Bond Girls Gender, Technology and Film by

Bond Girls:
Gender, Technology and Film
by
Michelle Adams
Culture, Communication & Technology Program
Georgetown University
2
The twentieth century has witnessed the development of one of
the most widely
enjoyed, profitable and entertaining modes of communication
and technological
innovation in America: film. Utilized both as an artistic
medium and a money-making
enterprise, the Hollywood system has provided the American
public with countless reels
of action, tragedy, drama and comedy since its incorporation

into popular culture in the
early twentieth century. Through “formula” Hollywood film,
the zeitgeist and ideologies
of all facets of American life have been documented for the
masses; they have both
influenced and been influenced by our cultural
conceptualizations of contemporary life.
In the current digital age, film has increasingly portrayed
technological advancement in
our lives as normative, developing story lines that range from
the fantasist computer-
controlled world of The Matrix to online romance in You’ve
Got Mail.
However, these depictions do not stand alone; in society and its
film
representations, technology and the culture by which it is
utilized are bound together,
acting and reacting to one another. These bonds have combined
to transform gender. In
this paper, I will examine the relationships between technology
and gender relations in
one of the most widely recognized and popular film collections
of modern film studies:
James Bond Movies, focusing most closely on the films made in

the 1990s post-internet
culture: Goldeneye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not
Enough, and Die Another
Day, all starring Pierce Brosnan.
Actresses, most famously including Ursula Andress as Honey
Ryder, Honor
Blackman as Pussy Galore, and Maud Adams as Octopussy, who
co-starred with early
actors playing James Bond, were christened “Bond Girls” by
promotional advertisers; the
phrase has since become part of the vocabulary of popular
culture in America. Their
3
roles as Bond’s love interests, partners, or enemies have all
been characterized by their
submission to his charismatic persona and masterful manner,
which in and of itself has
become an institution of popular culture: phrases such as
“Bond. James Bond” and
“Shaken, not stirred” have become familiar to moviegoers and
non-moviegoers alike.
However, women in Bond movies do not all simply wait to be

rescued by the handsome
spy; often, they provide worthy adversaries or partners for
Bond, skillful in the arts of
espionage and subterfuge themselves.
The art of espionage and spy culture is deeply rooted in Cold
War America,
hence its incarnation in these action-adventure films. However,
as competing
technologies become a greater facet of global communications,
interaction and warfare,
technology in many forms has played a greater part in films
dealing with these issues.
Bond, as a British Agent, is increasingly involved in preventing
schemes involving world
domination achieved through the auspices of technology.
In this context, Bond’s relationships with his various female co-
stars, his
relationships with his male and female nemeses, and the manner
in which both of these
types of interactions relate to technology and the power which
its ownership can bestow
are extremely enlightening as to the gender ideologies that exist
in contemporary society.

Espionage, technological domination, and gender interact to
reveal the matrices of
domination that exist between men and women, men and men,
and women and women.
Competition and opposition between Bond and his rivals to
achieve ownership or
dominion of technology and of each other reveal more than a
struggle of good and evil;
rather, these connect gender roles and relations to the
technological innovations of post
digital-divide Western civilization.
4
In this sense, the films also expose our notions of masculinity
and femininity in a
post-feminist, post-Xena, post-Buffy1 world. “Bond Girls”
fight as well as the next
Warrior Princess or Slayer and can also program software or
manipulate networks to rival
Bill Gates. However, their relationships to Bond reveal deep-
seated conventions
involving romance and sexual interaction between men and
women that add complexity

to cultural fantasies and realities of modern man and woman in
film and in society; the
films appeal, in short, “because they have a dream-like quality,
dealing in symbols and
wish fulfillment and not at all in plausibility…they define…the
dreams and paranoia of a
particular moment in history,” according to Philip Hensher’s
“The Painful Truth About
Our Love Affair With Bond” (2 and 3). The characters that
populate Bond’s cinematic
paradise of fast cars, hard liquor, high stakes, powerful
weaponry, handsome spies and
beautiful women reflect the attitudes and ideologies, as well as
the wishes and dreams, of
the public that they entertain in the theaters.
British journalist Shawn Levy traces 007’s roots in his article,
“Oh James….” The
character of James Bond originated with novelist Ian Fleming.
Casino Royale, published
in England in 1953, was the first of 14 novels and short story
collections concerning the
adventures of the British secret agent (2). In 1961, American
producers
Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli approached

United Artists Films to secure
financing for a series of films featuring Bond. As a result, Dr.
No, starring then-unknown
Scottish actor Sean Connery as 007, was released first to in
London on October 5, 1962
and then to America in New York on May 29, 1963, according
to John Cork and Bruce
Scivally in their article, “Reeling Through the Years” (1-2).
Followed shortly by From
Russia With Love in 1963, then Goldfinger (1964) Thunderball
(1965) and You Only
1 Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy The Vampire Slayer,
5
Live Twice (1967), all starring Connery, the James Bond
franchise became one of the
fastest and highest grossing film phenomena of the decade, in
both the U.S. and Great
Britain (Cork and Scivally, 2).
Following Connery’s incarnation as 007 (although he returned
briefly in 1971 for
Diamonds Are Forever), George Lazenby took over for one film
(1969’s On Her

Majesty’s Secret Service) and was immediately replaced by
Roger Moore, who starred as
Bond for most of the 1970’s and early 80’s in seven films (Live
and Let Die, The Man
With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For
Your Eyes Only,
Octopussy, and A View To A Kill). In 1987, Timothy Dalton
became Bond in The
Living Daylights and 1989’s License To Kill (The James Bond
Films, http://movie-
reviews.colossus.net/bond.html).
From 1962 onward, Bond films appeared on average every two
years; however,
following Dalton’s characterization, there was a gap of six
years while Bond’s image was
reworked for the 1990s post-internet digital culture as well as
for the post Cold War
political climate in Britain and the U.S. On June 8, 1994,
Pierce Brosnan was chosen to
take over the role of 007 and appeared for the first time in
1995’s Goldeneye. Bond’s
new incarnation premiered, following a major media publicity
campaign, at Radio City

Music Hall on November 13th to the largest box office sales for
a Bond film since 1967
(Cork and Scivally, 4).
James Bond’s image has remained consistent throughout the
franchise’s 40-year
film history; “[h]e never ages, he never gets seriously injured,
he never stops boozing or
chasing skirt, he never settles for anything less than the best
cars, clothes,
accommodation and weapons, and he never takes time off from
saving the world from
6
disaster to muddle through the mundane quotidiana that plague
us all;” he is the
quintessential suave, dry wit and capable secret agent (Levy, 1).
However,
characterization has varied from actor to actor, from decade to
decade, according to
social and political climates and values.
Film representation often reflects the temporal, geographical,
and ideological
context of its production. The early films featuring Connery as

007 displayed
characteristics of both political and gendered ideologies of the
time. At the time that Dr.
No was released, the escalation of the Cold War rendered Bond
“not only an action hero,
but a reminder of the sort of world the good guys—the British
and Americans and their
respective espionage and military services—were fighting for, a
place where one dressed,
drank, drove and screwed only the finest” (Levy, 4). He is
devoted to Queen and
country, a warrior in their service to make the world safe for
capitalism and its
accoutrements. Stephanie Zacharek, in her article “The Spies
Who Thrilled Me,” writes
that “[h]e’s always surrounded by lavish appointments…You
never see Bond…spending
money—only wearing it, eating and drinking it. The soul of
Bond is laid out right in
front of us in the choices he’s made: in the cut of a suit, in the
gleam of a cigarette case.
The 60s Bond movies are largely about things” (3). Thus the
materialism inherent to this
perspective is displayed by the hero; the films are produced by

capitalist societies in
sharp opposition to the fear of Communist incursion, displaying
the best available to the
Western consumer in an almost overt political statement.
The films of this era also use technology to make statements
regarding Bond’s
superiority to his enemies. Regardless of how impressively
high-tech the devices of the
enemy are, Bond’s gadgets, cars and guns always prevail, even
over insurmountable
7
obstacles, due to Yankee (or Brit) ingenuity. Clearly, one
British secret agent with a
watch (complete with hidden laser beam) on his wrist and no
other weapon is more
powerful than any number of Soviet missiles, lasers, or hit men.
The films demonstrate
through these devices that even if the technology of the hero is
not as advanced as that of
the enemy, the values of capitalist Western civilization render
the hero more able to use
what IS available technologically to him to better advantage in

order to triumph. In this
sense, they reflect the armaments race between the Soviet bloc
and the West in the Cold
War, rendering the West victorious in the cinema if not clearly
in reality.
As well as making economic and political statements, the Bond
franchise,
particularly the early films, makes overt statements as to
socially and culturally engrained
ideologies pertaining to gendered behavior and gendered
relationships. As per his
relations with women, David Morefield suggests that the image
of Bond remains the
same: he “is a comparatively uncomplicated creature, slipping
easily from one
relationship to another with no messy emotions, and no regrets
when it’s over”; a sex
symbol rather than a romantic hero (2). However, Morefield
characterizes Connery’s
Bond as “unencumbered by notions of romance or obligation; he
was simply a sensualist
with the good fortune to run into gorgeous women equally
interested in sex for its own
sake…pragmatic and hard-hearted about sex…ruthless ”(2).

This depiction holds true
not only in the individual films but in the franchise as a whole.
No female character,
other than Moneypenny, the devoted MI6 secretary with a crush
on Bond, appears in
more than one film up until the Brosnan period, when M
(Commander in Chief of MI6,
the British Secret Service) was reincarnated as a woman played
by Judi Dench.
Conversely characters such as Desmond Llwellyn as Q, the MI6
gadgetry master, and
8
Bond himself reappeared consistently. Bond girls are a series
of one-film stands, even
when they last longer than one-night scenes.
Bond women in this era, such as Ursula Andress as Honey
Ryder in Dr. No and
Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, fall victim to
either Bond’s charm or his
ruthlessness. This happens regardless of their independence,
availability, or which side
they are working on. Honey Ryder’s role has been

characterized as “that bikini coming
out of the water” by the newest Bond girl Halle Berry (Jinx, Die
Another Day) in AMC’s
documentary special, “Bond Girls Are Forever,” hosted by ex-
Bond girl Kara d’Abo
(Kara Milovy, The Living Daylights). Berry’s statement clearly
delineates the objectivity
of the actress’s role as a sexual target for Bond, evident not
only from the storyline,
which involves her helplessness and need for Bond to rescue her
both physically and
emotionally but also by the cinematography of the “bikini
scene.” The camera is
positioned at a slightly lower than head on position, rendering
the emergence of the
actress out of the sea more dramatic and framing her figure in
the center of an almost
empty mise-en-scene, while her face is averted in a clearly
objective manner. She is
being watched without her knowledge: the female is subjected
to the male gaze by both
Bond and the audience. The scanty costume is, of course,
another factor in the viewer’s
understanding of her status as sex object, her body clearly

revealed.
Pussy Galore is perhaps the most obvious example of Bond’s
omnipotence with
women. As a confirmed lesbian and self-proclaimed “damn
good pilot,” she is
independent and allegedly, by sexual preference and by
assertion, immune to Bond’s
charm. As Elizabeth Ladenson’s article “Lovely Lesbians; Or,
Pussy Galore” states, “it
is her sexual indifference that has attracted Bond in the first
place” (4). However, Bond’s
9
masculinity is so powerful that it overcomes her strength as a
woman and a lover of
women, and in a scene in a hay-filled barn, she ceases to resist.
“The very phallic
[masculinized by her lesbianism] Pussy succumbs to the even
more phallic James Bond”
(Landenson, 4). At the end of the film, Bond is asked why she
altered her sexual
preference, and responds “I appealed to her maternal instinct.”
“The…lesbian…always

comes down to an image of the desirable and punitive mother,
and she is always
conquered, whether by a well-aimed chair or by the sheer
irresistibility of the hero”
(Landenson, 4). Bond’s “irresistibility” being a hallmark of his
persona, and the sexual
politics of the era lacking recognition of gay and lesbianism, it
is not surprising that the
character is first rendered masculine and empowered both
physically and mentally by her
lesbian status. Jeanette Winterson refers to her in “Girls, Girls,
Girls” as an “airborne
dominatrix” and “grrl-gang leader,” and she in fact defeats
Bond himself at judo and is
then subjugated by Bond’s superior, “real” masculinity to
helpless femininity (2).
His masculinity is unquestioned and dominant just as the
femininity of Connery’s
Bond girls is absolute and submissive; they are objects of desire
to be used to complete
his mission successfully; however, he is the subject of the film.
In this sense, the gender
roles and stereotyping of pre-feminist movement American and
British society are

confirmed by the films of the era. “Bond girls are for
lovemaking. That is their first
function”(Winterson, 3).
Roger Moore’s Bond of the 1970s takes his portrayal one step
further and is
described as a “sex machine” with “an impressive list of one
night stands,” in keeping
with the sexual revolution and the ideals of potent masculinity
of the era in film (i.e.
Shaft) (Morefield, 2). His economic politics remain consistent,
even more so as the films
10
become more decadent in terms of special effects technology,
but it is Moore’s Bond who
is truly the basis of feminist criticism for being “a world class
misogynist—the poster boy
for male chauvinist pigs” (Morefield, 1). His relationships with
women in these films are
not only non-romantic but often bordering on abusive. In Live
and Let Die he deceives
Jane Seymore’s Solitaire in order to steal her virginity and pulls
a gun on Gloria

Hendry’s Rosie Carver immediately after a sexual encounter,
stating that “I certainly
wouldn’t have killed you before!” Bond girls in these instances
are not only objectified
but almost victimized by the hero. His caveat is that “all
women fall for Bond,” even
those he mistreats, with primitive subservience to his dominant
male persona and
“masculine sexual allure” (Winterson, 3 and Zacharek, 3).
He is unmistakably their possessor, subjugating them in a
sometimes subversive,
sometimes completely overt manner. But he always provokes
their attention and
affection regardless. The female characters respond to his
abuse or patronage by
becoming “so compliant you can almost see their skin melting
underneath his fingers,”
with the result that their characterizations become those of
“helpless damsels and
irritating airheads.” By today’s post-feminist gender politics,
they epitomize the anti-
feminist sex kitten role, oppressed and complacent in that
oppression, valued only for
physical attributes and usefulness to the male figures who

control them (Zacharek, 2 and
Morefield, 3).
The later Moore films and the Timothy Dalton Bonds portray
the hero as more
sensitive and charming, the women as more empowered and
intelligent, and their
relationships more equal, as later 1970’s post-feminist
mentalities and sensibilities
rendered the misogynist Bond character incompatible with the
zeitgeist. The first real
11
Bond girls to take on the role of partner and equal to Bond came
in this era as Barbara
Bach’s Major Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
gained Bond’s respect
as a Soviet agent working with him. Even the film’s title
reinforced the romantic and
non-exploitative relationship. As Christopher John Farley’s
article “Live Another Day”
in the November 11, 2002 issue of Time Magazine states, in
1985, Grace Jones as May
Day in A View To A Kill opposed 007, and the film’s publicity

campaign asked the
public “Has James Bond finally met his match?” bearing
startling similarity to the
campaign for Die Another Day. The November 29, 2002 cover
of Entertainment Weekly
contains a photo of Brosnan and Berry with the headline “Bond
Meets His Match” (2).
In the 1990’s, Timothy Dalton appeared as Bond in The Living
Daylights and
License to Kill. The latter was released in 1989, “coinciding
with the fall of the Soviet
Union and marking what would have been a nice historical
coincidence: the conclusion
of the Cold War bringing an end to the career of the last secret
agent still fighting it”
(Cork and Scivally, 6). However, following the film’s relative
failure at the box office,
United Artists recreated the character of 007 in a more
contemporary mold, casting Pierce
Brosnan in the main role, in order to recapture the success of
Bond’s earlier incarnations.
Massive promotional advertising followed the decision, along
with promises to the public
of a “more modern” Bond. The character was reinvented to

coincide with the post-Cold
War deglamorization of espionage, as well as the decline of
social acceptance of sexism
(a true post-feminist action hero), and the rise of technology.
The battles of good versus
evil which he would face, as well as the methods and strategies
by which he would
emerge victorious, would now be in keeping with the post-
Internet, post-digital boom
culture in place in the mid-1990’s. Goldeneye was released in
1995, to major box office
12
success: 350.7 million dollars worldwide and 24.45 million in
audiences, as opposed to
License To Kill’s 156.2 million draw and only 8.7 million
attendees (The James Bond
Films, http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/bond.html).
This modern interpretation of Bond’s adventures extends into
both the bedroom
and the boardroom as well. While gender politics in post-
feminist Western society
updated the roles of Bond girls, they have not changed very

much outwardly, nor has the
formula of Bond’s seduction of them been altered. They are
still beautiful, sexy,
physically idealized representations of womanhood, and they
still fall for Bond’s charm.
However, they no longer fit the sex-kitten stereotype of the
Sean Connery or Roger
Moore films:
“Bond women take on more importance than ever. Computer
whiz Natalya,
super-agent Wai Lin, and nuclear weapons expert Dr. Christmas
Jones each
contribute significantly to the success of Brosnan’s Bond
missions. Natalya cuts
through Bond’s ‘cold hearted’ act to touch the vulnerable man
underneath, Paris
Carver gets him to actually confess to love and regret, and
Elektra turns his
compassionate side against him” (Morefield, 3).
Both the women and Bond’s reactions to them have changed; in
some cases, they know
more than him, and in some cases he cares more about them
than before. Though they
still need to be rescued by him (in both Tomorrow Never Dies
and Die Another Day,
Bond administers a “kiss of life”2), and though all eventually

fall into his arms, they are
not helpless. They surprise Bond with their ingenuity and lack
of ready availability at
times. For instance, Wai Lin’s tagline is “Don’t get any ideas,
Mr. Bond.” They are also
more assured of their sexual power over men than ever before,
demonstrating a
confidence equal to Bond’s own. Sophia Marceau’s Elektra
King in The World Is Not
Enough makes various statements to this effect, including “I
used my body—it gave me
2 To a drowning Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) in Tomorrow Never
Dies, and to Jinx (Halle Berry) in Die
Another Day
13
control” and “I’ve always had a power over men.” As the film’s
villainess, her survival
depends on her attractiveness to Bond to prevent his shooting
her (“James, you can’t kill
me—not a woman you have loved”). Jinx also references her
own “short
relationships”—one night stands that rival Bond’s own.

Even his relationship with Moneypenny, once a “sad spinster”
with a crush on
007, has been altered; with Samantha Bond in the role, she is
now “an attractive, sexy
powerbroker who fancies Bond, without needing him,” making
comments such as “I
know just what to do with that” when he presents her a cigar as
a gift in The World Is Not
Enough, before throwing it in the wastebasket (Winterson, 3).
Judi Dench’s M calls
Bond “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War,
whose boyish charms are
wasted on me” in Goldeneye and coldly dismisses him as “of no
use to anyone anymore”
in Die Another Day. Both these women treat Bond with
affectionate contempt for his
playboy antics combined with authority, modern versions of a
secretary and a female
boss.
These Bond girls are objects of desire, but he is no longer the
only subject of the
films. In the past, the mantle of being a Bond girl was a stigma
in Hollywood that
rendered an actress typecast in sex kitten roles. In AMC’s

“Bond Girls Are Forever,”
Luciana Paluzzi (Fione Volpe in Thunderball) admits that “the
noted Italian directors of
the day—Fellini, Antonini, Visconti—wouldn’t give [her] a
second look after [she]
appeared in what they viewed as a ‘comic strip.’” However,
with the incursion of Judi
Dench and Halle Berry into the franchise, both Academy Award
winning, “serious”
actresses, even the career trajectory of Bond girl actresses has
been altered.
14
In tribute to this, Bond demonstrates an unprecedented degree
of emotion for
them, admitting to Paris that she “got too close for comfort” in
Tomorrow Never Dies
and showing his hurt anger at Rosamund Pike as Miranda Frost
in Die Another Day and
Elektra King’s betrayals, rather than maintaining his cool, as
previous Bonds have done.
His greater sensitivity and status as a romantic hero are
products of post-feminist culture

but do not compromise his role as a ruthless secret agent; Bond
still uses his license to
kill, even women when he must (i.e. Elektra King), and is still
primarily an action hero
and a suave sophisticate, rather than a tortured soul, in keeping
with the traditions of the
franchise.
If the science of war is the science of competing technologies,
particularly true in
digital society, audiences of the Brosnan era demand not only
more intelligent Bond
women but also more advanced technology and competition in
both special effects and in
storylines. Although Goldeneye in particular does indeed
involve the formula Bond
theme,3 Tomorrow Never Dies is particularly enlightening as to
the new manner in
which Bond saves the world. Jonathan Pryce as Eliot Carver,
media mogul, is about to
gain control over the world’s satellite network, rendering him in
control of global news
and broadcasting, able to create any situation through the
auspices of the media. His
immediate goal is to start a war between the U.S. and China, by

broadcasting fraudulent
and inflammatory information to both. Rather than struggling
with a weapon of actual
war, Bond seeks to prevent the weapon of information from
becoming too powerful in
the wrong hands. Global telecommunications and satellite
technology combine to render
a portrait of one of the newest ways for a villain to gain global
domination- by
3 Bond opposes Soviet arms dealers and a disgruntled ex-MI6
agent for the Goldeneye satellite, which
would destroy London, a center of Western culture and
economic importance
15
controlling the opinions and subsequent actions of the global
community through the
media and communications devices.
While both The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day
confront power
through greater technological weaponry or innovation rather
than through information
control, the message is the same: whoever possesses the

strongest technology is
dominant. While, true to form, Bond can outwit his enemies
using less spectacular but
more ingenuous means to great effect,4 the greater battle is
always for a technological
breakthrough which will give its controller unlimited global
power. In the first case it is
the King oil pipeline to supply the world into the next century;
in the second, the Icarus
satellite to harness the power of the sun as a weapon of war.
Technology has always been a quintessential factor in Bond
films. Desmond
Llewellyn as “Q” has always provided 007 with various “toys”
to aid him in his missions,
and his cars have always been high-quality and highly equipped
for battle (with Aston
Martin and more recently, BMW, providing transportation); and
of course, guns have
always played a substantial role. However, the importance of
technology overall, to
Bond, to his enemies, and to the world, has never been as
evident as our digital society
forces its film representations to be now. The culture of
information engendered by the

Internet and global telecommunications, as well as the science
of technological warfare,
are depicted in Bond’s cinematic world. The side of evil
attempts to gain personal power
through their auspices, and Bond and the Western side of good
attempt to prevent global
dominion by any one entity, preserving the United Nations
concept of global information
sharing, economic market, and peaceful negotiation.
4 In both films, his wristwatch alone allows himself and his
female companions to escape traps set by the
villains, and his cellular phones and cars are also unexpectedly
useful.
16
Brosnan’s interaction both with women and with technology in
Goldeneye sets
the precedent for post-Cold War, post-digital divide conflicts
and roles on the screen,
which become clearer as the series progresses. Gendered
relationships reveal far more
regarding matrices of domination between technology, its
control, and the power that this

control confers in these films than ever before; with war
technology and
telecommunications reaching ever more advanced and global
heights, the network of
power relations which control them has become worldwide, and
the films reflect this. In
this sense, Bond’s relationships with women and with his
enemies are complicated by the
technology issue; power is rendered on the bodies of both sexes
as well as on the
technology for which they compete for world domination.
In Goldeneye, Bond and his nemesis, Sean Bean’s Alec
Travalyne, face off over
the detonation of the Goldeneye satellite. More subtly, though,
it is over the possession
of Isabella Scorupco as Natalya Simonova, Russian computer
programmer. Trevalyne
attempts to seduce her, assuming that she and Bond are involved
in a sexual relationship
already, saying “you know, James and I shared everything” and
then later taunts Bond by
implying that he has violated Natalya (“she tastes like
strawberries”). The two men

compete for technological superiority but also for dominion
over a woman, who, in new
Bond tradition, is no longer a helpless victim but a participant
in Bond’s mission and a
valuable resource in her computer expertise. In Tomorrow
Never Dies, the sexual
competition between men veiled as technological opposition is
more overt. Teri Hatcher
as Paris Carver, Eliot Carver’s wife, is Bond’s ex-girlfriend.
When Bond “dominates”
Eliot by sleeping with Paris, Eliot counters by having her
executed and placing a call to
Bond stating “You have two things that belong to me in your
hotel room: the red box
17
[encoder for the media satellites] and my wife.” The “stealing”
of a woman is directly
linked to the usurpation of technology, rendering Eliot inferior
to Bond on both a sexual
and a strategic level. Finally, in Die Another Day, Bond is
rendered at a sexual
disadvantage by Miranda Frost’s treachery; after spending a
night with her, he discovers

that she is working for his nemesis, Gustav Graves (Toby
Stevens), who taunts him with
the fact that she uses all the resources, “even her sex,” for him.
Bond responds, “The
coldest weapon of all,” by which he implies that seduction is
more destructive than any
other form of manipulation. This scene comes at a point where
Graves is in complete
possession of the technology (the Icarus satellite), and Bond is
rendered helpless by his
capture and by his empty gun (Miranda removed the bullets
while he slept by her side).
Graves’ revelation of his power over the woman is the last nail
in the coffin of Bond’s
helplessness over the enemy’s control over the world through
the satellite.
Women in the films also compete with each other more overtly
than ever before
for Bond. Pointed comments such as Elektra King’s “Pretty
thing—you had her too?” in
reference to Denise Richardson’s Dr. Christmas Jones in The
World Is Not Enough, and a
face-off between Jinx and Miranda Frost in Die Another Day
(which ends with Jinx’s

expletive “Bitch!”) have become de rigueur. In this sense,
women work on the side of
good or evil, to prevent or facilitate technological dominion,
but their aggression is
overtly motivated by sexual jealousy, veiled by their strategic
opposition, rather than the
opposite overt/covert nature of the male competition in the
films. Once again, Bond’s
masculine appeal is the main focus of the Bond girls. Perhaps
the most evidence of
feminine equality in any Bond film thus far, rather than any
women with whom Bond is
romantically or sexually involved, is Madonna’s small role as
Bond’s fencing instructor.
18
When faced with a fencing competition (rife with phallic
symbolism) between Bond and
Graves, she walks away, stating “I don’t like cock fights.” She
represents a strong female
persona, a world class fencer, who, rather than remaining in the
thrall of either man,
walks away with disdain for the masculine competition that

ensues.
The success of the new Bond series indicates that audiences
were able to identify
with both the social and political messages of the updated
franchise. Brosnan’s Bond
obviously appealed, as the films and his characterization of 007
were both lauded for
their new, higher tech action-adventure pace and for the actor’s
combination of the
character elements—ruthlessness, introspection, and dry wit—of
his predecessors.
However, the character’s new political correctness and
accommodation of contemporary
social sensibilities garnered criticism for their alteration of the
“Bond formula”.
Universal approval of updated special effects and story line
wars over technology rather
than Communism ensued, but uneasiness as to the implications
of a real post-feminist era
Bond persisted. In his article, “Shaky, Not Stirring,” which
appeared in Time Magazine
on November 27, 2002, just after the release of the first Brosnan
film, Richard Schikel
criticizes Brosnan’s Bond and his producers, writing that “in the

age of sexual
correctness, they have cut back his double entendres and people
keep telling him he lacks
the capacity for mature relationships with women. Worse, he
seems to believe them.
What next? Teetotaling, with perhaps a demand that his Perrier
be served in a bottle, not
a can?” (1). Perhaps due to Bond’s status as the ultimate
fantasy of the dominant male,
the idea of his “toughness” being somehow underwritten by
gender politics of the 1990s
was bothersome to the male public, despite approval for the
movies overall as successful
and entertaining incarnations both of the Bond formula and of
the new digitally-
19
remastered action adventure genre. Our society, from the
individual psyche to the
collective acceptability, appears more comfortable with
confronting new technologies
than new ideologies.
Christopher John Farley, in a November 10, 2002 article also

appearing in Time
Magazine on the eve of the release of Die Another Day,
discusses the new Bond in the
context of his culture:
“The conventional wisdom is that Bond has changed with the
times. Agent 007,
once the coolest of cold warriors, is now a more generalized
sort of hero, tailored
to fight the evil triumvirate of problems that bedevil our times;
rogue states,
terrorists and drug kingpins. Nowhere is Bond’s nod to
modernity more apparent
than in the supposedly evolved image of the Bond Girl. 007’s
paramours, once
buxom and docile, are still the former, but no longer the latter.
They are expected
to be smarter, tougher, and more multicultural than they have
been in the past.
Basically, they’re expected to do what Bond does, but sexier
and in high
heels…However, it’s also true that the bigger and more complex
Bond Girls get,
the more they confirm Bond’s masculine omnipotence when
they are
conquered…Much of what Bond adventures are about still boils
down to
sex…The world has changed since Dr. No and the status of
women has shifted,
but Bond is still on top. Bond, like Tarzan in the mid-20th
century, or Eminem in
the 21st, exists to demonstrate to men of European heritage that
they are still in
control, that they are masters of any domain, no matter how

tangled the jungles of
Africa, the hip-hop world, or international politics. Bond girls
are disposable
affirmations” (1-2).
In this sense, Farley makes the argument that Bond really hasn’t
changed very much,
despite superficial alterations, reassuring the male public that
the hero is still the same
symbol of male sexual dominance, a fantasy figure of the man’s
man, and that the films
still “produce images, however preposterous, of male sexual
desire and dreams of
fabulous, uninterrupted sadism” (Hensher, 2). Cork and
Scivally echo the sentiment,
stating that “[t]hat raw, subrational, visceral, have-your-way-
with-me response assures us
that as long as there is an actor born somewhere in the
Commonwealth who looks good
holding a gun in formal wear…there will always, bless us, be a
Bond,” insuring his
20
significance to women as a fantasy man, to which one
surrenders instinctively,

primitively, without recourse to feminist principals or political
correctness (7).
The Bond fantasy of style, grace under pressure, taste, and wit
appeal to both men
and women in the United States and Great Britain. Bond was
and is a fantasy character
for both sexes; “the fantasy of James Bond is [not] a purely
male one, as long as you
don’t feel the need to always identify with a character in terms
of needing to be him”
(Zacharek, 2). In other words, men would love to be him,
women want to love him and
be loved by him; this is true both of female characters in the
films and of female
audiences. If we define film in the twentieth century as a
medium for reflection not of
“appropriate or desirable behavior” but rather of behavior that
takes the morals and
values of the societies which produce them to extremes, Bond
portray a hero who is
desirable to both sexes, on a deeply cerebrally sexual level, in
touch with cultural
fantasies of dominance and submission, being powerful and
being powerfully seduced

(Zacharek, 2).
However, it is not only the character of Bond that produces
fantasies in our
culture. Bond Girls are also powerful impetus for escapist
imaginings by audiences, male
and female. Just as women want Bond and men want to be
Bond, women want to be the
new Bond girls, and men want to possess them as Bond does. In
“Bond Girls Are
Forever,” various Bond girls discuss their experiences as such.
Jill St. John (Tiffany
Case, Diamonds Are Forever) defends her position that critique
of gender politics on the
basis of the films is ridiculous by stating, “Bond women are
larger than life. They’re
meant to represent a fantasy quality.” Though this is true, the
social context of film
production must be taken into account, regardless of
entertainment value. If Bond girls
21
are a fantasy, they are a cultural fantasy for men and women.
Halle Berry reiterates this

point stating that “the women are a big part of it, not only for
men, but for women too.”
A Bond woman, in the sense of being an idealized, worshipped
symbol of feminine
beauty to the male gaze, is then a fantasy for the women who
play them, as well as the
women who watch them on the screen, no different that being a
supermodel or a Playboy
centerfold. Our society worships beauty and sex appeal, the
cinematic fantasy of
physical perfection. In many ways, this perception of the
female Bond girl fantasy
resembles the obvious male fantasy; their beautiful faces and
bodies and attention-getting
costumes, as well as cinematographic devices render them
objectified, in the tradition of
Bond women, in thrall to male power and gaze. Centered shots
of women framed in
brightly colored and revealing costumes5 or shots taken from
Bond’s perspective,
rendering the actress looking beseechingly or alluringly up at
the viewer6 accomplish this
goal.

However, in post-feminist Western society, it may be true that
the
dominance/submission model exemplified by Bond’s
relationships with women has not
changed at all; it may be that dominating strong women only
confirms Bond’s own
masculinity and the weakness of women for a handsome and
enigmatic man (Farley, 2).
However, the fantasy of the Bond girl appeals to modern
women, not only in the physical
sense, but in the fact that it allows them to be empowered,
independent purveyors of their
own destinies, even in control of technology which Bond cannot
fathom (i.e. Natalya
Simonova or Dr. Christmas Jones), or secret agents in their own
rights (i.e. Wai Lin and
Jinx) before they encounter Bond. They can therefore still
surrender to him romantically
5 Halle Berry’s tribute to Ursula Andress’s emergence from the
sea, reinvented in a bright orange bikini
6 As in many of Sophia Marceau’s scenes
22

or sexually without forgoing their abilities (which are often
useful to him in his mission).
In short, they can simultaneously have a relationship with a man
as smart as they and a
career.
In her article entitled “Why Bond Is Every Girl’s Dream Man,”
Helen Legh
encourages women to “understand and embrace the fact that all
men want to be James
Bond” in order to use this fact to their advantages in their own
romantic relationships
with men, “achieving female James Bond nirvana. The results
include “a smartly-dressed
boyfriend for a change….he becomes the ideal helpful
husband/boyfriend without
realizing it…you get to do what you like!” (Legh, 1-2).
Translating the Bond fantasy into
real-life relationships between men and women (presumably
longer-lasting than Bond’s
own), Legh suggests that every woman remake her man into her
very own Bond by
taking part in his own fantasy of being the secret agent in order
to realize her own fantasy
of having a boyfriend as “cool” as Bond. She should be the

woman by his side. “He may
be a sexist (and I admit, quite sexy) trigger-happy old
womanizer, but James Bond can
touch every one of our lives and make them so much better!”
(Legh, 2). The power of
Bond’s legacy thus extends from screen into the bedrooms and
kitchens of millions of
viewers.
Brosnan himself acknowledges the compulsion of the Bond
fantasy, concluding
upon reflection of Bond’s world, that “the thing about [Bond] is
that he lives in a world
all his own. A very polished, very burnished world…this
elaborate fantasy he exists in. I
think that’s why he’s survived for so long” (Svetkey, 28). The
world of Bond exists only
on film, but cultural reflections and identifications with it and
the characters that live
within it resonate in the collective consciousness of the
audience; created for and by our
23
society, the Bond films of the 1990s onward reflect a startling

change in the connectivity
and technological network of the world, as the world wide web
and global telecom
advance, as the science of war, weaponry and terrorist continue
to touch our lives in new
ways. They also reflect new power relationships between the
sexes, while confirming
our gendered perspectives and deeply rooted cultural sexual
ideologies. In short, the
newest Bond and Bond girls maintain the fantasies of the older
films but with
technological twist intertwined with gendered relationships.
The films demonstrate the
nature of digital society, the nature of gender roles, and the
connections between the
power relationships of these two ideologies in our culture,
continuing into the twenty first
century.
24
Works Cited

Films
Andress, Ursula and Sean Connery, perf. Dr. No. Dir. Terence
Young. United Artists,
1962.
Connery, Sean and Honor Blackman, perf. Goldfinger. Dir.
Guy Hamilton. United
Artists, 1964.
Hendry, Gloria, Roger Moore and Jane Seymore, perf. Live
And Let Die. Dir. Guy
Hamilton. MGM/UA, 1973.
Bach, Barbara and Roger Moore, perf. The Spy Who Loved Me.
Dir. Lewis Gilbert.
MGM/UA, 1977.
Jones, Grace and Roger Moore, perf. A View To A Kill. Dir.
John Glen. MGM/UA,
1985.
Goldeneye. Dir. Martin Campbell. Perf. Pierce Brosnan,
Isabella Scorupco, Famke
Janssen, Sean Bean, Judi Dench, Samantha Bond. MGM/UA,
1995.
Tomorrow Never Dies. Dir. Roger Spottiswoode. Perf. Pierce
Brosnan, Michelle Yeoh,
Jonathan Pryce, Teri Hatcher, Judi Dench, Samantha Bond.
MGM/UA, 1997.
The World Is Not Enough. Dir. Michael Apted. Perf. Pierce
Brosnan, Sophia Marceau,
Robert Carlyle, Denise Richardson, Judi Dench, Samantha

Bond. MGM/UA,
1999.
Die Another Day. Dir. Lee Tamahori. Perf. Pierce Brosnan,
Halle Berry, Toby
Stephens, Rosamund Pike, Madonna, Judi Dench, Samantha
Bond. MGM/UA,
2002.
Articles
Cork, John and Bruce Scivally. “Reeling Through the Years.”
Variety 11-17 November
2002. Online. Lexis. 3 December 2002.
Farley, Christopher John. “Live Another Day.” Time Magazine
10 November 2002.
Online. Google. 24 November 2002.
Hensher, Philip. “The Painful Truth About Out Love Affair
With Bond.” Independent
(http://argument.independent.co.uk/regular_columnists) 19
November 2002.
Online. Google. 3 December 2002.
25
Ladenson, Elizabeth. “Lovely Lesbians; Or Pussy Galore.”
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian
and Gay Studies 7.3 (2001) 417-423. Project Muse. Online.
24 November
2002.

Legh, Helen. “Why Bond Is Every Girl’s Dream Man.”
Coventry Evening Telegraph
30 November 2002. Online. Lexis. 3 December 2002.
Levy, Shawn. “Oh James…” The Guardian 13 September,
2002. Guardian Unlimited.
Online. Google. 24 November 2002.
Morefield, David. “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” MKBB
Magazine
(http://www.ianfleming.org/mkbb/magazine/rnpa-
whatlove.shtml) Online.
Google. 24 November 2002.
Schikel, Richard. “Shaky, Not Stirring.” Time Magazine 27
November 2002. Online.
Google. 3 December 2002.
Svetkey, Benjamin. “Double Agents.” Entertainment Weekly.
29 November 2002: 22
33.
Winterson, Jeannette. “Girls, Girls, Girls.” The Guardian 13
September 2002.
Guardian Unlimited. Online. Google. 24 November 2002.
Zacharek, Stephanie. “The Spies Who Thrilled Me.” Salon
Arts and Entertainment July
26, 2002. Online. Google. 24 November 2002.
The James Bond Films. (http://www.klast.net/bond/films.html)
Online. Google. 24
November 2002.
Bond Women. (http://www.jamesbondmm.co.uk/women.html)

Online. Google. 24
November 2002.
Television
“Bond Girls Are Forever.” Hosted Maryam d’Abo. AMC. 6
November 2002.

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