My mission was to watch James Bond movies and summon up some firepower on the Bond women. I could gun down the pathetic sexism of early Bond, or the patronising raised eyebrow of mid-Bond, and we could detonate the tortured hero of Brosnan Bond and, guess what? I will. But first, let’s agree that Bond movies are fabulous fun.
I don’t know which I enjoy more — the cars or the girls. I didn’t buy my 3-litre BMW because I saw Goldeneye, but I was very upset when Bond got the Z8 in The World Is Not Enough. Why? I can’t afford to spend $124 800 on a car, even though I long for a champagne cooler — with a Dom Perignon ’53 ready to drink on touchdown in the park — under the handbrake. Yes, the Dom Perignon is a Sean Connery special, but champagne, like vodka martini, is vintage Bond. It’s an interesting choice, because the drink is surprisingly feminine. Girls drink champagne and martini — and even at his most butch, Bond has something to hide: he’s a bit of a girl himself.
Before every Bond wannabe drops their plastic Smith & Wesson, let me argue that the facts are on my side. He’s got more outfits than Barbie. The clothes, beautifully tailored, are not exactly a he-man pursuit. Only a dandy gets fitted up. Men who enjoy a bit of made-to-measure are indulging their senses just as women do. Gay men have known this for years. There’s nothing wrong with liking clothes, but it’s a girl thing.
Bond has his own espresso machine. Now he is beginning to sound like a homosexual. Have a look at Live and Let Die, and there is our hero, disguised as Roger Moore, making M a cappuccino to keep him out of the bedroom. An Italian lovely is in there, of course, and Bond’s Embarrassment Reading is dangerously high, until Moneypenny arrives and helpfully shuts the girl in the closet.
There’s Bond, louche and tousled in his dressing gown, here’s Moneypenny buttoned up to the neck with an iron hairdo. Sure, she looks like this because she’s the one Bond girl who’s not allowed to be sexy, but the role-playing is clear. Bond’s not the helpless male here — he’s a girl who’s trying to distract his boss with a cup of coffee, while figuring out how to get the lover out of the house.
And take a look at that manicure … the hands on the steering wheel are not those of an action hero. Since when did Terminator buff his nails?
What Bond certainly is is a very good lover — which is not the same as saying he is a ladykiller. Ladykiller he is, but rather too literally, and one of Brosnan’s most disturbing moments is when he shoots dead at close range the gorgeous Sophie Marceau in The World Is Not Enough. We know that he had fallen in love with her and one suspects that this is the real reason she had to die. All women fall for Bond — even Judi Dench, God help us, but Bond was an emotional virgin. Brosnan has opened Bond to feeling — and he may have gone too far.
Killing your enemies extravagantly is the stuff of high adventure. Shooting the woman you love through the heart takes us nearer to tragedy.
Bond girls are for lovemaking. That is their first function. Mention Ursula Andress rising out of the sea and a man will start adjusting his tie. I once read that Bond’s tie (endlessly adjusted) is a penis substitute. It isn’t; there is no substitute for a Bond penis. It is the potent, hidden guided missile, the mini-death that all women long for.
You could take the view that this is the kind of crass stereotyping typical of boysie blockbusters; women — however different, skilled, talented, independent — just WANT IT. That is the message of pornography and it is present in Bond. You could also take the view that women want Bond because he satisfies them sexually, and any woman in touch with her body will want a lover who does that — and yippee, she doesn’t have to marry him.
Early and mid-Bond may patronise women, but he will go to any lengths to please them: ”Nobody does it better,” Carly Simon sings in The Spy Who Loved Me, and the truth is that as Bond morphs down the years, he becomes less and less like a caveman — and more and more like, well, yes I’m sorry, one of the girls.
Bond makes love like a girl. Watch it for yourself. He flirts, he likes kissing necks and shoulders, he sometimes keeps his pyjamas on, he holds hands and he makes breakfast. Bond loves pleasure and beauty and softness, and he doesn’t just take these things; he offers them. His legendary prowess in bed gives us a clue, because of course, only girls can really keep it up all night long.
Maybe I’ve gone too far, but as the gruff, bluff M discovered his feminine side and reincarnated as Judi Dench, so Bond is a little bit less in denial about his other half.
Watching the Bond women evolve is a Pirelli calendar of social change. It’s not only that Christmas Jones can be a rocket scientist where Andress had to collect shells, it is the transformation of M and Moneypenny that is revealing. Dench has a charisma all her own, which Bond responds to, and Moneypenny is no longer the sad spinster of yesterday but an attractive sexy power-broker who fancies Bond, without needing him.
What next for the Bond girls? Rumour has it that Saffron Burrows is back in the running and what could be better for the new Bond than a six-foot model who takes her pleasure with women as well as men? Brush down the outfits and get out the espresso machine. I reckon the best Bond girl has always been Bond himself. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002