The evolution of the Bond girl

Brut America

From an object of desire to “someone who kicks ass” ... Here’s how the Bond girl became more than a love interest to agent 007...

Transcript

00:00I met you on UW. She's a disarming young woman.

00:04I get why you shot him.

00:07Yeah, well, everyone tries at least once.

00:12The Bond girl is defined as being the lead woman protagonist.

00:16She is the person that is there for the majority of the film,

00:19and she's the person who ends up in a romantic relationship with Bond.

00:23And she's defined by that romantic, intimate bond they develop at the end of the film.

00:28You get the typical O. James moment. That's typically the Bond girl.

00:42Women in the James Bond franchise certainly evolve over time,

00:46and these evolutions are often reflective of changes of women in society.

00:59When I look at the women of James Bond, nothing is more iconic than Honey Rider

01:04emerging from the sea in a white bikini with a knife attached to her belt and really,

01:10you know, giving it to Bond, being like, don't come any closer, right?

01:15And it is this iconic arresting image that gets replicated in subsequent films.

01:29In the 1960s, villainous women, who I think are far more interesting and delicious characters,

01:42are the ones who challenge Bond's libido.

01:45So in the 1960s, the swinging 60s, you see the influence of the women's movement,

01:50second wave feminism coming in that's really questioning the role and the function of women.

01:56In the 1970s, those women are being sort of pushed away.

02:00The challenges to Bond and Bond's libido are being pushed away.

02:04And I've read that as being reflective of the backlash

02:08to second wave feminism that was happening in the 1970s and the 1980s.

02:12I think Grace Jones is a fascinating character.

02:26First and foremost, the casting of a Black woman in a lead role in a Bond film.

02:32This is the first time that it happens in A View to a Kill in 1985.

02:36But I think it's also important because you have someone like Grace Jones,

02:41who is iconic.

02:43How do you contain someone like Grace Jones in a film?

02:46And I feel as though they looked at Grace Jones and said,

02:49you are so iconic, we're just going to take your persona wholesale

02:52and bring her into this film.

02:55And so I see Mayday as being Grace Jones or Grace Jones just playing herself.

03:01Now, is her representation perfect?

03:04Absolutely not.

03:04There's some problematic elements when it comes to racial stereotyping in this.

03:10But I do think it's important for us to see women of color

03:13and specifically Black women in lead roles.

03:26I feel that I am definitely the new type of Bond girl.

03:33One who has brought the Bond girl image to the 90s,

03:38past to the next millennium.

03:40Someone who's got character.

03:42Someone who kicks butt.

03:44Someone who matches Bond in every way.

03:51Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough,

03:53she is the first woman archvillain in a Bond film.

03:57She's the only woman archvillain in a Bond film.

04:01And she masquerades as a Bond girl, seduces Bond.

04:05Bond falls in love with her.

04:06Even Judi Dench's Em falls in love with her and is definitely taken in.

04:11And we as the audience are also starting to feel those feelings.

04:14And then it turns out that she's the one who's pulling the strings.

04:18And so Bond is blindsided.

04:20Em is blindsided.

04:21We are blindsided.

04:23And it's so nice to see a woman being represented as pulling those strings.

04:28Your Bond girl, it's a marked difference from what was expected 40 years ago.

04:34Yeah, and that was great.

04:36You know, the challenge was, you know, to stay toe to toe with him.

04:40And always while we were shooting, always pushing the envelope

04:43and always asking Lee and asking the writers,

04:45OK, how can she be even tougher?

04:47How can she be even stronger?

04:48How can she be even more his intellectual equal?

04:52It's Daniel Craig who's walking out of the sea in a bathing suit

05:06with women on the shore looking along, right?

05:09Bond is presented through the archetypical iconography of the Bond girl.

05:15We talked about Honey Rider already.

05:17He's presented like Honey Rider.

05:19And what that does is that opens up space for somebody like Vesper Linn

05:24to not have to fall into that box.

05:26He's somebody who always resists the typical qualities

05:29and characterizations of the Bond girl.

05:32For the first time, we're going to see that we have a Bond woman,

05:51as I say all the time, because Sam Mendes was looking for a mature woman.

06:02And now we get to see a strong, Black, vulnerable, quirky, comedic,

06:19sassy, you know, very, very skilled woman be right there in a lead role.

06:27I'm really proud.

06:28I would love to see greater diversity behind the camera

06:31for the people who are crafting this narrative.

06:34And when I say I want to see women behind the camera,

06:36I don't just mean white women.

06:38I also want to see women of color and women who differ

06:41in terms of their sexual orientation and abilities and nationalities

06:44and class-based elements and different parts of the world.

06:48I just want to see greater input from a greater amount of people.

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