James Bond - Bond(TM)s female characters are fully liberated women. They use Bond. Consider the representation of women in Bond films.

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Leigh Nixon

James Bond Essay

“Bond’s female characters are fully liberated women. They use Bond.” Consider the representation of women in Bond films.

 Since 1962, when the first film was produced, a total of 22 James Bond films have been made. The James Bond franchise has become extremely popular and well-known all over the world. Although each film is unique in its own way and the storyline differs from film to film, there are certain generic features that have become things the audience recognises and expects to find in all Bond films. These features include gun fights, car chases (usually featuring an Aston Martin), exotic locations, gadgets, villains and last, but certainly not least, girls. All of these things make up a kind of ‘Bond cocktail’ that the audience of these films has come to love and that has made these films as successful as they are. Umberto Eco described the Bond narrative as, ‘a series of moves on a chess board, with characters playing out their usual functions.’ This refers to how the Bond films all have similar pieces or ingredients and they each have a part to play to make up this ‘Bond cocktail’ like how chess pieces all have different moves they can make.

One of the most important of those generic features is the Bond girls. Bond girls also have certain criteria that the audience expects them to fulfill in the films and they have become famous for. The connotations of the term Bond girls are normally attractive, desirable and sexually available, especially to Bond. However, Bond is often seen to use the women as playthings for his pleasure that he often sleeps with and then discards. They are regularly portrayed as needing Bond’s protection and acting in a very passive and submissive manner towards Bond. However, it is debatable as to whether this is not the case with all women in Bond films and some people believe that some Bond women are liberated and they use Bond themselves rather than it being the other way round. The definition of liberated is ‘not bound by traditional or sexual roles’ and for this to apply to the female characters in Bond films they would have to avoid fulfilling their traditional roles in the films. The traditional role of women would be as housewives that stay at home and do domestic tasks while the men go out to work. In sexual terms women would traditionally get married and settle down and only have sexual relations with one man. A big traditional role of women is that they are second to men and men are more dominant and have power over women.

Two Bond films where women play very large parts and are showcased in a number of different ways are, ‘Goldfinger’ and ‘The World Is Not Enough’. Goldfinger was first screened in 1964 and was one of the first Bond films produced; at a time when audiences were just being introduced to the ‘Bond cocktail’ and more specifically, Bond girls. The story follows Bond as he tries to spoil the plans of the villain Goldfinger who aims to contaminate all the gold in Fort Knox so that his own gold increases dramatically in value. This would severely damage the world economy and Bond has to stop Goldfinger from detonating a nuclear bomb in order to save the gold. One of the main women in this film is Pussy Galore; she is a pilot employed by Goldfinger that is repeatedly given the job of escorting and taking care of Bond, before switching sides, with Bond’s influence, and helping to stop Goldfinger. The other two women that play important parts in the film are sisters, Jill and Tilly Masterson. Jill initially works for Goldfinger, before meeting with Bond and then being killed by Goldfinger as punishment. Following this, Tilly attempts to murder Goldfinger for revenge; however she becomes involved with Bond in the process before also being killed by Goldfinger’s henchman, Oddjob.

‘The World Is Not Enough’ was released almost 40 years later in 1999, meaning it was aimed at a more modern audience and this is visible throughout the film. The storyline is similar to that of ‘Goldfinger’, as a villain (this time a man called Renard) is attempting to blow up a stretch of oil pipe line with a nuclear bomb, meaning the only supply of oil can come through one pipeline. This pipeline is owned by Elektra King who is initially meant to be innocent and under Bond’s protection until it is revealed she is working with Renard. Bond then faces the task of stopping the bomb with the help of a nuclear physicist called Dr. Christmas Jones. Apart from Christmas and Elektra there is one other woman that has a big role in the film and that is M (head of MI6); which contrasts with ‘Goldfinger’ in which M was a man.

In the 1960’s the roles of women were changing a lot. During the Second World War women had been given the opportunity to go and do “men’s” jobs in factories as the men were abroad fighting the war. After this women began to move closer to equality with men and they started to have their own freedom. They were no longer just housewives that were inferior to men and this attitude continued into the 1960’s. In Goldfinger this is visible because the women in Pussy Galore’s flying circus are pilots, which is quite a difficult and complicated job. However, there are also parts of this film that show that women may not have reached complete equality with men yet, as some of the female characters appear weak both physically and mentally and are left out of important events.

Feminism is all about recognizing the need for women to have equality with men and feminists work to create that equality. In history there have been three major waves of feminism and one of those took place just after the Second World War, continuing up until the start of the 60’s. This surge in women campaigning for equality worked alongside the fact that women had proven themselves in men’s jobs during the war and, although some men disliked it, women did make a very large step towards full equality with men.

In the 1990’s, attitudes towards women had changed even more and were very similar to today. Women had equality with men and could pretty much do any job that would have before been seen as a job purely for men. This is shown in ‘The World Is Not Enough’ where Dr. Christmas Jones is a nuclear physicist which is an extremely hard job and she must be very intelligent to do it. However, some of the Bond girls in the film still seem to just be used as sexual objects by Bond and this would suggest they are not fully liberated despite reaching equality with men.

Two key parts of both the films are the opening credits. In ‘Goldfinger’ images from the film are projected onto the body of a woman, who is painted in gold, using multi-layering. The connotations of gold are things like precious and artistically-pleasing and this could be a metaphorical symbol for women, as the girl is motionless and very passive so she does appear to be something to be looked at and appreciated visually. Gold is also a high value commodity that can be bought and sold and this could also symbolise women being almost like possessions that men can own and that they can be bought and traded. However, the women is also wearing a bikini, which was a fashionable item of clothing in the 60’s and could be worn just to emphasise that the woman is to be looked at because it is a very revealing piece of clothing. But, this could also show the liberation of women because it shows the more liberal attitude of the 60’s that allowed women to be more open and free sexually.

The opening credits in ‘The World Is Not Enough’ differ slightly from those in ‘Goldfinger’ as there is now more than one girl and they are covered in oil rather than gold. This shows that the film is more modern, as oil is probably now as, if not more, valuable than gold and this means that it has the same kind of connotations as gold; it is very expensive and precious. However, these titles contrast to those in ‘Goldfinger’ because the women are a lot more active and are dancing, but they are dancing in quite a provocative way which could mean the audience is being invited to look at them and admire them, which is similar to ‘Goldfinger’. The girls are also completely naked which represents how women have become even more sexually liberated since ‘Goldfinger’ and nudity had become more acceptable with the audience. An important part of the titles in ‘The World Is Not Enough’ is the song and more specifically the lyrics. Firstly, the song is sung by a woman and the notable lyric is, ‘We know when to kiss, we know when to kill.’ This suggests that women are very smart and devious and can be killers just as easily as they can be lovers, which goes against the traditional idea that they are very affectionate and maternal and not violent at all. This could also be directly linked to the character of Elektra King who uses her body throughout the film to seduce men to get her own way and is also involved with her father’s murder at the start.

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In ‘Goldfinger’, the first female character we meet is a dancer. She is quite attractive and very scantily-clad, which shows she is dressed to be looked at and to entertain the men she is dancing for. This is shown by a high angle camera shot that initially picks her out among the men and they are all looking at her body. When Bond is speaking to his friend he looks over at the dancer and says, ‘I have some unfinished business to attend to.’ This is quite derogatory because he isn’t referring to her as a person, which also ...

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