Silva’s Great Guess-My-Kink Discussion

Dinner over.

As I noted in my bus post, the issue is that the tradition has been that all characters are assumed straight unless indicated otherwise. It is the convention of narrative cinematic art and in society as well. Those community members old enough probably remember a time when all people were assumed straight unless there was some obvious tell that they weren’t or had come out. It is still that way in narrative art–unless otherwise indicated a character is straight (in some ways this needs to occur for narrative to happen–otherwise every film would have to spend x amount of exposition time delineating all characters’ sexual orientations). In the same way, if you went to see a film about gay men’s lives, you would assume all the male characters were gay unless told differently.

Society has progressed where now by my guess there is a sizable number of people who no longer automatically assume that the person they have just met is straight. We all still make our good guesses, but are willing to be proven wrong without much fuss.

Also, in many situations/events/companies now people list their PGPs (preferred gender pronouns). My work email has as part of my signature: PGP: He/Him/His. The old assumptions are being slowly displaced, but it is still a work-in-progress.

First–thanks to all for this conversation.

Makes sense to me so far.

I do not quite get why it would be a caricature if we think of Silva as coming from a mirror universe, but you know the Brosnan films better than I so no argument from me. But here is where I disagree with you:

And this is where you lose me. If SIlva is not a mirror image, but rather a distorted/funhouse mirror image, then making him gay place queerness on the distorted side of the equation. If Silva had been a straight-up mirror image, it would not have mattered as much. Your argument is plausible; it is the film makers’ execution that messes it up. The grotesquerie is misplayed.

Exactly. In your argument, the gayness is just a mirror image of Bond’s straightness. It works in the abstract so long as a viewer does not place Silva in the cinematic history of queer villainy.

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Plausible, but I have the same problem here as I do with Dustin’s theory (which dovetails nicely with the one you present): the film makers did not have to make Silva a grotesque to achieve either a mirror image effect or to make the audience keen to see Bond’s response. In fact, both theories–especially yours–work better with Silva as an undistorted mirror image–a Bond doppelganger with a couple of tweaks.

There still remains the problem that two of the tweaks are SIlva being a psychopath and being gay–but maybe the film makers could have figured something out. Instead they neglected/declined to take into consideration how Silva-as-gay related to the history of filmic queer villains and ended up with the mess they did.

Agreed. But if an artist wants to play out those tensions, she really shouldn’t stack the deck.

I really have no idea how that can mean Bond had sex with Q.

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I know and have worked repeatedly with a director who is openly gay and said that he hates it when homosexuality is portrayed as either the source of evil (plenty of films to have fallen victim to that) - but portraying gay people only as good, just and virtuous would be exactly the same problem since that would treat them as inhuman as well.

Human beings - and I totally subscribe to this point of view - can be everything. Their sexuality should not dictate the way they are portrayed in a piece of art.

Therefore, if an artist wants to create a gay villain or serial killer I would say: absolutely, go for it. As long as the sexuality is not the defining trait.

Silva´s defining trait is not his appearance or his stroking of Bond. It is his deep hatred after feeling hurt by M.

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No-one’s arguing that, and the stereotype we’ve referred to has nothing to do with being gay as the SOURCE of villainy, but gay being played as an aspect of villainy - like a bleeding eye or a hook, its used to show depravity, and more often than not the gay promiscuity story thats been around since the days of AIDS hysteria

  • the point is that Silva and other Bond villains continue to fall into the same homophobic villain stereotype again and again with no positive representation whatsoever - the point is that they are NOT portrayed as just and virtuous or morally grey anti heroes - They are ONLY (in Bond films at least) portrayed as villains - so while your gay director friend is right in a perfect world where LGBT people are treated equally, they’re not, so it’s more harmful to continue the negative stereotypes around them in film (especially in action and genre entertainment) unless it begins to be balanced.

You can’t claim seriously that Silva’s sexuality isn’t treated as one aspect of his villainy - here he is sexually propositioning the male macho hero- even though Bond’s response is not outright homophobia - the sexuality is here either played as deviance or a joke depending how you look at it - what bond says is a joke a footy player would make, its hardly some credible admission that 007 is anything other than straight.

If their sexuality shouldn’t dictate the way they are portrayed, why have they all been villains and why have no good characters been lgbt? It clearly is dictating the way they are portrayed.

I’m not quite sure why everyone is continuing to hand wave this point away or explain that its not a big deal - I’m not saying the Bond movies should suddenly turn into a Pride parade, I think what MrKiddWint and I are both trying to point out is that this stuff exists and it is hurtful and off putting to some fans.

I disagree, especially with the notion that a balanced portrayal will stop the negative stereotypes. Art reflects the way people see the world, whether one likes it or not. I certainly don’t like it but that’s the way it has always been, and history unfortunately shows that people are alll too happy to continue, especially disregarding changes in representation in entertainment.

One aspect of his personality, not his villainy. And he absolutely is not propositioning here - he is making fun of Bond. Silva basically wants to show: I’m in control here, Mr. Bond, and I will make you squirm. Bond reacts: Nothing to squirm about here. Silva immediately makes fun of that but looks for another way to prove to Bond that he is powerless here - hence Severine´s fate.

And, with no disrespect, I am surprised that Bond actually has homosexual fans when the whole idea of the novels and the films is not treating gays with the respect they deserve and wish for.

Total agreement.

It shouldn’t, but as you point out, it often did/does. You can look back to Laird Creagar and Raymond Burr and their villain roles to see how long a tradition this has been.

Amendment: as long as the sexual orientation is fully integrated into the character portrayal (which is how sexual orientation is prevented from being perceived as a defining trait). It must be portrayed in a manner similar to its presentation in the heterosexual characters: an integrated sexual orientation loses its ability to serve as a signifier or a definer.

But Silva’s queerness is offered up as a signifier/talisman since it is not an integrated aspect of who he is: it fails the integration test.

thats the thing - noone’s talking about stopping the negative portrayals outright - its about bringing it into balance - probably won’t stop things outright, but it would give some positive role models for people, especially young people to look up to. The world won’t change overnight but it can be made better by those willing to try.

Yeah he is trying to make him squirm through homosexuality which Bond brushes off with a joke. If it’s such a not big deal why hasn’t Bond seduced a gay male information source yet?

I don’t think the novels and films are about not treating gays with respect, they are spy stories. Fleming just reflected the attitudes of his time and are a time capsule, the films are the same - 2012 is hardly the 50’s or 60’s to be a capsule of forgotten attitudes.

LGBT characters come up so little that no, I dont think Bond novels or films have it out for LGBT people at all, just think they casually and not maliciously deal out the same stereotypes instead of doing when they try to think ahead of the curve in terms of technology, action and so many other things.

Lastly, I don’t know that “You know what you’re in for, so if you don’t like it, I don’t know why you’re here” is really a constructive discussion to have… though like you say, maybe i shouldn’t be surprised?

It´s not about ending a constructive discussion - it´s sheer curiosity on my part. I just would not have expected Bond to have gay fans due to all the elements you and Mr.KiddWint pointed out as lacking in understanding.

I would like to ask you again: how did you like then Mr. Sulu´s homosexuality depicted in Star Trek Beyond?

And what, really, would you accept as a signifier or definer for gayness in a motion picture?

It would be as simple, for me at least, as M’s scene in Casino Royale where she is with husband in bed talking on the phone being gay characters instead, could be Q, Tanner or Ralph Fiennes M being woken up in the middle of the night and then they continue to be part of the action as per usual - it doesnt have to affect the plot in any way or be motivation for anything - its just a good character with it as part of their “personality” as people say Silva is - nothing too earth shattering for anyone i hope - that would be a very small start that would be productive. A gay character treated the same as everyone else - it’s pretty easy - that’s what you say it should be? but all the examples of gay people being treated the same are of them being depraved and kinky villains

Also, the assumption argument is a classic troll response to this issue and not at all productive - it’s like making a joke about someone identifying as an attack helicopter, it ridicules minorities struggles for cheap argument point scoring. The fact is society at large assumes all characters (and people) are straight until informed otherwise, so that is why it has to be clearly shown, the same as with Bond, M, Moneypenny etc etc being shown to be straight

Like you, we grow up watching Bond movies with our families too… and we live in a world where we’re forced to live with it to enjoy the things we love - it’s not like the Bond movies are written by Steve Bannon or the KKK…

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I’m not trying to attack you or saying that you are a troll - I’m saying its an argument used for cheap point scoring and explaining why and I do appreciate the discussion and effort you’re making to understand - it’s an important one to have

and I’d say people do give a crap given how few gay action movie characters there are and how afraid the studios are of including them

Interestingly, Jim is regularly making the point that Felix Leiter is a gay character - and on closer inspection he could be, we just don’t know. Few people outside the hardcore fan community give Leiter much thought, in the books he’s mainly there to give Fleming room to vent off about American and British curiosities. A friendship with Bond is implied but shown only in glimpses.

If we compare Leiter to Bond’s other allies it’s distinctive that Kerim Bey, Quarrel, Tiger Tanaka and Draco are all depicted as very definitely heterosexual, some aggressively, brutally so. With Leiter we get not even a hint of that. We’re told that he’s into Jazz, that he even wrote pieces for the Amsterdam News, that he’s from Texas but hardly ever there, that he knows his way around horse racing and Las Vegas - but absolutely nothing that I can remember about his private life. No wife or family are mentioned, nobody seems to have much cared when he was partially eaten by a shark - except Bond.

Leiter seems to have dabbled on the fringes of Harlem’s showbizz and the Vegas mob machine, and as I can remember he meets Vesper, Solitaire, Tiffany and possibly also Domino and Goodnight - but apparently he never makes a pass at these or any other ladies, something almost expected of the male personnel that inhabits the pages of Fleming.

So who knows, maybe Bond’s closest friend and ally was indeed meant to be gay? I don’t think it would really change any of the plots in the films or the books.

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Morning all! I am on a train upstate to a same-sex wedding and I cannot figure out how to quote other posts so I will have to reference them. BTW: appropriate to this discussion, the dress code for the wedding is “garden party whites.” Talk about a gay signifier!!! LOL

As to being a gay fan of Bond novels and films: why not? I know many lesbians who love the Bond films.

Are they perfect? No. They are products of their time. Both novels and films offer a window into the attitudes of the moment when they were made–that is one of their strengths. If SF had been made in the 1970’s we would be having a very different conversation about it. But its production date of 2012 makes the Silvia character seem like a throwback to earlier portrayals of queer characters. It is that nostalgic/reactionary quality that is part of the problem.

Because of this conversation I watched GOLDFINGER last night and enjoyed it as usual. And in Pussy Galore you have the joy and the frustration that is present in a Bond film for a queer viewer.

For 3/4’s of her performance, Honor Blackman plays a fabulous dyke, comlplete with acolyte mini-dykes–her flying circus. Then a quick kiss in the hay and she is heterosexual and helping Bond. Heterosexual male wish fulfillment? Of course. Absurd? Yes. Homophobic? Yup. Delightful? Most definitely.

Why delightful? Guy Hamilton. Pussy’s changeover is presented almost subliminally:a line of dialogue about her helping with switching the canisters, while her lesbianism and disdain for men is front and center several times. Up thread I talked about Hamilton"s way of presenting the Bond material and slyly questioning it at the same time. How he handles Pussy’s conversion is a good example.

As a queer man I appreciate the complicated pleasures of Bomd novels and films. My least favorite films are those where Bond is a simple hero doing good and besting the bad guy, e.g., the non-Hamilton Moore Bond films.

In GOLDFINGER Bond is most Bondian in the pre-credit sequence: blows stuff up, gets a girl; kills a baddie; and looks fabulous in a white dinner jacket. In the film proper he gets Jill and Tilly Masterson killed; is tricked into smashing his car into a wall; and tries to use an ingot of gold bullion to get into the bomb instead of just turning it off. He also has his successes, but it is this mix that is so Hamiltonian.

This mix also creates a space for a queer viewer to exist without having to experience Bond as an uncomplicated (late Moore) or anguished (Dalton) hero. Bond in GOLDFINGER is both heroic and satiric.

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@Arbogast777: a good portrayal of a gay character: Pussy Galore prior to he kiss in the hay.

@secretagentfan: I have not seen Star Trek Beyond. The reboot has not held my interest. Will try and catch on cable or steaming.

You just highlight the parts you want to cite; springs up a ‘quote’ button. You hit that and it’s quoted.

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Thanks Dustin. Did it without a mouse. I’m practically Q now.

@Arbogast777: If a tree falls in the forest and…

You cannot prove a negative, so there is no way to prove that any character is not a default heterosexual. But when heterosexuality is culture’s and its artistic products’ default, it requires advertising (as you put it) to indicate that the default is not in play. To contradict the default you need textual evidence–otherwise you are doing so based on a whim.

And doesn’t Q say in DAF that he built a voice change machine for his grandkids for Christmas? Unless they were the children of children from his marriage to a woman before he came out as gay and left his wife for a man.

as I said in the bit you handily quoted, the negative aspect is that the lesbian in her just needed a real man to make her see right. I’d agree she is good til shes not but when she isn’t good anymore it is one of the most problematic/offensive Bond moments in the whole series

Sure it can, if the piece deals with their sexuality - then it’s pretty compulsory that the portrayal should be dictated by that sexuality. E.g. Love Is The Devil, or Behind the Candelabra.