It really doesn’t take much to get rigt-wing culture warriors hepped up about some new supposed outrage. It doesn’t even have to be real — in a lot of ways it’s preferable if not.
Consider the case of the non-binary James Bond.
A few days ago, you see, the woman in charge of the 007 franchise, producer Barbara Broccoli, appeared on the Girls on Film podcast. Naturally, given the interest a lot of people have in the prospect of a female Bond, Broccoli was asked if se thought 007 would always be a man.
Broccoli responded with an unequivocal “I do.”
She was then asked if Bond could be “non-binary, perhaps, maybe one day?”
This time Broccoli was quite a bit less definitive in her answer.
“Who knows?” she replied. “I mean, I think it’s open. We just have to find the right actor.”
The tabloids jumped at the chance to blow this bit of the interview completely out of proportion. Setting aside the part of the interview in which Broccoli said that Bond would pretty much always be a man, the Daily Mail, the Sun and the Mirror all came out with clickbaity stories suggesting that Bond could someday be non-binary.
And where the tabloids go, the right wing press is sure to follow. Stories about the (hypothetical) non-binary Bond appeared on Fox News, The Daily Caller, The Daily Wire, PJ Media, RedState, Lifezette, Revolver, The Post Millennial, Conservative Review, and The American Thinker. (But who’s counting?)
On PJ Media, Kevin Downey Jr. pulled out all the stops in an article titled “‘Bond, Zhim Bond’: The Non-Binary Spy Who Loved Me.” (Clearly conservatives are not getting any better at comedy,)
The woke monster is hungry and he/she/it is going after James Bond now, leaving spy fans…wait for it…shaken, not stirred.
Apparently, the brains behind the James Bond franchise have decided to ignore Trump’s warning about “woke.”
So of course the world may soon have a non-binary James Bond. Call it a case of toxic miniscuility.
The word “may” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, as it also did in other articles and headlines about non-binary Bond.
In the Daily Caller, meanwile, editor David Hookstead erupted in what seemed like real outrage:
Has Broccoli lost her damn mind? Is the world going insane? There’s no reason for us to be even having this conversation, but here we are.
Fans don’t want to see a non-binary James Bond. Literally nobody is asking for that nonsense.
The only right-wing media outlet I saw that recognized that a non-binary Bond is pretty much out of the question? Louder With Crowder, an outlet that rarely seems to have that much sense.
Meanwhile, on Reddit’s Conservative and SocialJusticeInAction subreddits, the regulars traded vaguely indignant quips in several threads devoted to the topic.
“The names Bxnd, Jxmxs Bxnd,” wrote one aspiring comedian.
“Imagine Pat from SNL with a cool gadget watch,” wrote another.
“They are doing this to further push the emasculation of Men,” wrote still another, more serious-minded commenter. “They want weak fragile pussies. Not men. That’s too much competition for them.”
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Just make a Chevalier Eon de Beaumont blockbuster movie already, okay?
Ffs can they just quit making fucking Bond movies already? The character only made any sense in the first 30 years of the Cold War, which has now been over longer than 30 years.
I need this film now
“And where the tabloids go, the right wing press is sure to follow.” I personally read this in Richard Henry Lee’s voice from 1776. David? Anyone else? Is anybody there? … I’ll see myself out.
All this over “who knows?”
Dalillama@2: Hollywood seems inherently unable to avoid trying to squeeze blood from a stone.
@ gazza
Well Bond is a British production. But you raise a good point about Hollywood.
Only 3% of Hollywood films are ‘original’ material now. The rest are sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes or other iterations of pre-existing franchises.
Of course, it seems to be paying off big time; so I suspect that model will continue unless and until audiences become bored with it.
I didn’t see the last one but my impression of the one before that was that I was watching an extremely expensive and actually quite boring advert. The series is so incredibly stale.
If I was a Hollywood type, I would refresh the series by:
1. Set it in the original context, make it a period piece, maybe look at a younger less slick Bond.
2. Confront the inherent colonial discomfort of that setting and ramp up the moral ambiguity
3. Write an actually good (not sexy henchman) woman villan who’s Bond’s true match. Make her long-running, a spider in the web. MAYBE someone in the British establishment for Tinker Tailor Soldier vibes. Take notes from Killing Eve.
4. If you need to get sign off, foster loads of brand partnerships leaning in to the period feel of the film. I mean the cars won’t work but I’m sure all those bloody watch and suit ads would.
5. Pay me a gazillion pounds for my excellent ideas.
But seriously we need a non-binary spy movie.
An original song with trans themes plays over the credits.
The protagonist wakes up next to a hunky man with a silly name and leaves him to do spy things.
And the phrase “the name’s Kay, Jo Kay, the pronouns are they/them”.
This idea is still developing.
The dramatics in that last comment! Like James Bond is the only male action hero ever. And to change up his character would be “emasculating” somehow.
But like @Gerry Sherry suggested, people could make a movie with a new non-binary spy. Different character. (And then the papers David mentioned wouldn’t have all those people complaining…wait, who am I kidding.)
I say they try Tilda Swinton just because they could be interesting. I know nothing of their gender otherwise.
Men are so delicate and fragile, that just their association with women or “cooties” is enough to completely emasculate them and make them “not men” whatever that means! I mean why can’t non-binary people kill PoC in the name of the British Colonial Empire?
I, for one, welcome our non-binary overlords.
Yeah, they don’t need to make any more Bond films, after all, that’s what the John Wick movies are for.
Speaking of Wick, a great non-binary Bond would be that badass character from the third film, The Adjudicator! I believe their name is Asia Kate Dillon!
One would think that with all the … ahhhh, young scantily clad provocatively posing women headlining the super-hero movies these days these cretins would jump at a Janet Bond movie.
@ Full Metal Ox—
She should also team up with the Chevalier Saint-Georges to do swashbuckling fencing stuff!
I am here for a Chevalier Eon movie, with or without Saint-Georges, or vice versa.
Bond is always going to be a man. These dummies are going to flip their shit if he’s ever not white, too. Or gay or (openly) bi.
Non-binary Bond could still be AMAB and have the parts these guys are obsessed with.
Didn’t Daniel Craig do a PSA in women’s clothing sometime early in his 007 tenure?
@Brony: Cate Blanchett can play anyone of any or no gender.
David, thanks for the kitty picture. I myself have a very handsome cat who wears a tuxedo with cummerbund 24/7. He’s more Johnny English than James Bond, though.
Honestly right wingers throw a fit over any trans character in a genre film. Because obviously genre is safe space for cis white men who are heterosexual and view women as objects to be gazed at….
And they could neither relate to nor be attracted to the non-binary main character without questioning theirs sexuality.
I’m kind of tempted to show them what Moriarty the Patriot did with Bond, just to see if I can make some heads explode.
(James Bond was introduced to the audience as Irene Adler, and has a few lines implying he’s trans rather than simply disguised.)
…what the entire hell is James Bond even doing in that storyline? Sherlock Holmes was born in 1853, while Bond cannot reasonably have been born earlier than 1918. Casino Royale was published in 1953, and it’s implausible that he would be older than 35 at that time, given that he continued to engage in extremely physically demanding missions until at least 1964, and for someone who’s in many ways a professional athlete 46 is over the hill, especially given all the injuries he picks up. There’s simply no way he could be the same person as Irene Adler, who is approximately Holmes’ age.
This discussion reminded me of the best Bond movie theme (and possible movie title) that never was: George Harrison’s The Art of Dying.
A non-binary James Bond? Uh, doesn’t Jerry Cornelius count?—true, he never works for any government, but otherwise (apart from being smarter than Bond and a better musician)….
(Previously misposted to the New Zealand story’s comments section, as the under-headline link brought me there.)
@dalilama pretty sure Irene Adler is at least 10 years younger than Holmes. But yeah still , becoming James Bond of all people is a bit weird. Although they do share a few traits….
@full metal ox
Is it known if De Beaumont was intersex? Because that is just such a cool premise for a movie
Regarding Bond/Adler:
At least in the Victorian-era ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (in which Moriarty was the head of MI5 for a time), they had Campion Bond there… the James Bond that showed up later on was his grandson.
Note that the initials of Irene Adler are each one less than the initials of James Bond. This is unlikely to be a coincidence.