The James Bond aesthetic

[fpb]

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

Comments

[asakiyume]

Well, yes. There's not much to James Bond.

About the sad version of sophistication that it presents, I think it's a matter of talking down to an audience that the movie makers (or Ian Fleming himself?) thinks couldn't appreciate the more individualized and truly discerning pleasures you describe. They cynically think--or perhaps they themselves also think--that everyone knows how marvelous [expensive name-brand good] is, whereas who will appreciate the artisan bread or the clear air from the small bed-and-breakfast in such-and-such a location.

[fpb]

Well, yes, but the public has been talked down to for as long as there has been a publishing industry. My question was, how did this particular phenomenon arise here and now, and does it have anything more to tell us about society at large? I am a culture historian, and that is how I think. And I'm afraid that what it has to say could even be scary - as for instance in that the mental arteries of many people may be more clogged than we thought, given what I said about the fact that all that Bond seems to be about is preserving the world as it is, with no ifs and no buts.

[asakiyume]

Do you think the desire to preserve the world as it is represents an innate human conservatism? (I don't mean political conservatism; I mean the sort of conservatism children demonstrate when they prefer to stick to the same flavor of ice cream or they want a familiar story over and over in preference to something new, or a walk they know they like by the river as opposed to a new walk, elsewhere.) I'm wondering if some parts of society are so afraid that change means something worse than what they have that they're willing to preserve it at all costs rather than try to improve it.

Is it because change is painful, and it's hard to trust that the eventual improvement will be worth the pain? (And, in some cases, it's not, though in others it definitely is.)

[fpb]

Conservatism is human, and within some proper bounds, healthy. However, what I find unpleasant in the Bond kind of conservatism is the way he is always making deals and reaching working understandings with the agents of Soviet Russia, Red China, North Korea - countries which are not only hostile but which are well known to be criminal towards both their own people and the rest of the world. It is not that he is fighting for the world as it is; it is that he is fighting for the corrupt world as it is. Tyrannies and mass murder are part of the order he defends.

When are you calling "Now," Kimosabe?

[rfachir]

Heretic! You malign my Super-hero! It's an hour Time Out in the comfy chair for you!
Bond is a fantasy for all the reasons you describe - everything works just the way we want it to. There's no reason to grow because the teen fantasy world exists to have fun in - no one is ever sad or uncertain or weak or wrong. Not know what to do with a cork the first time you order wine? What would Bond do? Not know what to do with a lesbian the first time you date her? Bond and Pussy had a roll in the hay and she came out straight, pro-American Gold Standard, and still blonde. Heck, Tracy Draco was a suicidal party girl (just like Brittany, and Anna Nicole) and all he needed to do to cure her was let her pay off a gamling debt with sex (with him, of course

Re: When are you calling "Now," Kimosabe?

[fpb]

As a supwerhero writer/artist/creator, I do not agree with your definition of superheroes. Superheroes eff up. Superheroes go bad. Superheroes die. And (one thing which alone would separate Bond from any superhero) superheroes don't kill people. I think, in fact, that the relationship is pretty much the opposite. Superhero fiction meditates on real issues through fantastic situations. James Bond type fiction creates an unreal world with realistic components.

Arghh - I would argue superheros with and expert

[rfachir]

Would you believe I was going to use "comic-book," instead of "superhero" but said to myself, "Oh no, FPB loves comics. He knows all about them. Choose another word."I'm no expert. I didn't know any superheroes went bad or made mistakes. Except for Captain America, who I honestly still don't know, I didn't know any died. It's counter-intuitive for me. What's the "Super" designation for if they're not bullet-proof

Re: Arghh - I would argue superheros with and expert

[fpb]

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

[theswordmaiden]

You use the word "fantasy" a lot and I think it's spot on. I've heard the Bond movies described as just a male fantasy, a wet dream, and that too many people take it seriously. It's also good you just mean the movies, because I think in the books he takes a lot more beatings and fatigue, etc., and has at least one illegitimate child.

[fpb]

And, I once read, he gets married and shows signs of getting older - both in the same novel. Except that Fleming copped out and had his wife killed. If I had one penny for every fictional hero who lost a wife or a bride-to-be early in their relationship, I could buy my own flat in central London.

[eliskimo]

It's an interesting point you have about the advertising culture of the late 50's and early 60's (although you did not pin it so definatively) and its manifestation in the Bond mythos. However, I think two other words you used are more important: "fantasy" and "aristocratic". Bond is not an aristocrat. However, as part of the character's "cover" of blending in with the "jet set" he becomes a fantasy of an aristocrat. His definative tastes are less plastic because they are the dream of advertisers than they are plastic because they are fake. Bond is a construct. He's been *groomed* to this role. He is no less a creation than any of Q's gadgets. The sauve is part of the mask. Showing curiousity would both draw attention to himself (as people actually engaged with him as a person) and distract him from the task at hand. But imperiously announcing "shaken not stirred" allows his mouth to be engaged and the people around him distracted while his brain is, in fact, elsewhere

[fpb]

These are very interesting comments. It has been a long time since I saw even a bit of the Dalton Bond movies, so I cannot respond to your comments on this subject, but I would point out that there is no mutual exclusion between my seeing the Bond movie world as a result of the imaginary world of advertising, and seeing Bond as a facade placed on a man whose work is killing people. My account is of how that particular imaginative world becomes possible; yours is of the best construction to be placed on the character, granting the character we have. I would point out that mine accounts better for the fantastic (in every sense of the word) efficiency of Bond, his comrades, his enemies, his women, and above all his gadgets.

Incidentally, have you read Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise novels and comics? I regard O'Donnell as a very fine writer indeed.

[eliskimo]

In that case, a counterpoint would be the (non-Bond) movie, Equilibrium (Christian Bale, Angus Macfadyen), where the "fantastic efficiency" of the elite police is not merely taken for granted, but called attention to, underscored, and revealed (throught the "Gun Kata" scenes) as part of the result of attempting to turn a man into a machine (figuratively, of course, not literally - it's not RoboCop).

I wonder though, if the reader/viewer is not meant on some level to see through the "perfection" of Bond's world. That it is not meant to highlight futility the same way the computer scenarios of MAD in War Games do? In that case, the ones who do not seen through it are fools. So the creators of "Inspector Gadget" (more the cartoon, than the awful movie) and the Bourne series get it, but the creators of all the Schwartzenager (or worse, Segal or VanDamme) action movies (where the hero also does not suffer fatigue, jamming machinery or less-than-fabulous women) do not.

Thanks for the tip about O'Donnell; I'll have to check him out.

Modesty Blaise

[lametiger]

I used to read the Modesty Blaise comic strip years ago, I think only in the newspaper in Hong Kong. I don't specifically recall ever encountering it here in the US. I also later on read a couple of the books (again in HK), but my general impression is that Ms Blaise is virtually unknown here in the US. Certainly my local library here does not have any books by O'Donnell. My impression was that (in sexual mores for certain) she was kind of a femaie mirror image of James Bond. I realize this is an oversimplification, and it has been long enough since I read the books that I don't feel really qualified to analyze the similarities and differences. That could be a fascinating followup analysis if our host would be interested in writing it.

[johncwright]

A very minor quibble: I think in one or two Bond films, the bad guy is definitively the Soviets or the Red Chinese (FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE springs to mind). But your point is well taken; there are a number of films where Bond cooperates with the Soviets (SPY WHO LOVED ME) or they are depicted merely as competitors in a game (FOR YOUR EYES ONLY).

Do you see any parallel between the Bond fantasy and the old 'stiff-upper-lip' adventurer of the British Empire? The soldier of the Empire who goes to exotic places and does exotic things for Queen and Country?

I was wondering how much of the appeal of Bond movies was a nostalgia for a certain type of boy's adventure tails of the previous generation, but with a spy rather than a soldier or big game hunter as the main character.

[fpb]

To be sure about the descent of the Bond character from previous ultra-manly and violent Empire-boosters, I would have to read the novels, which I at present I do not plan to do. (Of course, if I find them cheap in a charity shop, I'll get them.) The movie incarnation does seem to have something to do with the worse kind of imperial fiction: the tendency to mass-kill enemies thanks to the wonders of technology - the airplane and the Gatling gun were staples of imperial boys' fiction - and a fairly ridiculous brand of invulnerability. You may remember how Dorothy L.Sayers characterized Sexton Blake, the poor man's Sherlock Holmes, in one of her detective novels:

"It beats me," said Wimsey, "the way these policemen give