The James Bond aesthetic

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The Stoic fallacy is said to be the belief that we can always and everywhere achieve the level of morality, intelligence , or insight, that we manage at our best. It occurred to me, watching a James Bond movie (I detest them, but tend to watch the most recent ones for the pleasure of watching Judy Dench), that the whole James Bond genre is based

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Re: Arghh - I would argue superheros with and expert

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As a matter of fact, I did "get bent out of shape over Mary Sue". You might like to check the following two fanfics, they have got good reviews:
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/fabio_p_barbieri/MSAH01a.html
http://www.fictionalley.org/authors/fabio_p_barbieri/TSOTB01a.html

But seriously: I do not take James Bond "seriously" to the extent that I would fight about its merits. The "seriousness" you perceive is somewhat different. I know that it is, in effect, cheap entertainment. What interests me is, one, what is it that leads people to pay money to see the movies, and, two, why this particular kind of entertainment has appeared at this time in the history of our culture. Take, by way of comparison, an ordinary bout of flu. To you, it would be a petty nuisance to be got through in a few days. But to a research physician specializing in influenza, it might well be of very great interest; not on account of its actual impact in ordinary lives, which might be small enough, but because it might have great impact in his/her research. That is my position with respect to the James Bond movies. They are an interesting phenomenon, not so much by themselves, as for how they fit into a bigger picture.

In particular, I am interested in the cumulative effect of the sort of media communication that we do not notice - the steady flow of (say) newspaper articles and editorials, advertising, soap operas, quiz shows, etc. etc. That is why I found the connection between TV advertising and James Bond movies of particular interest: it was, to me, symptomatic of the way that a certain kind of communication, that may seem irrelevant in itself and to wash over the reader/listener/spectator without leaving traces, may, in the long run, have a vast effect on the culture.

Mention of superheroes complicates matters. To compare them to James Bond movies alone is unfair; it would be more to the point to compare them to the whole field of spy movies - including undoubted masterpieces such as many Hitchcock movies and The Third Man. Of course, most of them are negligible. But the best of them - work by the likes of Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Steve Gerber - even Frank Miller before he went insane - are works of genius, works of art comparable to the best in any other field. And what is more, I have worked in that field myself, so I am defensive about them. Let me put it this way: I take Jack Kirby seriously - the Bond movies not remotely as much.

I would, however, beg you not to get scared merely because I get intense about something. It does not actually mean that I am going to jump all over you. And there might even be some interesting discussion to be done somewhere in there.