To think the new James Bond shouldn't be a woman?

[SummersOverSeasideTown]

Kier Starmer- despite not knowing what a woman is- thinks the new Bond should be a woman.

Aibu to this will help sexual equality in the same way Insulate Britain are helping the climate change cause?

What we need are strong roles written and intended for women, by replacing a figure such as Bond all we do is further alienate the entrenched and worse create an idea that society is moving towards equality when really it is just smoke and mirrors?

@TheNestedIf

I agree. I have been long making the same argument about both Bond and Dr Who.

The female Dr Who must be one of the worst ever and the viewing figures reflect it. Trying to tick all the relevant boxes doesn't always produce a good result.

Dunno. I reckon

"The name's Bond, Jamesina Bond"

has a certain ring to it.

It suggests KS thinks women will achieve equality when we can learn to ape masculine stereotypes, that's investing in and perpetuating the patriarchy not dismantling it.

His comments at the weekend indicate he's a bit confused about equality issues, poor lamb.

@helpfulperson

I would love to see a film of judi dench's M in her youth as a field agent. But James bond is male.

I’d love that. When would she have been a young agent? And who’d be good playing her?

How about a female Mrs Doubtfire? 😂

The problem with the new fad of casting women into traditionally male roles is that I suspect what we will see is:

1. Initial applause at how wonderfully inclusive they are
2. Complaints that it didn't work after filming.
3. Reversion to type on the male roles.
4. More quietly: men being cast in traditionally female roles on the basis that if they do it for one they can do it for the other.
5. Tremendous applause as how well it worked.
6. Men then still getting the traditional male roles automatically, and women finding they have to fight with the men for traditional female roles.

I suspect the same thing will happen on a lesser extent on colour-blind casting, which on the whole I think is a good idea, but suspect it will end up being an excuse to make the industry more white in the main (good guy) parts.

I hope I'm being cynical though.

I agree OP. It’s a male character. We should be aspiring to well written women characters, not just female versions of male ones.

Agree that it doesn’t need to be a white male though.

If they want a female James Bond, then don't take liberties with another writer's work.

They should write another brand new character from scratch and stop pissing about with someone else's character.

That's right! They can't reproduce anything as successful as Fleming's work so shamelessly nick it to suit themselves.

I see that fool Starmer wants a woman Bond. I know he's confused about what a woman is, so maybe he's looking for a woman with a female penis. Gormless bleeder.

@Duchess379

Absolutely should not be a woman! I'm all for women having these sort of roles - Atomic Blonde with Charlize Theron springs to mind, but Bond was written as a Scottish male. End of...

Oh Atomic Blonde was a great film, shame it wasn’t a bigger hit.

Have you seen Destroyer with Nicole Kidman? Not dissimilar in some ways. An excellent film, if not always an easy one.

Definitely shouldn't be a woman
Definitely should be Idris Elba though insert slaver emoji

We should be aspiring to well written women characters, not just female versions of male ones.

Absolutely this.

No, if they keep a James Bond they should keep him as a male. Changing the role to a female is just too much catering for PC at the moment, I do hope the producers stay with their statement that Bond is male. Better, just let him retire - again.

I don't like Craig, I very much prefer Brosnan but in general I started to get tired of the fairly repeating storylines. Originally I looked forward to the new release but now I can't be bothered.

Get a good writer to come up with a kick ass female heroine and don't make it into a romance please or at least not too much.

How do we know James Bond hasn't always been a woman? (A woman without a cervix, because, of course, not all women have cervices and not all cervix-havers are women!) The fucking gall of KS to assume that Bond is a man without knowing the proper pronouns.

"Bond. James Bond. She/They."

Starmer on breakfast TV wanting a female Bond is an utterly transparent insincere attempt to court popularity. On a par with the uber-posh David Cameron pretending to like football, then forgetting which team he allegedly supported.

Part of the James Bond character is that he is a misogynist. For that reason, James Bond can't possibly be a woman, it wouldn't work. The whole character is rooted in toxic masculinity, and Daniel Craig has really brought that out in his performance (previous Bonds portrayed the misogyny as aspirational, Craig has been the only one who hasn't).

I'm happy to watch an alternative spy film about a female spy with obvious psychological problems, but it will be a different character to Bond.

In some aspects (excepting physical courage and a possible excess of patriotism) , Bond is more of an antihero than a hero IMO, and a very stereotypically masculine one at that. WTF would anyone who'd given it a nanosecond's thought assume any woman would want to adopt that role?

The idea of a series about the younger Dench M, set back starting in the late 50s/60s - not a double-O initially because of the sexist times - is much better. The era may not match M's age at which she appeared in the bond movies but that shouldn't matter as bond doesn't age, periodically gets younger!

"Bond. James Bond. She/They."

😂

007 and Bond are code names, it’s hinted to that there have been a few, mainly because of the length of time he’s been around and line of work.

Maybe they could go super woke and have Bond transition halfway through the film. Jane Bond super spy without a cervix.

Or maybe we could stick we the sane idea as keeping Bond as the male character he was written as.

As PP have said Bond is a strong male character who raises questions about toxic masculinity. He is more unpleasant in the books than in the films. I also think he needs to be a white male because it raises the image of colonialism and high handed meddling in other countries (apologies to Colin Salmon and Idris Elba who have both be suggested in the past). Women don't need to try to take that role what they need is strong female roles created for them.

Dr Who isn't comparable as this is a character who can regenerate into a totally different person. Jodie Whittaker was let down by her scripts she capture a lot of the Dr's personality but the stories weren't always great. Michelle Gomez played a fabulous role as Missy which was also previously a male character.

I wouldn’t mind if the new Bond was a woman, but I fear that the Bond franchise would be written by men, and because most men have absolutely no idea of how a woman thinks, feels, acts Etc. I would be worried that we’d end up with an awfully preachy kind of Bond. I mean, in Dr Who, Jodie Whittaker was great as The Doctor, but gawd, did she ever have to act out some terrible story lines. Now, if it was written a little more like Killing Eve it would be great, but it’s hard to see how they would write that without being accused of copying!

Normally I'd totally agree but I think Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) would be an amazing Bond

I also think he needs to be a white male because it raises the image of colonialism and high handed meddling in other countries (apologies to Colin Salmon and Idris Elba who have both be suggested in the past)

This hadn't occurred to me, but is a valid perspective.

A lot of people seem to see Bond as an aspirational action hero, but this is a massove oversimpliciation. The reality is that he's a complex figure, and a very long way from aspirational. For example, n the books, he is explicitly referred to as raping female characters. Misogyny, oxic masculinity, colonialism, racism etc. are all strong threads in the films and in the central character. Making Bond female or black would whitewash all that.

The only Bond films I've enjoyed are the Craig ones, where he portrays Bond as the flawed man he was in the books (not as an aspirational figure).

@Whinginadeville

Normally I'd totally agree but I think Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) would be an amazing Bond

No, she was an amazing Villanelle, and Sandra Oh was great as a completely different type of MI6 operative to Bond. That's the point - don't rehash Bond with a woman awkwardly pasted into a stereotypical and rather outdated male role - make something new for women.

For another strong example of women intelligence officers using intelligence instead of brute force, think about Carrie Mathison in Homeland.

@VeganCheesePlease

I don't think Bond should be a woman either. It's a man's role, same as Ellen Ripley and Lara Croft are woman's roles and I wouldn't want to see a man in them.

Ripley was written as a man.