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This article originally appeared on VICE UK
As per every December since records began, it’s impossible to escape the cold hands of James Bond. The latest in the series, Spectre, is on its way, and the daft old racist Bond of earlier films will soon be infiltrating your Christmas TV. Be prepared to spend yet another Boxing Day plonking your gorged carcass in front of that one where he climbs into a submarine disguised as a crocodile, that one where he kicks a car off a cliff, or that one with Sean Bean in it.
True Bond-heads laud the character’s status as a throwback: he’s paid his dues, he’s worked his way through the ranks, he’s unashamedly British. But his antiquated image was at its nadir in the 90s, sent-up by both Robbie Williams in the ”Millennium” video and Mike Myers before he stuck a laser beam up the ass of his career with The Love Guru.
There was an entire generation whose favorite Bond memory was shooting that bloke on the bog in the N64 version of GoldenEye. Judi Dench’s M dismissed Pierce Brosnan’s 007 as a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur,” while superior espionage flicks left Bond looking like Dave Whelan at a Kick It Out meeting.
Like all these serious movies about grown men in rubber pants, the Daniel Craig-fronted 007 movies have been something of a dark and gritty reinterpretation of the character. Bond may not be a superhero, but there’s been a similar attempt in the genre to drop him into the so-called “real world.”
You can imagine the studio execs banging on about “streamlining” as they sever Bond from his Etonian roots and re-brand him as a slightly more modern murderer. He—Christ!—had a woman as his boss for a bit, and—fucking hell!—isn’t bothered whether his Martini is shaken or stirred. He emerges from the sea in his underpants, chest glistening in a reversal of Ursula Andress’ Dr. No turn; he flirts with Javier Bardem; he may have had some mommy issues. The writers try to sculpt a more complex version of Bond, one that will leave the viewer asking questions (although the only question anyone had after 2008’s Quantum of Solace was, “What the fuck’s a Quantum of Solace?”)
However, it’s very proven difficult to shake the idea that Bond is the sort of man who subscribes to both GQ and Tatler, and who spends his free time wearing Barbour jackets and adding to his ludicrous chronograph watch collection. The overriding sense remains that 007 is the smuggest of smug cunts.
Skyfall—an enjoyable, if derivative, movie—contained your de facto Bond scene of perfunctory intercourse, albeit with a victim of sex-trafficking rather than someone whose name is a riff on their genitalia. Later in the film, this character has a shot of Scotch placed on her head, and Bardem invites Craig to shoot it off, William Tell/Burroughs-style. Bond misses. Bardem hits. As the woman falls to the ground, 007 remarks, “What a waste of good Scotch.” He remains unable to resist a quip or a cheeky nob gag, even in the most unrelenting of circumstances. It stands to reason that his biggest fan is Alan Partridge.
While Bond’s adversaries have moved with the times—now seeking the more prosaic pleasures of seizing control of Bolivia’s water supply or winning at poker, rather than, say, creating a new master race in space or attacking Washington, DC, with a giant laser made of diamonds—007 is disappointingly static. Connery injected some globe-humping glamor, Brosnan reeled out some Cool Britannia shtick, and Roger Moore wore a safari suit. But try as they might, Bond is still the ultimate establishment figure. The aging white man with the old-school tie. The government-funded assassin of rent-a-goons. The arch capitalist, who inspires impressionable grown men to drop almost $4,700 on Sony spy gear.
Indeed, Bond’s tiresome Queen-and-Country, little Englander spiel is undoubtedly more Bullingdon than Bourne, and carries the putrid reek of UKIP leader Nigel Farage. His nemeses are scheming, hand-wringing Euro-pastiches, evil primarily because they’re a) wealthy and b) Slavic, Mediterranean, or Russian. They’re coming over here and running their keys down your Aston Martin.
Bond is the back-slapping buffoon from the old boy’s club, dropping some casually-racist nuggets masquerading as banter. Fanboys will exalt the “escapism” of Bond movies, but it’s hard to root for such a relic. He’s a Daily Express Princess Diana commemorative plate, a “Keep Calm” meme, a grizzled Great British Bake-off contestant. His favorite film is Zulu. If UKIP (The UK Independence Party) is the purest expression of the macho conservative British zeitgeist, Bond is the UKIP of action heroes.
Perhaps Bond will never detach himself from the maniacal grip of Ian Fleming; a man who wrote “All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken,” in The Spy Who Loved Me. Perhaps we’ve simply never had the right Bond. The character’s mix of brute machismo and racist commentary could have well suited Mel Gibson, who was rejected in 1987 for “not being British” (oh, the irony), which is not half as dismissive as the pass on Ranulph Fiennes for having “hands too big and a face like a farmer.”
We’ll never truly root for Bond because he is a product of a parasitic England that is sadly very much alive. Not that 007 will be killed. He’ll continue working his way through a bevvy of glitzy Euro-booty and sinister plutocratic cartels in much the same fashion as ever.
