could be a car chase in a couple of old hatchbacks that can only reach 80km/h. But if you want the modern world, with technology, and explosions and excitement, then the women have to reflect that as well.
What is so terrible about that?
Bond can still be the bad boy. He can even throw in a few ridiculous double entendres. They will just be given the correct response now.
For instance, let’s recreate the scene from Diamonds Are Forever, where Bond meets Plenty O’Toole in a casino and suggests: “Named after your father, perhaps?”
In the 1971 movie, Bond talking about the size of her father’s penis somehow drives her wild with desire. Nearly 50 years later, such a line would just have her vomit all over him.
Because that’s what you should get when your writer plays at the craps table.
Originally published as If Bond’s technology moves with the times so should his women
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