"The Paradox of Jinx Johnson"

[ladylavinia]

Comments

Great essay!

[anonymous]

... though I think that you should proof-read it again!
The way their members act, mi6forums.com should be renamed to "brosnanisntbond.com" anyway. I suggest that you stop visiting it altogether.

[greenpile]

i'm not sure if you have comments emailed to you on lj. so i thought i'd link my question here: http://community.livejournal.com/craigcake/21995.html

i thought i'd ask you first but if you are not interested, i will make an entry asking the community in general. let me know.

[madush69]

Rosamund Pike is just way cuter. Halle Berry is average.
What any Bond girl comes down to, is how much the guys in the audience want to nail her.

[ladylavinia]

Thank you for reducing any female character in a Bond movie in the basest and crudest terms possible.

By the way, just because Rosamund Pike may be considered "cuter" than Halle Berry, does not refute my view that the current opinion of Berry seem to reek of hypocricy.

[madush69]

James reduces most of them to the same terms, having sex with them and leaving them. Really only Tracy, and maybe Vesper are above James' piggishness. We men live vicariously through his conquests, and when he conquers a woman we wouldn't conquer, we deem it a waste of film.

[ladylavinia]

My problem isn't over Bond "conquering" Jinx. Well, he did "conquer" her. But she had also "conquered" him. In fact, she seemed to treat men the same way he treats women.

As I had earlier pointed out, as long as the female character in the movie provides more to the story than simply as someone for Bond to fuck, I'm perfectly fine. And Jinx did achieve this. She became his ally in the fight against Graves and Frost. But apparently, some people have a problem with this. With some, she's allowed to be an action woman, but as long as she doesn't get captured or commit any mistakes. Whereas Bond's mistakes or the villains' capture of him are tolerated.

[shutupand_drive]

Nice stuff. I'm not a particular fan of Die Another Day, but, like you, I had no idea Halle Berry had ruffled so many feathers.
And I agree with you - they need to get over it. She was good (or as good as the rest of the movie). I liked her in it. I tought she had spunk.

[theladyrose]

Interesting analysis you present here, Lady Lavinia. I do agree with the criticisms of well, the rather flimsy criticisms most fans used against Jinx. I personally find Jinx not well developed enough as a character; I like the concept of Bond working with a female agent his professional equal (à la Anya Amasova and to a certain degree, Holly Goodhead) but I wish we could've had a better understanding of what drove her as a character. Me, I'm just a sucker for character development; I need at least a hint of "Why is this woman the way she is?" I found all of the female roles in DAD underdeveloped; to be honest, characterization was pretty much tossed out the window to focus on a storyline that grew too confused under the weight of flashy action sequences.

In summary, I don't find Jinx a horrible Bond girl; I merely think her character had so much potential that just wasn't realized.

[ladylavinia]

Honestly, I had assumed that Jinx's presence in the movie was merely professional. As an NSA agent, she was more interested in capturing or killing Zao, Graves' henchman. From what I had understand from the film, he was responsible for the death(s) of American agent(s). But once Graves threatened the DMZ and South Korean, her agenda became a lot wider.

[rpowell]

You know theladyrose, I get the feeling that you disliked the idea of Bond's leading lady being a woman of color . . . especially one who is partially African-American. Your complaints about her strike me as very flimsy.