AliceFraser
patreon
Sleep, allegedly murdered by Macbeth.
🕑 Added 2021-09-30 17:52:04 +0000 UTCI’ve been extremely lucky with sleep over the last few months, not that I’m boasting about it, but this week seems to have tipped into a frenzy of late night reading, as I am not sure when that particular combination of joy and mild wilful self-harm will return to my life after the baby has moved from … indoors to … outdoors.*
*Is this a disgusting way to describe it?
ANYWAY!
There’s something interesting about staying up late doing a thing that will definitely take the edge off your peak effectiveness tomorrow - because you’re doing the thing you can only do half asleep late at night (work is off the table) instead of the things you ought to be doing tomorrow. You feel like you’re rebelling against your more sensible self. I can’t side-step this borderline euphoric defiance against my inner adult by promising to (for example), read the silly book tomorrow. That doesn’t work. It has to be, like a gift of jewellery, needless, sacrificial, expensive, beautiful.
Speaking of expensive! The new James Bond movie is out, and I had to write jokes about it for the News Quiz so I know that the debate has re-emerged about whether there should be a girl Bond or a Bond Of Colour. I think this is a fairly pointless debate (they will do whatever they think will make the most money) but also the debate reveals something profound about the way we understand success. Or I think it does.
The idea that success can only look like what has been successful before is a very limiting way to think, particularly if you’re someone who’s suffered within ‘the system’ trying to win by the model laid out by the system. Is this too big a deal to make of James Bond? Possibly. Is it too complicated to try to think about at 3am? Yes. Am I going to do it anyway? Didn’t we just discuss the joys of mild recklessness at odd hours of the night?
Like, to start, Bond is different than the eponymous PhD in Doctor Who (these debates often overlap, which is why I mention it). That’s a character who’s canonically just a being in an interchangeable humanoid shell. Bond is a particular character, and that character is… pretty bloody horrible, really.
And horrible in ways that are quite tied up in his cultural identity and specific backstory (orphaned, bonded to the state-as-mother, given the trappings of aristocracy at the cost of family in a boarding school cum assassin training situation). It does make a difference that he’s a white man, and the damage done to him in his childhood, his upbringing, his trauma, the ways he masks it and the ways that he takes revenge for it (on villains and women) are all pretty specific to the kinds of privileges and invisibility that identity status brings.
I often really enjoy cross-gender or colour-blind casting, and think it can add dimension to characters that were just sort of defaulted into a particular gender or race. But…
I just don’t get the push for a Lady Bond. The character, (though lots of fun to watch) is a deeply antisocial serial murderer with a taste for low puns over the bodies of his victims and a pathologically exploitative occasionally violent misogynist. And not to get essentialist about it, but a lot of his flaws are very much about the toxicity of militarised masculinity and hereditary British institutional trauma and class and privilege and emotional repression. To translate those flaws into another vessel is to write a completely new character. Which, okay, but why not just do that, then? Write a new character.
Bond is ‘cool’ and has ‘cool stuff’, he’s supremely competent in a skill set that is almost entirely incompatible with happiness, and the most interesting takes on Bond touch on or give glimpses into how truly mental a person with his life experiences would be.**
I don’t think people want a female Bond or a black Bond, they just want the authority and status and legitimacy conferred by the 007 legacy. They want someone who is as famous and beloved as Bond, but isn’t that character. Which is fair enough. The weight of history and the benefit of the doubt that comes with the repeated success of a franchise is a huge deal. Which is an understandable thing to want, but to get it by just … superimposing X on the template is not a big step forward. It’s trickle down cultural economics. You can’t overturn patriarchal mores by insisting on being accepted and applauded by the patriarchy. It feels like a shortcut up the ladder, but is ultimately self defeating, because isn’t the goal to build more ladders, and stairs, and general upward-helping structures?
What we really want is cool successful action franchises lead by a range of different kinds of people.
I’d have way more time for spin-off movies within the Bond universe, with other 00# characters, which could square that circle - leveraging the weight of the franchise without trying to rewrite history. In the same way, we want to use the power of existing power structures to open up more ways of attaining power, rather than modelling all success on the template of prior victory.
I don’t know if this is trying to have a bet both ways, but I DO want to see the ways a different 00 with a different personality would negotiate their way through saving the world. How does a woman or POC cope with bond villains and hench-people? What disguises are available to you if you’re trying to assassinate a high up politician. You’re not just walking into the casino in a tux and relying on the invisibility of assumed wealth. Do you befriend the bikini clad seductress or seduce the man with the metal teeth? We KNOW what Bond does in those circumstances.
If you don’t think of how you’d win instead of how Bond would win, in a broader social sense, you end up with successful women in business who look like women emulating (or legitimately embodying, if they’ve managed to escape female socialisation/biological norms and it’s just how they roll) traditionally masculine qualities because ruthless testosterone and cutthroat winner-takes-all killer wolf tactics have worked in the past, but we never ask the question of whether that’s ACTUALLY the best way to run a business or a society, whether there are other human (coded feminine) qualities we could derive value from and attribute value to or if it’s just a habit hangover we have from the days when you needed to take and hold power with a sword.
What happens when people of oppressed groups can’t conceive of a model for success that doesn’t involve cosplaying as the oppressors is the same oppression in a different hat. It doesn’t really matter if it has a new face, or if it is being done unwillingly or ironically or sarcastically.
Anyway, too much thinking at stupid o’clock, and I don’t know if any of it is coherent. Also, in real life I’m very easily pleased by things and am looking forward to watching the new Bond, and playing Spot The Product Placement, as well as ‘best pun about this horrible murder’. Both fun games for different eras of Bond.
Xxx
A
—-
As always, if you like any of my things, please do share them around. It is the biggest thing that makes a difference, particularly in lockdown and when I can’t be out and about hustling for gigs. Following me on social media or leaving nice reviews on various platforms etc. also makes a difference, because the people that commission things do look at those numbers when they’re picking people for stuff. (whether they should or not.)
** I’m a big believer in the idea that fictional characters ought to be complicated and flawed and the idea that lead characters should be aspirational and represent role models is a bit weird and gross. I empathise much more with a flawed character than a hashtag GirlBoss character, because I’ve never been that confident and sassy, and also I think I would hate it and it would be obnoxious in real life.
Comments
Yup, Alice is on the money again. But in reference to having interesting characters that's all well and good but as these are financial acquisition programmes rather than good art they will go with what more people will pay to see. And on that, have you seen how we've been voting lately?
Very nice channeling of D'Ancey!
Mike Machin
The Indoors/outdoors question reminded me of the phrase 'Her Indoors'. Your UK fans of a certain vintage may remember this as a synonym for 'Wife' in which 'Her' is a pronoun and 'Indoors' is the marital home. If you change the 'Her' into a possessive pronoun the phrase 'Her Indoors' become a slightly queasy-making gynaecological euphemism worthy of D'Ancey LaGuarde (possible eg Despite the full knowledge of Lord Montmorency's treachery Cassandra found that his steely blue eyes locked on hers provoked a sensation in her indoors that she was powerless to ignore).
Mike Machin
Speaking from a purely selfish point of view I am always delighted to find a new dollop of AliceThink in my InBox so thanks for indulging your 3am opportunity. If half of what they say about childbirth and bringing up babies is true then those of us eager for the next Alice Fix might have to learn to be patient.
I agree with everything you wrote re Bond; in the case of the female Doctor Who, the only reasonable argument I heard against having a female Doctor was that Doctor Who was one of the few (perhaps only) male hero who did not use violence, instead relying on brains (and his sonic screwdriver), so to leave boys with only violent heroes/role models was a bad thing. As a boy who preferred reading books to fighting, Doctor Who was my favourite TV programme back in the 1980s, so I think there may be something in this. And while I also enjoyed the Bond films, Doctor Who I discovered by myself, while Bond I watched because my friends were all into it. Related to what you say at the end, the bigger issue is that the appropriation of traditionally male or female roles/behaviours only goes in one direction - it is acceptable, and maybe even somewhat cool to be a tom boy, but there is no acceptance of boys who prefer feminine pursuits - this even extends to the campaigns that target the blue/pink aisles of toys - it is always about allowing the girls to play with the boys toys, and never the other way around; while some may baulk at pink princess, there is certainly value and cross gender appeal in playing with dolls - call them 'star wars figures' and every boy in the 1980s was happy to play with them; my 4 year old loves to play with Barbie with his older sister, because he hasn't yet learned that this is the 'wrong' thing to do. So maybe rather than female Bonds or Doctor Whos, what we really need is gender switched versions of 'Sex and the City' or 'Girls'; the nearest equivalent I can think of - the films Annie Hall and Manhattan - were really important for me when I saw them as a student, with the main character being a funny intellectual, two things I wanted to be; even those films were 20 years old when I saw them, and I see no equivalent amidst the barrage of superhero films that fill the multiplexes.
I see where you're going with this and I'm simultaneously horrified and intrigued
I love the Men vs. Women - who is right? debate. There are times when one or other approach is best (eg fending off a violent attacker, or nurturing someone suffering anxiety ) but definitely not all the time. It strikes me that the dynamic tension between the different approaches, where the outcome is negotiated between them, is the strongest, most flexible, and best approach, and as a general rule you need both. I love the idea of expanding the 00* team beyond the odd cameo to make room for the different characters, and it would be even sweeter if they could solve a case which has left Bond baffled and unable to apply his skill set to a "softer" situation!
Moneypenny, I have no idea what it would involve but I bet there is a fantastic story which could be centered on Moneypenny and her proximity to all that is happening.
I love idea of baby moving from indoors to outdoors. Due to circumstances at the time I myself refer to my daughter’s birth as her “Eviction Day!” She turns 12 this week & I’m still doing it. 🤣
Huh. Do I know anyone British who is both antithetical to the current trend in Jameses Bond and also a traditionalist in terms of the use of low puns?
J. Schuberth
Can we go back to the opening where you describe birth as the baby moving from indoors to outdoors. I love it. In terms of Bond, it seems some genres are learning that when you put different people at the center of a story, it re-enlivens the form itself. "We Are LadyParts," is a sitcom and hits the sitcom beats, but it feels new and interesting because the people telling the story haven't been given the mic before. So yes to new 00 characters who aren't named James--and if Fast and Furious is any indication, they'll still make tons of $.
I agree with Jonathan. I can't believe you can write/think this well at 3am. I've been thinking about some of these same ideas (i.e. the definition of success centering on whatever the richest most-miserable straight white guys are doing). One way to look at success slightly differently is to see it in the context of teams rather than individuals. (There's that Ted talk about the chickens: https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_forget_the_pecking_order_at_work?language=en) Maybe the next bond is five people secretly controlling a mechanical Daniel Craig?
Fantastic post. Very well put!
Oh no! Watch out for the volcano! If James Bond has taught me anything it’s that there’s probably a villain hiding in it!
Ian Stark
I liked the original Bond films as a kid. I have only seen the first 3 films. Your take on the series is excellent and if I was a movie buff I would consider watching them all. But if I was a movie buff I would have already. Well, the volcano down the road started erupting again yesterday. Always something. Aloha.
