C CFeb 13, 2018 09:15 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 13, 2018 09:18 PM by C C.)
Weisz has a point. This sex-conversion trend for fictional characters is pandering to a covert, a priori belief still lingering in the entertainment industry that both old and any newly created female heroes lack capacity to be spectacularly lucrative enough in their own right. So the market forces want to buttress profits by pimping-out established male characters as gender overhauled vehicles for female actors to ride on. Also using the generated controversy as a paying crowd attracter.
Back in the 1990s, Xena: Warrior Princess was a completely new "redemption seeking anti-hero" whose show succeeded on its own. Beating out in ratings and lasting longer than the project it had splintered off from, which concerned the male demigod who had been popular for centuries: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. (Never mind that I personally find both shows unwatchable despite their intentionally reveling in and openly acknowledging their anachronistic, facetious silliness.)
Why even bother keeping James Bond British, since losing that trait pales in comparison to radically throwing away his maleness as an essential property. (Actually, the former taboo was broken at the very outset in the motion picture medium, where Bond was changed to an American agent named "Jimmy Bond" in a one-hour CBS television adaptation in 1954.)
EXCERPT: In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Rachel Weisz spoke out against the idea of gender swapping the character of James Bond. She believes that women deserve to see their own respective stories be taken place on the big screen rather than relying on switching the male version of a character with a female. [...] The Disobedience actress went on to suggest that perhaps storytellers could create new works depicting compelling female characters who are in their own respective narratives: “Why not create your own story rather than jumping on to the shoulders and being compared to all those other male predecessors? Women are really fascinating and interesting and should get their own stories.”
YazataFeb 13, 2018 10:21 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 13, 2018 10:26 PM by Yazata.)
It seems to me that a huge part of James Bond's 'Bondness' is his fundamental maleness. Could a woman really play the Bond character without transforming it into another character entirely?
I agree that there are all kinds of models for a female spy and all kinds of ways for an actress to play that role. James Bond isn't it.
But we probably need to keep in mind that the proposal that a woman play James Bond is cultural/political rhetoric. It's an attempt by the Lords of the Universe, our would-be social and cultural superiors, to instruct the lowly, ignorant and benighted masses. A female Bond would have a clear political purpose.
The idea that everyone is supposed to adopt today (and you are punished if you say anything else) is that what once was called 'sex' is now 'gender'. Where 'sex' was once biological, genetic and anatomical (biologists and physicians talked about sex), today's 'gender' is socially constructed, arbitrary and fluid (sociologists and 'cultural studies' activists talk about 'gender'). In certain feminist and "LGBT" circles, what they call "gender bending", subverting what they think of as socially constructed 'gender stereotypes', is thought of as a revolutionary act.
(Feb 13, 2018 09:15 PM)C C Wrote: Weisz has a point. This sex-conversion trend for fictional characters is pandering to a covert, a priori belief still lingering in the entertainment industry that both old and any newly created female heroes lack capacity to be spectacularly lucrative enough in their own right. So the market forces want to buttress profits by pimping-out established male characters as gender overhauled vehicles for female actors to ride on. Also using the generated controversy as a paying crowd attracter.
Back in the 1990s, Xena: Warrior Princess was a completely new "redemption seeking anti-hero" whose show succeeded on its own. Beating out in ratings and lasting longer than the project it had splintered off from, which concerned the male demigod who had been popular for centuries: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. (Never mind that I personally find both shows unwatchable despite their intentionally reveling in and openly acknowledging their anachronistic, facetious silliness.)
Why even bother keeping James Bond British, since losing that trait pales in comparison to radically throwing away his maleness as an essential property. (Actually, the former taboo was broken at the very outset in the motion picture medium, where Bond was changed to an American agent named "Jimmy Bond" in a one-hour CBS television adaptation in 1954.)
EXCERPT: In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Rachel Weisz spoke out against the idea of gender swapping the character of James Bond. She believes that women deserve to see their own respective stories be taken place on the big screen rather than relying on switching the male version of a character with a female. [...] The Disobedience actress went on to suggest that perhaps storytellers could create new works depicting compelling female characters who are in their own respective narratives: “Why not create your own story rather than jumping on to the shoulders and being compared to all those other male predecessors? Women are really fascinating and interesting and should get their own stories.”
All we need is another round of "you're only criticizing the movie because they replaced men with women...and you're a sexist" (ala Ghostbusters) nonsense. Where political correctness doubles as a cudgel against unfavorable reviews.
"The Disobedience actress went on to suggest that perhaps storytellers could create new works depicting compelling female characters who are in their own respective narratives: “Why not create your own story rather than jumping on to the shoulders and being compared to all those other male predecessors? Women are really fascinating and interesting and should get their own stories.” "
I agree. Besides, there will be differences in how a female spy works from a male spy. The movie "Red Sparrow" is soon to come out starring Jennifer Lawrence as a spy using her seductive prowess/martial art skills to infiltrate the crime world. There is enough entertainment potential in that aspect alone to not have to transpose new gender roles over old movie characters. Hollywood could definitely use some more creative writers.
There seems to be this idea off screen that women are victims of men, but on screen, we want roles where we are not victims, and kicking all the men’s asses in the film. I don’t give high marks to films depicting women as heroes unless it’s a good movie, with a good plot and script. It’s insulting to me as a woman to hand me things in life instead of earning them. Simply because of my gender. That’s the problem I have with these topics because it implies that women need all this help to get people to notice us as strong, amazing women but then we want people to see us as victims of men, at the same time. If you’re a strong woman, everyone will know it. But don’t just act it when it’s convenient.
(Feb 14, 2018 06:27 PM)Leigha Wrote: There seems to be this idea off screen that women are victims of men, but on screen, we want roles where we are not victims, and kicking all the men’s asses in the film. I don’t give high marks to films depicting women as heroes unless it’s a good movie, with a good plot and script. It’s insulting to me as a woman to hand me things in life instead of earning them. Simply because of my gender. That’s the problem I have with these topics because it implies that women need all this help to get people to notice us as strong, amazing women but then we want people to see us as victims of men, at the same time. If you’re a strong woman, everyone will know it. But don’t just act it when it’s convenient.
Yah, amazing in both traditional and pioneering ways that are more different and revolutionary to the landscape than just "kicking all the men’s asses in the film". The pop-culture market or entertainment industry co-opted feminism for its own purposes a long time ago, as its seems to do with any influential movement. With respect to at least the spectacle and "comic book" category of cinema that the Bond franchise is crouched in, a male producer's idea of a "strong woman" (SW) is yet another instance of taking an already existing, "bigger than life" swaggering male template and simply plugging an actress into it with few modifications. (And goodness forbid, maybe even a few female studio heads are residents of the same juvenile warrior planet).
The character of Ripley in the original "Alien" movie literally was a man in the first draft of the screenplay, before writer Dan O'Bannon did a gender swap to create one of the earliest examples of the gun-toting SW cliché. Such big budget versions of the classic B-movie have been rolling out hybridized catwalking-model slash butch-fem caricatures ever since.
In the beginning it truly was a novel breakthrough. To finally have a lady character in a horror flick who did something besides scream and need rescuing, who was not only the survivor but wiped out the monster all on her own. But when ubiquitously proliferating and monotonously repeating over and over again, the type of SW who simply mimics male behavior isn't adding anything new to the world, isn't balancing out the dominant patriarchal orientation of centuries (and its subjugating, violent or warring results) with a maternal counterpart.
And when considering the nature of these "spectacle" and thriller films, overall they're little more than Road Runner cartoons where impossible things happen. With CGI and conventional FX replacing the bygone hand-drawn animation. Either one's brain or one's higher standards have to be left parked outside the theater or the living room from the get-go just just to deal with them.
They also revolve around "superheroes" of one sort or another -- whether it's someone with extraordinary skills like James Bond or someone with extraordinary pseudoscience powers like Spiderman -- or an average guy or gal blessed with fantastic luck in terms of miraculously escaping one threat after another.
So in that context there may be no SW option for this type of expensive sub-genre but a comic book bromide -- the "snarling, sleek, 100-pound heroine who tosses evil men around like rag dolls or whips them like a demon dominatrix" , or whatever. A certain set of traits are expected for any protagonist in these films regardless of gender, that are going to be lopsided toward adolescent masculine fantasies and daydreaming. A niche that could be exploited more, however, is the thinking woman who uses intellect to solve challenges like a sleuth.
Elsewhere, however, both the SW (strong woman) and the SM (strong man) protagonist should be more complex than the big-budget, B-movie spectacle expectations. Even the "psychologically tormented anti-hero" tropes for the latter have become pretty stale and predictable in their confined box.
LeighaFeb 14, 2018 11:19 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 14, 2018 11:26 PM by Leigha.)
That ^ is an outstanding post, CC. Completely agree.
There are so many double standards in the movie industry, showcasing women beating up men, or even the trite slap across the face cliche that still shows up in its various forms. Are there women cheering such women on? If a guy does or says something wrong to me, I should slap him in the face? But, if he were to do the same to me should I ''step out of line'', I should be permitted to claim victimhood? I believe that this ''4th wave'' feminism is the problem, not feminism in and of itself. It sends too many mixed messages to women and men, leaving men confused as to how to approach and socialize with women, and women feeling like they need to be this strong hero of sorts, while still able to wave the victim status when it suits them. How about actually living one's life with one's own set of values and objectives, instead of cow-towing to social justice posturing and virtue signaling.
Fifty Shades of Grey, a movie where the main character is basically an arrogant, dominating sexist who sexually manipulates women for fun, scored super high marks in the box office, causing millions of women to race to the theaters. So, many women enjoy that type of entertainment on the one hand, yet on the other, call such real-life relationships ''abusive?" Equality between the genders will only exist when women stop playing the damsel in distress when it suits, and the seductive, super hero when it's convenient. Feminism still gets a lot wrong about the very group it pretends to ''protect.''
I'm just over it. For every misogynist, there exists a misandrist. But, the latter is rarely if ever discussed, in the mainstream media.
YazataFeb 14, 2018 11:57 PM (This post was last modified: Feb 15, 2018 10:48 PM by Yazata.)
There have been good female spies for as long as there have been movies (Greta Garbo as Mata Hari). Or for as long as there have been women, for that matter.
I think that those old 1930's, 40's and 50's movies might have been a golden age for females in a role like that. You can just picture the elegant mysterious woman sliding her dangerous way into Humphrey Bogart's smaller (and soon to be blown up) world, whether Maltese Falcon San Francisco or Casablanca.
More recently, I liked Judi Dench as 'M' (the Director of British Intelligence) in the James Bond films. Her character communicated that she could easily have Bond shot and she usually had half a mind to do it (she did judge him expendable and ordered "take the shot!" in one movie), but you sensed that she cared for Bond too (and not always just in a motherly way).
Dana Scully in the X Files wasn't a spy exactly, but she was a fascinating character on the screen.
That woman in The Americans is good too.
As far as "gender bending" goes, I have to admit that I loved the surrealistic old 1960's Avengers with the relentlessly sexy (and bad-ass) Emma Peel. She was partnered with the rather foppish John Steed (she called him "Steed" as if she liked to ride him) and often dressed in leather like a dominatrix. Steed could handle himself, but he was usually more interested in making witty remarks while she fought off the bad guys with martial arts.
On-topic with a female Bond, It simply wouldn't work. However there is definitely room for "Moneypenny".
While I am unsure as to the content of the Moneypenny Diaries (wikipedia.org) there is always the possibility to concentrate more on Miss Moneypenny. While it suggests the stories were written with Bond being observed there is so much that can be done with the character (although my thoughts would likely not hold true to the stories that already exist).
Whether someone would want to portray a "realworld" character in a fiction fantasy meant for escapism, I really don't think would work. The characters in some respects are suppose to be "Super human" in the sense that they do things that realworld people only dream of. If it's turned to fake-Reality TV it will lose the people that want an escapist story.
Feb 13, 2018 09:15 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 13, 2018 09:18 PM by C C.)
![[Image: coat.jpg]](https://classichollywoodstylebook.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/coat.jpg)
![[Image: wait1.jpg?w=540&h=426]](https://onceuponascreen.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/wait1.jpg?w=540&h=426)
![[Image: hqdefault.jpg]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/N4Sg7inYebY/hqdefault.jpg)
![[Image: fa31a5dbf998798fb0f9e471b48b860d.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fa/31/a5/fa31a5dbf998798fb0f9e471b48b860d.jpg)
