Why Must James Bond Be Reinvented as ‘Non-Binary’? By Jim Geraghty
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-must-james-bond-be-reinvented-as-non-binary/
Perhaps the woman who’s running the James Bond franchise is just speaking off the cuff and not ruling anything out, and not signaling an intent to overhaul one of the most iconic characters in the history of movies to comport to woke sensibilities.
James Bond could be a non-binary character in the future, the boss of the 007 franchise has suggested in an interview.
Barbra Broccoli, who co-owns Eon Productions — the production company behind the franchise — didn’t rule this out in a recent interview on the Girls on Film podcast.
The 61-year-old producer said she thinks James Bond should be a man’s role — as more films should be made about women, rather than having women playing traditionally male roles.
She added: “So I think Bond will be a man.”
And when podcast host Anna Smith asked whether the role could be non-binary in the future, Barbara said: “Who knows? I mean, I think it’s open. We just have to find the right actor.”
But if this isn’t just a stray thought, and the next time we see James Bond on screen, the character will suavely look at some femme fatale and declare, “Nonbinary. Very nonbinary . . .” then some of us will be left shaken, not stirred.
This continues the unpleasant new trend of taking an established and beloved character and changing the character to fit some sort of woke category, instead of starting afresh with a new character in that woke category. Thor’s a woman! Sulu is now gay! Dr. Who is a woman! Superman is going to be black next time, reportedly!
There’s no reason that talented and creative producers couldn’t make a thrilling and exciting spy series featuring a a nonbinary protagonist. Sure, some segment of the audience might be initially wary or repelled by this aspect of the character, and another segment of the audience would be initially excited or intrigued by this aspect of the character. In the end, the movie would rise or fall based on how compelling, interesting, and appealing that protagonist is — and hopefully a good antagonist, plot, thrilling action scenes, and so on. Lots of white people paid to watch Black Panther, and the Zorro movies, and Bruce Lee movies, and so on.
More than a decade ago, Angelina Jolie starred in the spy thriller Salt, which looked like a strong contender to create a female James Bond-esque character. The movie was pretty successful, but a sequel never materialized. But the success of The Hunger Games, Wonder Woman, Lara Croft, Twilight, Scream, Alien, Terminator and other series shows audiences will watch a movie with a female main character if it’s a good movie.
All you need is the right material (ahem) and the right creative forces behind and in front of the character.
But starting with a new character is a bigger risk in cost-obsessed Hollywood, and a lot of the creative class would prefer to take an existing popular character and simply staple woke traits to that character. Alternately, they’ll have that existing popular character pass the torch to a new woke replacement.
A few weeks ago, the hilariously profane — you’ve been warned — YouTube movie critic the Critical Drinker diagnosed and lamented the trend of “deconstruction,” which usually amounts to bringing established and beloved heroic characters back, only to tear them down in order to build up new replacement characters. He pointed to Luke Skywalker and Han Solo from the Star Wars movies, Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies, and Rocky Balboa from the Rocky and Creed movies. (You could probably throw in Picard from the new Star Trek series, and while I didn’t watch it, I understand Kevin Smith’s reboot of the He-Man cartoon series offered more of the same.) The prospect for the fifth Indiana Jones movie is not encouraging.
We shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that fans react badly, often angrily, to these offerings. The message from the creative class is one of contempt. Not only will they no longer be making these films and television series that we’ve concluded were patriarchal, heteronormative, full of toxic masculinity, glorified violence, offered a metaphor for colonialism or American nationalism or whatever . . . they’re going to bring back those heroes and demonstrate that those heroes were never that great after all. Luke Skywalker is a bitter, defeated hermit and Jean-Luc Picard is a sad old man sitting alone in his family vineyard. The happy endings of previous movies are revealed to be illusory, temporary good days in an ultimately defeated and largely inconsequential life. Sure, you could make a good film focusing on a character grappling with aging and the inevitability of mortality — Logan comes to mind. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that a lot of these franchises are being rebooted by people who, on some level, hated them, and who want to tear them down and smash the beloved characters to pieces.
James Bond is spectacularly heteronormative and patriarchal, and that’s why a lot of fans love him. He’s the ultimate male fantasy — he doesn’t keep regular hours, he travels around the world, he’s always bedding beautiful women and never gets nagged, he drives the coolest cars, uses the coolest gadgets, is minimally respectful and snarky to his boss, everybody respects him, he always looks terrific, and he solves most of his problems by punching and shooting people. If you strip enough of that away . . . he stops being James Bond! He turns into a generic action hero with a British accent.
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