Hearing about recently published books with titles such as ‘The End of Men,’ ‘How to be a Woman’ and television shows like Girls, you would think that men are losing their grip on the world. We chaps are not guaranteed the exact same things in life that were a given not so long ago, like a well-paid job, a doting wife to take charge at home and an avid social life. However, one man is still firmly entrenched and has no plans to euthanize himself in the future. James Bond’s about 60 years old, although he always regenerates, so stays relatively youthful.
Like humans, Bond adapts according to the times. The 21st century Bond isn’t recognisable as the Bond from the novels or early films. The films, according to, Professor James Chapman, ‘are sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, everything that is not politically correct.’ In films like Diamonds Are Forever and The Man with the Golden Gun, Bond uses violence against women. Judi Dench’s most notable moment as M is in Goldeneye when she confronts Bond about his outdated attitudes. “I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur,” she says. But today he’s not the sexist character he once was. He’s tolerant of modern women. Note that Daniel Craig and Olga Kurylenko were never intimate with each other in Quantum of Solace, because Bond was concerned with finding the man who killed his lover in Casino Royale.
As with increasing awareness about the effects smoking has on one’s health, James Bond doesn’t smoke any more. Fleming’s character was a heavy smoker, though he could never boast like Bill Hicks,’ that he went “through two lighters a day.” In the Thunderball novel, Bond’s visit to a health farm sees him cut back from his usual 60 cigarettes a day to 25. But now you can’t be a secret agent and have a puff. Bond has to be more professional in today’s health-obsessed times.
The theme that Ian Fleming has managed to continue since he starting writing Bond is of escapism. In the 1950s, James Bond was a character you could fantasise about to escape from the drab austerity of modern Britain. And though we live in an age of plenty, for men, he’s the man they want to be and for women, it’s the man they want to keep them safe.
Harry Wise