blacksquirrel (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blacksquirrel) wrote2006-11-21 10:57 pm
blacksquirrel) wrote2006-11-21 10:57 pm
<---- What My Icon Said
Saw Bond and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marainsanity made us this v apropos icon :)
There's lots to be said about crises in masculinity and the whole cross-media convergence of the "year one" phenomena, not to mention those peskily delicate women, but for now I feel shallow. See icon.
marainsanity made us this v apropos icon :)There's lots to be said about crises in masculinity and the whole cross-media convergence of the "year one" phenomena, not to mention those peskily delicate women, but for now I feel shallow. See icon.
Let's hear it for shallow!
Re: Let's hear it for shallow!
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Oh that's fabulous! I'm sure Laura Mulvey would be pleased. XD
Someone should make a whole series of these!
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First, I have been a Bond fan since my father introduced me to the archetype of "big, bad secret agent man" when I was in 10th grade, when he'd sneak me Mike Hammer and Executioner books on the sly, since my mother disapproved of the half-naked women on the covers and on the content. Interestingly, it was the sex and not the violence in the books that most disturbed her. Of course, I guess that's it's own archetype (think "Fifties-era mom").
Anyway, I read Casino Royale first of all of the Bond books, and I fell in love--with Ian Fleming. Oh, sure, I found Bond titillating, but mostly I wanted to *be* him, not *f#$@* him. But that's another story, isn't it? The thing that most impressed me about Bond was an early scene in the novel. He's in the casino hotel with the woman who proves to be a double agent, and he's figured her out. He knows he's being played, but she refuses to 'fess up.
So he backhands her so hard that she flies across a King size bed onto the floor on the other side.
*WHOA*
This was the first time I'd witnessed violence against women, the first time one of the iconic strong, silent hero types I'd been reading about (and wanting to be) with such avid interest had broken that chivalric code and just let the deserving bitch have it.
Okay, yes. I can just hear people screaming at me now.
But the woman was: A) a double-agent; B) perfectly willing to sacrifice her body (in other ways) to her cause; and C) well aware of and responsible for the danger into which she'd put herself. Plus, she'd been armed. Was she physically out-matched by Bond? Sure. Did she know when she got involved in the whole thing that he might figure her out? Of course. Is violence *ever* the answer? Well, no, not in an ideal world. But here was a woman who was doing her job, a job she presumably chose. So didn't she have the *right* to get hit? That is to say, if we really believe in equal rights, shouldn't we be willing to take the punches that we deserve, in the context of the situation?
It's a conundrum, one that I've revisted often in my life. A very good friend of my, a Deconstructionist, once took me to task in a long, heated debate. "How can you of all people like Bond?" she asked, refering covertly to a then-much-more-recent rape attempt I'd survived. And what struck me was both her anger and my own. I didn't want to suddenly have to rejudge my world because I'd become a victim or near-victim of a crime that isolates and marginalizes women, that tells us that we're weaker and less capable physically than our male counterparts. And I didn't want to stop loving Bond. Of course, I also didn't want to be a victim again, and I knew that I'd had my share of responsibility in making myself vulnerable to what had happened to me, just as that woman in Bond's first book had done.
*comment continued*
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I don't remember what I said to her then, but I remember that she was disatisfied with my response. If I had to guess, I'd say it went along the lines of what I argued above. Bond's is a dangerous world, and the people who choose to move in it are making a choice to be what they are, to live as they do, and die as they do, and to say that women are always weaker in the Bond books is to overlook the facts. They aren't always weaker; sometimes, they're positively deadly. And regardless of how they get there, don't they have the right to be treated equally? If that means getting hit, getting hurt, being killed, well, then, so be it. Why should there be a rule that says women don't get hurt if the women themselves are otherwise equal on this particular battle field?
So I hope that the film guys left that early scene in the film, because I want my Bond to be brutal and bad. He's a trained killer, not a suave socialite, and if the films finally get back to Bond's basic roots, I'll be thrilled. But it sounds like, from your brief comments above, the women of Bond are still wilting violets, which pisses me off to no end, because they aren't all like that in the books.
I guess that's more than my two cents worth, eh? I hope you don't mind my commenting here. It seemed like a good place to start, and I figured you'd understand better than most the theoretical thicket I've wandered into.
Thanks for giving me a platform from which to dive!
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Let me preface this by saying I've never read the books but now I desperately want to.
I guess you've kind of invited spoilers, so I'm just going to go ahead and say that scene isn't in it. But. It definitely pushes the whole brutality/socialite divide which I thought was probably the film's biggest strength. There were (at least) two kinds of masculinity at war throughout the film, but I was impressed that they weren't played out by a hyper-masculine Bond and an effeminate villain - instead the contradictions of masculinity are played out *very* explicitly through Bond himself - fascinating. I won't say too much more on that at the moment, but you should go see and make a post and I'd *love* to discuss further.
I'm going to go ahead and say that if you're a spy, yes you should prepare for violence whether you're a woman or man and that *is* egalitarian and kind of empowering - I in fact think its pretty cool that in Alias Sydney Bristow gets beaten up pretty often because it shows that she can take it and survive and keep fighting back. Where the Bond movies *usually* screw up is that the women are always less prepared, less physically skilled, and that pisses me right off - which is where the whole wanting to be versus do Bond question comes in b/c without similarly competent female characters it begins to seem like you have to be a man to successfully be Bond in the logic of the film.
However
This film set up some really interesting things with Bond and women and class which makes my icon even more appropriate given how the film treats Bond's body. So, go see!! Then come back and chat :)
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((gazes))
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All my students are begging me to go see James Bond as I lectured about Bond at the start of term for my pop culture class - they think I'll enjoy it :)
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