Very, very seriously doubt that Weisz has been cast in BOND 25, or that she was under any kind of serious consideration for it.
Just a note as I gathered. An early draft of SP mentions Lucia Sciarraâs maiden name as Bunt. Iâll dig for it but our own Stromberg confirmed it in one of these threads and we discussed it when I saw him in London.
Pre SP, when Belucci was announced, I had a suspicion she was Blofeld or, if not, the real power behind SPECTRE. Also, her being the talent and name she is, popping up for less than ten minutes of screen time and a roll in the sack just to send Bond off to an obvious trap screamed something more to her character and that we might see her return. I actually expected her to turn up during the crater scene.
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The handling of her character was one of the biggest screw ups of Spectre. It also demonstrated how after 50+ years, the misogyny is still going strong in the Bond series. They had the same problem with Severine and Fields. I actually like that Bond didnât bed Camille. For once, a woman resisted him. I actually half expect M would have hopped in the sack with Bond at the end of skyfall had she survived.
Isnât assuming that they didnât want to go to bed with him, and did so only because they were forced, in and of itself highly misogynistic?
It´s also a part of this whole enterprise, isnât it? If Bond cannot get a woman to fall in love or at least into bed with him - there goes one element of his appeal.
The important thing is that he can seduce them not by force but by charms.
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Bond > Political Correctness
No, I donât think this is indeed about political correctness. Bondâs appeal is depicted as near-faultless 100 per cent - but every now and then it doesnât work. As with Gala Brand who is already in love with another man. Sheâs tempted, but she doesnât give in.
The important thing is, the other ladies who fall for Bond are actually the same. The fall for him because they themselves choose to do so. The typical Bond girl isnât a doe eyed naĂŻve damsel but a woman who knows what she wants and goes for it. The only exception here might be FRWLâs Tatjana who is indeed very slightly challenged where her intellectual faculties are concerned.
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I was referring to SAFâs comment which i infer as suggesting Bondâs womanising is about male fantasy and this being an essential trope of Bond movies.
But in these times it can no longer be a Bond trope without simultaneously giving the 2-finger salute to political correctness; moreover, that part of this sociopolitical movement which aims to correct the shortcomings of menâs treatment of women for millennia.
Sure we can justify that in isolation the Bondâs women often appear to have their faculties about them and are uncoerced. But, if i may speculate, from a womanâs point of view i think itâs a little rich to say that Bond movies generally portray women as Bondâs equal. Only rarely. Theyâre main role is usually that of bringing the sex to the violence. Even when unrequited they are always employed in their scenes as a device to create sexual tension.
One Bond girl that wasnât âconqueredâ was Camilla, but her story was that she was raped. To resist Bond does a woman need to have been raped or already betrothed (Gala Brand)?
Note: Iâm being advocate here: As a red blooded male of the 70s attempting to empathise with a movement that is fully justified, yet often needs to be employed by means of positive discrimination - putting sons in the position suffered by daughters, despite these ânew menâ not being responsible for the fathersâ world their born into⌠i welcome a little fantasy where i can find it.
So, long may Bond remain (predominantly) a relic of the past.
I think they may use Scorpius as a base line
No offence, but i just read that and didnât find it a pleasant experience - cringetastic!
I could see them using is the notion of a villain thatâs changed his identity, meaning Bond has to expose him. But they already did that with DAD.
I like the notion of a religious cult leader - a plot to dramatically change the world driven by a wacky ideoligy, rather than politics and greed. Takes us back to Stromberg and Drax.
They did the religious cult leader thing in LTK, but that drug-ring was the filmâs B-story (revenge being the A-story). So if they do it as an âAâ it could be interesting.
There is a popular misconception that #metoo is political correctness.
It is not.
#metoo is about women who had to endure being subject to sexual molestation in its many ugly forms committed by a superior who was powerful enough to threaten any resistance by taking away a job or even making it impossible to work in a particular industry.
Political correctness was about looking at communication in our society and changing labels because they implied any form of mistreatment. Of course, this ruffled lots of feathers and might have gone too far in some cases - therefore the countermovement turned the term âpolitical correctnessâ into something to sneer at, as if the mere fact of being aware of bad behavior was a threat to free thinking.
Bond in itself is a male fantasy, definitely. A hero who always survives and gets rewarded for his efforts by a lavish lifestyle and the attention of beautiful women. BUT, despite the 60´s and early 70´s male attitude towards women rather being supporting than challenging, Bond was never the predator that #metoo has called out. He was and remains the man women can trust and therefore gets chosen. A knight in shining armor, so to speak, and this is what he can still be without changing his behavior.
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Only because you are seeing it from Bondâs side only. If the movie had been from, say, Severineâs point of view, Bond would have been seen as the device to create sexual tension. They are equals here.
I agree. And importantly, #metoo is not against sex, itâs against unwanted sex. That is not what James Bond is all about.
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metoo vs PCâŚ
Iâll think their venn diagrams cross and are not mutually exclusive. One is a culture issue, the other a predator issue. While there will always be predators no matter the culture, i think the misogynistic popular culture of the last century probably bread and facilited many a sexual predator by cultureâs unchallenged objectification of women.
There is to my mind a tangible relationship between the two.
However, i was indeed referring to Bond in the context of the negative PC attitude towards his behaviour, which has been rife since the 90s. I wasnât for a moment suggesting that Bond should be a target of metoo. As has been articulated nicely by SAF Bondâs brand of misogyny and the predators targeted by metoo are two entirely different things.
Iâm grateful for the temporary freedom Bond gives men from real life. The fantasy that women can sometimes need rescuing and will not condemn you as misogynistic for wanting to do so.
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To deny the misogyny in Bond is essentially the same as those who denounce the #metoo movement or the black lives matter. I am a huge Bond fan, have been for as long as I can remember. I agree that they can fuel that male power fantasy and I enjoy. But, especially the older films, really objectified women in some very demeaning ways. Bond pretty much rapes Pussy Galore who was trying to push Bond off him, before succumbing to his advances. He slaps around Miss Anders. Mary Goodnight is the stereotypical dumb blonde. Stacey is the most pathetic example of a damsel in distress, who was young enough to be Roger Mooreâs granddaughter. Now there have been women to flip this on its head, Anya and Wai Lin were basically Bondâs equal. Xenia and Elektra used sex as a weapon. We could even argue that Lucia uses it to bargain with Bond to protect her. But then it really is Lucia basically trading sex for protection, which is what Andrea Anders does. I think the producers did a great job in casting an older woman and then completely blew it by wasting her character in the actual film.
Respectfully, I think that was unnecessarily inflammatory, but I assume you didnât mean it to be.
I can only respond for me, personallyâŚ
Of course the Bond films, especially the Connery ones, are misogynistic. Bringing out those examples are not breaking news. My posts above were aimed only towards your initial comments that Bondâs treatment of Lucia, Severine, and Fields were misogynistic, and on only that specifically I disagree.
My apologies, I didnât mean for my comments to be as incendiary as they came off. I was trying to point out how, we as fans, try to defend what we like and may try to rationalize things in ways we shouldnât. We like the Bond films and so we donât want to admit things such as them being misogynistic. However, to me, it is disservice to not acknowledge it, even in the recent films. Fields, Severine, and Luciaare really nothingmore than playthings for Bond. Its especially problematic with Severine as the rest of Skyfall does a lot to subvert these misogynistic undertones.
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Back in 1995, my then-wifeâs feminist friend asked me âSo youâve seen GoldenEye? So what do you think of all this âno means yesâ in the Bond films?â
I was tempted to answer âI know what you mean. That one girl, Xenia, Bond had to hold off at gunpoint - she just wouldnât take no for an answer.â
I didnât say it, but wife ended up divorcing me anyway.
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Probably nonsense, if M has only a small role to play in Bond 25, he can probably shoot his scenes in a day or two.
Normally, that shouldnât be a problem. Only if the schedule entirely clashes with BOND 25 or if BOND 25 depended heavily on M would this be difficult. SKYFALL would be the best example, but I strongly doubt theyâd return to such a story dependent on a fringe character so soon again.
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