For His Eyes Only Part 1

FOR HIS EYES ONLY.

The Women of James Bond.

edited by LISA FUNNELL.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

This book is dedicated to my family. First, I must thank my partner, Dr. Travis Gliedt, for encouraging me to pursue this project. You are a source of inspiration and incredibly supportive of all my research endeavors. Second, I need to thank my dad, Lorne, for introducing me to the Bond franchise and sharing with me his love for the series. Your enthusiasm for this anthology and constant inquiries into its progress served as a great motivation for its completion. I also must thank my mom, Mary, for enduring Sunday dinners in front of the television where we watched the same Bond films over and over. Your indulgence gave me the opportunity to develop my research pa.s.sion. Finally, I need to thank my brother Dave, his wife Caren, and especially their three children Tailor, Harrison, and Daniel who are always thrilled to see their names mentioned in my books (even though, as Harrison has told me, there are too many words and not enough pictures). You are a source of love and laughter in my life.

Although For Your Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond has been a personal labor of love, this book has benefited from the support of various people. First, I must thank my contributors whose insightful work is featured throughout this book. Second, I need to thank Yoram Allon, Commissioning Editor at Wallflower Press, for your suggestions and support throughout the various phases of publication. Third, I need to thank my research a.s.sistant Jordyn Snow for helping to compile and edit the collection. Finally, I must thank Christoph Lindner for writing a compelling foreword for the book.

I am also grateful for receiving permission to reproduce selections from the following copyrighted material: An earlier version of Chapter 14 by Sabine Planka-"Female Bodies in James Bond t.i.tle Sequences"-appeared as Planka, Sabine. "Weiblichkeit als Appetizer. Frauenkorper in den James Bond-t.i.tle Sequences." Gendered Bodies: Korper, Gender und Medien. Eds. Lisa Kleinberger and Marcus Stiglegger. Siegen: universi Universittsverlag, 2013. 47-72. Reproduced with the permission of the editors.

CONTRIBUTOR LIST.

THOMAS M. BARRETT is Professor of History at St. Mary's College of Maryland. He is the author of At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier (1999). He has published articles on the history of Cossacks, the North Caucasus, Russian themes in American culture, and American science fiction during the cold war. He is currently writing a book on the image of Russia and Eastern Europe in American popular culture. He is the original conceptualizer, researcher, and writer for the Library of Congress's multimedia digital library, Meeting of Frontiers (frontiers.loc.gov).

FERNANDO GABRIEL PAGNONI BERNS currently works at Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) as Graduate Teaching a.s.sistant of "Literatura de las Artes Combinadas II." He teaches seminars on American Horror Cinema and Euro Horror. He is director of the research group on horror cinema "Grite" and has published essays in the books Undead in the West (2012), The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times (2014), and Heroines of Comic Books and Literature (2014), among others.

MICHAEL W. BOYCE is a.s.sociate Professor and Program Chair of English and Film Studies at Booth University College in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the author of The Lasting Influence of the War on Postwar British Film (2012). In his current project, he examines the representation of crime and criminals in post-war British film.

JEFFREY A. BROWN is Professor in the Department of Popular Culture and the School of Critical and Cultural Studies at Bowling Green State University. He is the author of numerous academic articles about gender, ethnicity and s.e.xuality in contemporary media, as well as three books: Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans (2000), Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetis.h.i.+sm and Popular Culture (2011), and Beyond Bombsh.e.l.ls: The New Action Heroine in Popular Culture (2015). He is currently completing a book about live action superheroes in film and television in post-9/11 American culture.

CHARLES BURNETTS teaches film in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Kings University College, University of Western Ontario. He is the author of Improving Pa.s.sions: Sentimental Aesthetics and American Film (2015). He has published articles in Journal of Film and Video, New Review of Film and Television Studies and Scope.

JAMES CHAPMAN is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Leicester, UK, and author of Licence to Thrill: A Cultural History of the James Bond Films (2007), as well as other works on film and television history including Saints and Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s (2002), War and Film (2008), Inside the Tardis: The Worlds of "Doctor Who" (2013), and Film and History (2013).

ROBERT VON Da.s.sANOWSKY is Professor of German and Film, Director of Film Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and works as an independent film producer. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the European Film Academy, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His recent books include Austrian Cinema: A History (2005), New Austrian Film (2011), Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metacinema (2012), World Film Locations: Vienna (2012) and Screening Transcendence: Film under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope 193338 (2015).

KLAUS DODDS is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London and Editor of The Geographical Journal. He has written numerous articles on the popular geopolitics of James Bond and other spies/a.s.sa.s.sins including Jason Bourne, and his work has appeared in such journals as Geopolitics, Journal of Popular Film and Television, Environment and Planning D: Society and s.p.a.ce, Third World Quarterly, Critical Studies on Terrorism, Critical Studies on Security, Transactions of the Inst.i.tute of British Geographers, Geographical Review, and Popular Communication. He is the co-author, with Sean Carter, of International Politics and Film: s.p.a.ce, Vision, Power (2014).

LISA FUNNELL is a.s.sistant Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma. She has published numerous articles on gender and feminism in the Bond franchise. She also researches Hong Kong martial arts films and Hollywood blockbusters. Her book Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star (2014) won the Emily Toth Award for Best Single Work in Women's Studies from the Popular Culture a.s.sociation/American Culture a.s.sociation in 2015. She is also the co-editor of Transnational Asian Ident.i.ties in Pan-Pacific Cinemas: The Reel Asian Exchange (2012) and American and Chinese-Language Cinemas: Examining Cultural Flows (2015).

CATHERINE HAWORTHIS Lecturer in Music at the University of Huddersfield. Her research focuses on musical practices of representation and ident.i.ty construction across various media, with a particular focus on film and television music. Recent publications include articles on ident.i.ty and the soundtrack in female detective films and the female gothic genre; guest editors.h.i.+p of the gender and s.e.xuality special issue of Music, Sound and the Moving Image; and the co-edited collection Gender, Age and Musical Creativity (2015).

CHRISTOPHER HOLLIDAY currently teaches Film Studies at King's College London and London South Bank University, and has previously been visiting lecturer in animation at the University of Kent. He has published several book chapters and journal articles on computer-animated films and, most recently, written on the performance of British actors in contemporary US television drama for the Journal of British Cinema and Television. His research interests include popular Hollywood cinema, histories of British film and television, as well as nuances of film style, fictional world creation and acting within the context of digital media and traditional animated forms.

STEPHANIE JONES is Teaching Fellow at the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies in the Inst.i.tute of Literature, Languages and Creative Arts at Aberystwyth University in the UK. In 2012, she completed a PhD on representations of masculinity within the Bond franchise including an a.n.a.lysis of notions of masculinity within Fleet Street Press responses to James Bond films. Stephanie is the editorial a.s.sistant for the Routledge journal Media History.

ROSS KARLAN is a PhD candidate in Hispanic Literature and Cultural Studies at Georgetown University, and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in Cinema Studies, Hispanic Studies, and Art History. He has always been a fan of James Bond, and has studied magic since he was a child. In addition to his academic interests in Latin America, much of Ross's research investigates the intersections of magic, film, literature, and art.

PETER C. KUNZE completed a PhD in English at Florida State University in 2012 and is current working on a second PhD, in Media Studies, at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines masculinity, comedy, and childhood across literature, film, and new media. Recent interests include sincerity in contemporary American culture and the industrial history of the Animation Renaissance. He is the editor of The Films of Wes Anderson: Critical Essays on an Indiewood Icon (2014) as well as the forthcoming collection Conversations with Maurice Sendak.

JIM LEACH is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. His research and teaching interests include Canadian cinema, British cinema, popular cinema, and film and cultural theory. He has published books on the films of Alain Tanner and Claude Jutra, on British cinema and Canadian cinema, co-edited a critical anthology on Canadian doc.u.mentary films, and developed a Canadian edition of an introductory film studies textbook. His latest book is a monograph on Doctor Who for Wayne State University Press.

CHRISTOPH LINDNER is Professor of Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam and Director of the Netherlands Inst.i.tute for Cultural a.n.a.lysis. His work on Bond includes the edited volumes Revisioning 007: James Bond and Casino Royale (2009) and The James Bond Phenomenon: A Critical Reader (2009).

DAN MILLS has a PhD. in English from Georgia State University where he wrote his dissertation on early modern utopian literature. He has published articles in the journals Pedagogy, Cahiers elisabethains, and In-Between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism and has forthcoming articles in edited collections on critical theory and early modern literature and Western encounters with the East.

STEPHEN NEPA currently teaches history at Temple University, Moore College of Art and Design, and Rowan University. He has written for Planning Perspectives, Environmental History, Buildings and Landscapes, New York History, and other publications. He is also contributing essays to the forthcoming volumes The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time: A Guide to the Legends who Rocked the World and A Greene Country Towne: Philadelphia, Ecology, and the Material Imagination.

LORI L. PARKS is Visiting a.s.sistant Professor of Art History at Miami University, Ohio. Recent publications include entries in The Cultural Encyclopedia of the Breast (2014) and essays in the forthcoming collections Tim Burton: Works, Characters, Themes and Relentless Seeking: Contemporary Art and Addiction in Global Contexts. She is also co-editing with Drs. Neumann and Yamas.h.i.+ro a special issue on food for the European Journal of American Culture.

BRIAN PATTON is a.s.sociate Professor of English and Film Studies in the Department of Modern Languages at King's University College at Western University in London, Canada. His published work includes contributions to Ian Fleming & James Bond: The Cultural Politics of 007 (2005),100 Entertainers Who Changed America: An Encyclopedia of Pop Culture Luminaries (2013) and James Bond and Popular Culture: Essays on the Influence of the Fictional Superspy (2014).

ANNA G. PIOTROWSKA is a.s.sociate Professor in the Inst.i.tute of Musicology at Jagiellonian University in Krakw, Poland. In 2010, she was a Fulbright Fellow in Boston University, USA and in 2005 she held the Mellon fellows.h.i.+p in Edinburg University, UK. She is the author of Gypsy Music in European Culture (2013) and four books in Polish, including On Music and Film: An Introduction to Film Musicology (2014).

SABINE PLANKA currently works at the University of Siegen as a coordinator for administrative matters and as a researcher in the Department German Studies. She is editor of Die Zeitreise. Ein Motiv in Literatur und Film fr Kinder und Jugendliche (2014). She has published an article in Film International and essays in the collections Der skandinavische Horrorfilm (2013) and Writing Worlds: Welten- und Raummodelle der Fantastik (2014).

EILEEN ROSITZKA is a PhD candidate in Film Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of Frames Cinema Journal and has written essays in Bigger Than Life: Ken Adam's Film Design (2014) accompanying an exhibition of the same t.i.tle at the Deutsche Kinemathek, as well as in the collections The Sound of Genre (2015) and Genre und Serie (2015).

MARLISA SANTOS is a.s.sociate Professor in the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She is the author of The Dark Mirror: Psychiatry and Film Noir (2010) and the editor of Verse, Voice, and Vision: Poetry and the Cinema (2013). She has also published numerous essays in peer-reviewed anthologies on various topics such as food and film and contemporary southern film, and on directors such as Martin Scorsese, Edgar G. Ulmer, and Joseph H. Lewis.

ALEXANDER SERGEANT is a PhD candidate within the Department of Film Studies at King's College London. His thesis examines issues of spectators.h.i.+p in relation to the Hollywood fantasy genre and was supported by a grant from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. His research interests include the history of Hollywood cinema in the twenty and twenty first centuries, film theory, theories of film spectators.h.i.+p, film philosophy and psychoa.n.a.lysis. He has published on these subjects in a variety of academic journals and edited collections.

ANDREA SEVERSON has two Master of Arts degrees, in Media Arts from the University of Arizona and in English: Rhetoric & Composition from Arizona State University, and is now working towards a PhD in rhetoric at ASU, focusing on fas.h.i.+on rhetoric. She has been teaching at Arizona State University and Maricopa County Community Colleges since 2010. For the past ten years, she has also worked as a freelance costume designer on various theatrical and film projects. She has been a member of the Arizona Costume Inst.i.tute since 2010 and served on its Board of Directors from 2011 to 2014.

KRISTEN SHAW is a doctoral candidate in the English and Cultural Studies Program at McMaster University. Her major research interests include representations of gender and race in popular culture, including film, television, and literature, as well as studies of science fiction and fantasy. She has been published in Inquire: Journal of Comparative Literature and is currently the a.s.sistant editor of an upcoming essay collection on Canadian science fiction. She is currently writing her dissertation ent.i.tled Strangers in Strange New Lands: Feminist Spatial Politics in Science Fiction.

BOEL ULFSDOTTER is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Skovde University College, Sweden. She completed her PhD in Film Studies at the University of Reading in 2008. Her areas of research specialization include popular film and culture, screen costuming, fas.h.i.+on history and consumption, and museum culture.

TRAVIS L. WAGNER is completing a Master of Library and Information Science degree and a Women's and Gender Studies Graduate Certificate at the University of South Carolina. He is an instructional a.s.sistant within the Women's and Gender Program with a focus on images of women, particularly in South Korean cinema. He has published in Cinephile: The University of British Columbia's Film Journal (2014).

FOREWORD.

Christoph Lindner.

This book is urgently needed. The place and significance of women in the world of James Bond (in literature, film, gaming, and beyond) has been under-examined to date. Yes, individual articles and books on women and James Bond have been published periodically over the years and, for quite a different readers.h.i.+p, a number of coffee-table books on the "Bond girls" exists, but we have been missing a wide-ranging critical study of this quality one that brings together a multiplicity of authors, perspectives, theories, and approaches into one collaborative volume. And yet, as critics and fans alike have always recognized, women are integral to the 007 series in many different ways as necessary to the James Bond formula as Bond himself. As this book demonstrates in relation to a rich variety of examples and from a full range of critical and theoretical perspectives, women not only enable and help to define the extreme masculinism of the Bondian multiverse, but also figure as sites of contestation and experiment over the cultural politics of the body, gender, s.e.xuality, race, nationality, and more.

Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott have long maintained that 007 functions as a floating signifier, periodically getting updated to reflect changing att.i.tudes in society. This book shows just how much that process of signification depends on Bond's relations.h.i.+p with women, ranging from his s.e.xual conquests (and failures) in the form of so-called "Bond girls," to his increasingly charged flirtations with office co-workers like Miss Moneypenny, to his oedipal conflicts with the hybrid mother-father figure of Judi Dench's M. Much more important, however, is that this book demonstrates the ways in which women in the 007 series also function as floating signifiers in their own right, reflecting but also sometimes antic.i.p.ating or undermining mainstream constructions of ident.i.ty, agency, and power.

The challenge of writing about women and James Bond, and perhaps one of the reasons why the topic has remained under-examined for so long, is captured in the book's t.i.tle For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond. As this grammar of possession suggests, women in the 007 series have largely been defined by their relations.h.i.+p with Bond, just as Bond himself has often been defined by his relations.h.i.+p with women. The difference, as captured in the wording of the t.i.tle, is that Bond is named, identified, singularized, whereas women remain generic, interchangeable, dependent. This not only reflects how women have figured in the 007 series from the beginning, but also the difficulty of studying "the women of James Bond" without the overshadowing, controlling presence of Bond.

But what happens if we study the women of James Bond in terms that defy or transcend their relations.h.i.+p of dependence with James Bond? What is a "Bond girl" when she is understood as being neither a possession nor a "girl"? In short, what happens when we re-conceptualize women in the 007 series in terms other than those inherited from, or operating within, the series itself? These are among the many pressing questions addressed by the authors in the chapters that follow. So although Bond looms large in this book (and necessarily so) women loom much larger. The result is a radically different vision of the world of James Bond that has not been possible or available before. As a consequence, For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond changes how we see and understand the 007 series as whole, including our own relations.h.i.+p to it.

INTRODUCTION.

THE WOMEN OF JAMES BOND.

Lisa Funnell.

The release of Skyfall (Sam Mendes 2012) marked the fiftieth anniversary of the James Bond film franchise. The 23rd film in the series, Skyfall earned over $1 billion dollars (USD) at the worldwide box-office and won two Academy Awards. Amidst such popular and critical acclaim, many have questioned the representation of women in the film, viewing Skyfall in relation to the Bond franchise at large. From the representation of an aging and disempowered M, to the limited role of the Bond Girl, to the characterization of Miss Moneypenny as a defunct field agent, Skyfall arguably develops the legacy of Bond at the expense of women in the film. Although some might argue that the Bond franchise has adjusted its politics of representation-a notion promoted through a 2011 video celebrating International Women's Day featuring Daniel Craig and Judi Dench in their Bond roles discussing gender equality-the most recent film Skyfall is decidedly regressive in its narrative treatment of female characters.

Bond has historically been defined by his relations.h.i.+ps with women and particularly through heteros.e.xual romantic conquest. As noted by Jeremy Black, Bond's s.e.xual partners provide a "visual guarantee of the maleness of the Secret Service" and these conquests offer "tipping point[s]" in the narrative (107-9). By indiscriminately sleeping with multiple women in each film, Bond helps to ensure the success of his mission by aligning his lovers with his moral plight. In light of Bond's treatment of women-seducing, bedding, and discarding them-the franchise has been accused of being s.e.xist and misogynistic. Although some might argue that the franchise has progressed in terms of gender equality, as Craig's Bond sleeps with fewer women than his predecessors, the problematic representation of women in Skyfall recalls the media-driven backlash against feminist gains in the 1970s, which impacted the depiction of women in the series. Indeed, Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott note that Bond films of the 1970s featured the "putting-back-into-place" of women by "fict.i.tiously rolling back the advances of feminism to restore an imaginarily more secure phallocentric conception of gender relations" ("The Moments" 28). Since Casino Royale (Martin Campbell 2006) and its sequels Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster 2008) and Skyfall const.i.tute a rebooting of the series, it leads many scholars, like myself, to question if there a place for women in the new world of James Bond and, if so, what role will these women play in the future of the franchise?

For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond seeks to answer these questions by examining the role that women have historically played in the franchise, which greatly contributed to the international success of the films. This anthology const.i.tutes an important academic study on the women in the Bond franchise as it moves beyond the discussion of a single character (e.g. Honey Ryder), character type (e.g. the Bond Girl), or group of films (e.g. the Connery era). While scholars have examined this subject in previous works, their arguments can be found in broader studies on the Bond franchise (see Black [2001], Chapman [2007]) and edited collections (see Lindner [2003], Weiner et al. [2010]). This book redresses this critical oversight by providing a comprehensive examination of femininity and feminism in the Bond series. It covers all 23 Eon productions as well as the spoof Casino Royale (Val Guest et al. 1967) and considers a range of Bond women from primary characters to secondary figures to the women who lend their voices to the t.i.tle tracks. More importantly, this book moves beyond a cursory discussion of casting and characterization to consider a range of factors that have helped to shape the representation of women in the franchise, including female characterization in Ian Fleming's novels, the vision of producer Albert R. Broccoli and other creative personnel, the influence of feminism and other social and political factors, and broader changes/trends in British and American film and television. This anthology provides a timely and retrospective look at the depiction of women in the franchise, in light of the 50-year anniversary of the series, and offers new scholarly perspectives on the subject.

The anthology is divided into six sections. The first, From Novel to Film, considers the representation of women in the Bond novels and explores how these characters are adapted into the films. James Chapman argues that the representation of women is at once more conservative and progressive in the novels than the films. He contends that while the novels may be criticized for their casual s.e.xism and misogyny, they provide greater scope for female agency as "the girl" often possesses skills and knowledge that Bond does not, and even rescues him on occasion. Boel Ulfsdotter examines the character design of Tiffany Case in Fleming's novel Diamonds Are Forever (1956) and discusses the factors that influenced her transposition into the 1971 film. She argues that the filmic Case is a transitory figure as the series s.h.i.+fts from one Bond Girl concept to another, a situation that influenced the development of her screen persona. Jim Leach considers the performance of Judi Dench as M in relation to her novel and film counterparts. He argues that the presence of a female M unsettles the basic formula of the series and the extent of this disruption is not just a question of her gender but also one of political and technological developments in the world in which she exercises her authority.

The second section, Desiring the Other, examines how the intersection of gender with race, ethnicity, and/or nationality impacts the narrative treatment of women in the franchise. Thomas Barrett examines the characterization of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (Terence Young 1963) in relation to the s.h.i.+fting discursive terrain as the Soviet Union began opening up to the West. He argues that Bond, by escorting Romanova to the West, enacts a contemporary conversion fantasy that renders Soviet women ripe for Western consumption. Travis Wagner examines the relations.h.i.+p of Bond, a privileged white colonial figure, with the various black women who appear over the course of the series. He explores how racial stereotypes are mobilized in the representation of black women and how their treatment by Bond works to reaffirm and entrench his privilege. Charles Burnetts explores how the secondary woman or "fluffer" character is set up as a tool/commodity in the narrative to be exploited by Bond and/or the villain. He discusses the preponderance of black fluffer characters in the franchise and the ways in which this fluffer typology sits in tension with contemporary mandates for "positive" representation. Kristen Shaw examines the disciplinary process that is initiated when Moneypenny accidentally shoots Bond in Skyfall. She argues that Moneypenny is put into her "proper" place as a racial and gendered "Other," effectively transforming her from Bond's equal to a supportive sidekick. Lisa Funnell examines the depiction of Asian women across three key phases of the Bond franchise. She argues that Asian femininity is depicted through the use of antiquated stereotypes; the films foreground the distinction of unacceptable and acceptable femininity in relation to the white status quo, that being James Bond.

The third part, Feminist Critiques and Movements, explores female representation through the lens of feminism. Robert von Da.s.sanowsky examines Ursula Andress' Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale (1967), arguing that she is the most remarkable female character of the decade's espionage genre for her vast independent power and wealth. He contends that the character intertexts with the Eon Bond series and especially Dr. No (Terence Young 1962), and conflates the other s.e.xually domineering figures Andress previously portrayed. Marlisa Santos suggests that On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter Hunt 1969) fits the formula of the Hollywood Golden Age "woman's film." She explores how the film breaks the androcentric mold of the Bond film by centralizing the role of women, defining Bond through the main female character of Tracy di Vicenzo, as well as the symbolic female influence of Queen Elizabeth II, the locus of Bond's professional ident.i.ty. Dan Mills examines the representation of women in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, arguing that the film breaks generic conventions by depicting strong female characters (Tracy di Vicenzo, Irma Bunt, Moneypenny) who are more actively involved in the development of the narrative than their male counterparts (Bond, Blofeld, M). He contends that the depiction of women reverses gender roles in the Bond canon in a way that makes On Her Majesty's Secret Service an aberration in the series. Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns argues that the representation of Bond women in the early 1980s is influenced by the radical feminist movement. He explores how For Your Eyes Only (John Glen 1981) and Octop.u.s.s.y (John Glen 1983) register the impact of second-wave feminism through a consideration of the Sisterhood communities that emerged in places like the United States and India. Alexander Sergeant examines the depiction of Electra King in The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted 1999) and the various attempts made within the film to domesticate desire under the domain of the phallus. He argues that King both embodies and problematizes traditional gender roles, and through the use of masquerade she manages to hold Bond's phallic authority at a distance.

The fourth section, Gendered Conventions, considers a variety of female-focused or feminine elements that have helped to define the Bond generic tradition. Sabine Planka examines the form and function of the Bond t.i.tle sequence, an element that has helped producers to integrate more women and especially female s.e.xuality into the franchise. She argues that the semi-nude female body is served up as an appetizer to a presumed male audience in order to peak their interest in the forthcoming film. Eileen Rositzka examines the representation of "Secondary Girls," emphasizing the importance of mystique to female characterization in the franchise. She notes that once the (female) enigma is solved, she is rendered unremarkable and new enigmas are produced to take her place. Catherine Haworth considers the interplay of music with the representation of women in Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton 1964). She argues that the musical and visual motifs of the t.i.tle sequence spill over into the film's narrative proper and create s.p.a.ces within which female desire and agency can be articulated. Anna Piotrowska notes that while there is no Bond Girl musical theme, a female perspective is forwarded in the films through the song lyrics and female voices featured in the t.i.tle tracks. She argues that, through the soundtrack, women remain immortalized in the form of disembodied voices and their eternal presence is a.s.serted as voices of consciousness. Andrea Severson utilizes costume theory to explore the representation of femininity and power, particularly in relation to the Bond Girl. Two films serve as case studies for her a.n.a.lysis: Dr. No (1962), which marks the beginning of the series, and Casino Royale (2006), which marks the re-conceptualization of the franchise.

The fifth section, Female Agency and Gender Roles, examines gender equality in various facets of the Bond film. Stephen Nepa examines the relations.h.i.+p between Bond and Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, focusing on the messages being relayed about gender through their secret agent nuptials. He explores how s.h.i.+fting gender roles in the film influence the representation of Bond women in subsequent films and 007's relations.h.i.+ps with them. Ross Karlan discusses how the Bond Girl operates like a magician's a.s.sistant, as her performance is largely defined by her relations.h.i.+p with Bond and the audience of the films. He argues that when viewed through the lens of magic, the Bond Girl takes on a more active role in the Bond universe. Stephanie Jones examines how the car in Bond films serves as an object that reflects changing ideas about the role of women and technology. She examines three similar scenes in which Bond receives a new car from Q and traces the s.h.i.+ft change in gender ideologies. Klaus Dodds explores the re-introduction of Moneypenny in Skyfall and the ways in which her character is different from earlier incarnations. He argues that Skyfall puts forward the impression that (older/experienced) male agents belong in the field over (younger/less experienced) female agents who serve better as sidekicks rather than professional colleagues. Jeffrey Brown explores how Salt (Phillip Noyce 2010), an action film starring Angelina Jolie, is a self-conscious attempt to create a female Bond franchise and examines the ways that key Bond conventions are reconfigured due to the gender change of the superspy. In particular, Brown explores how Salt is de-s.e.xualized in order to avoid the hero being diminished by objectification.

The sixth section, Judi Dench's Tenure as M, offers critical perspectives on the representation and character trajectory of Dench's M. Peter Kunze reads Dench's portrayal of M through the lens of feminist critiques of postfeminist discourse and culture. He argues that while a female M gestures toward a productive revision of the traditionally s.e.xist franchise, patriarchal logic persists in the so-called updated Bond films. Brian Patton maps the transformation of M as well as the Bond/M relations.h.i.+p over the course of seven films released between 1995 and 2012. He argues that the advent of a female M brings to the fore a new emphasis on female authority as the series' producers work to situate Bond in a world where a woman in a position of power might be greeted with something other than contempt. Lori Parks examines the characterization of women in Skyfall focusing specifically on the intersection between age and gender. She argues that the representation of M, an aging woman, contrasts with the typical depiction of the Bond Girl, and that the introduction of Moneypenny, as an inexperienced agent who trades in field work for a desk job, influences the perception of Dench's M. Christopher Holliday notes that while the maternal overtones between Bond and M have gained momentum during the Craig era, the representation of M in Skyfall is also reflective of the Bond Girl. He argues that the irresolvable tension between M's maternal weight and her iconography as "lover" instigates the character's demise in Skyfall, and marks the culmination of Dench in the role. Michael Boyce examines the s.h.i.+ft in the representation of Dench's M from an unusually complex female character in the Brosnan era Bond films, to a domesticated, neutered mother-figure in the Craig era Bond films. He argues that within the limited gender perspective of the Bond world, mothers (like wives) are unnecessary and undesirable, and her exit is foreshadowed and required.

Section 1.

FROM NOVEL TO FILM.

CHAPTER 1.

"WOMEN WERE FOR RECREATION"

The Gender Politics of Ian Fleming's James Bond.

James Chapman.

[Bond] sighed. Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with s.e.x and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them. (Casino Royale 27)1 The 12 James Bond novels and eight short stories written by Ian Fleming between 1953 and his death in 1964 are the foundational texts of the Bond franchise. However, Bond's literary origins have too often been overlooked in Bond scholars.h.i.+p, which has largely focused on the series of films produced continuously by Eon Productions since 1962. The international popularity of the films, combined with their extraordinary longevity, has established Bond as a global brand whose cultural reach has entirely transcended the original source texts in which he first appeared. For the authors of one of the many popular studies of the Bond films, indeed, the character's iconic status "owes everything to his incarnation on the cinema screen, and little to the novels of Fleming" whom they regard as "tangential" to the films (Barnes and Hearn 5). To read the Fleming stories today is to discover a James Bond who is both like and unlike the popular hero of the films. Nowhere is this more evident than in their gender politics: the Bond novels are paradoxically more s.e.xist in their att.i.tudes yet at the same time allow greater narrative agency for their female characters than most of the films that have been spun from them. This essay will explore the gender politics of Fleming's Bond stories, examining first the social and cultural politics of the texts with particular regard to their att.i.tudes towards women, and then the representation and characterization of female characters in the stories themselves.

To a.n.a.lyze any cultural texts it is essential to understand them in relation to their historical contexts. This is especially the case for popular fiction, which is more sensitive to the demands of the market and the tastes of consumers than high-brow culture. Like all products of popular culture, the Bond stories are tracts for their times: they are informed by and respond to the ideological climate in which they were produced and consumed. The first Bond novel, Casino Royale, was published in April 1953 and thereafter the books appeared regularly at one-year intervals until 1965, with the last novel, The Man with the Golden Gun. The short-story anthology Octop.u.s.s.y and The Living Daylights was published after Fleming's death. Sales of the early hardbacks were respectable if not spectacular (the first hardback edition of Casino Royale had a print run of only 4,750) but the popularity of Bond began to take off in the later 1950s. Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott, in their cultural studies a.n.a.lysis of the Bond phenomenon, identify 1957-the year From Russia, with Love was serialized in the Daily Express, a popular ma.s.s-circulation newspaper-as "the first stage in the transformation of Bond from a character within a set of fictional texts into a household name" (Bond 24). Since 1955, the Bond books were published in paperback: combined sales of all Bond paperbacks rose from 41,000 in 1955 to 58,000 in 1956, 72,000 in 1957, 105,000 in 1958, 237,000 in 1959, 323,000 in 1960 and 670,000 in 1961 (ibid. 26-7). It was in 1962-the year that the first Bond film was released in Britain-that combined sales first pa.s.sed one million. For literary historian John Sutherland, the Bond books were a landmark in publis.h.i.+ng because "they revealed a new reliable market for a certain kind of book that was not trash and could be marketed as a 'brand name' (i.e. 'the latest Bond')" (176).

Contemporary critical responses to the Bond novels were divided between those who admired them as superior entertainments and those who disliked them on the grounds of what they saw as excessive s.e.x and violence. The reviewer of The Times Literary Supplement, for example, found Casino Royale "an extremely engaging affair, dealing with espionage in the 'Sapper' manner, but with a hero who, although taking a great many cold showers and never letting s.e.x interfere with work, is somewhat more sophisticated" ("An Extremely Engaging Affair" 249). Fleming also found an admirer in Kingsley Amis, who felt the Bond books "were more than simple cloak-and-dagger stories with a bit of fas.h.i.+onable affluence and s.e.x thrown in" (9) and were imbued with "a sense of our time" (144). Other commentators, however, were entirely hostile. The criticism of Fleming for peddling s.e.x and violence reached a crescendo with the publication of Dr. No in 1958. The broadside was led by Bernard Bergonzi, who detected "a strongly marked streak of voyeurism and sado-masochism in his books" and deplored "the complete lack of any ethical frame of reference" (220). And Paul Johnson described Dr. No as "the nastiest book I have ever read" on account of its unhealthy combination of "the sadism of a schoolboy bully, the mechanical, two-dimensional s.e.x-longings of a frustrated adolescent, and the crude sn.o.b-cravings of a suburban adult" (431).

David Cannadine has explained the different critical reactions to the Bond novels as reactions to the decline of British power after the Second World War. He points out that the publication history of the novels spans the period from the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953-"a retrospectively unconvincing reaffirmation of Britain's continued great-power status"-to the funeral of Winston Churchill in 1965, an event that represented "not only the last rites of the great man himself, but was also self-consciously recognized as being a requiem for Britain as a great power" (46). The debacle of the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the hurried retreat from empire between 1957 and 1965 rudely drove home the lesson that Britain's standing in the world was in seemingly terminal decline. There was a strong critique, from both the political right and the political left, that Britain's decline as a global power was a consequence of declining moral standards at home. The Bond novels, with their emphasis on s.e.x and conspicuous consumption, were seen by some commentators as visible symptoms of this decline. To this extent they can be placed within the same cultural contexts as John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger, first performed at the Royal Court Theatre in 1956, and the "northern realist" novels of authors such as John Braine (Room at the Top) and Alan Sillitoe (Sat.u.r.day Night and Sunday Morning).

While, on the face of it, the politics of the Bond novels would seem far removed from the "Angry Young Men", on closer reading they prove to be highly equivocal about changes in British society.2 On the one hand, the social politics of the books are conservative in the extreme. Fleming's Britain, as Amis suggests, is "substantially right of centre" (96). Thus, The Times is "the only paper Bond ever read" (From Russia, with Love 96) and his mental image of his country is "a world of tennis courts and lily ponds and kings and queens, of London, of people being photographed with pigeons on their heads in Trafalgar Square" (Dr. No 224). Bond's attachment to the past is indicated by his choice of car (a 1930s Bentley) and his sentimental affection for the old five-pound note-"the most beautiful money in the world" (Goldfinger 66). Bond dislikes the consequences of social change: he takes an instinctive dislike to a taxi-driver whom he considers "typical of the cheap self-a.s.sertiveness of young labour since the war" (Thunderball 9) and, somewhat hysterically it must be said, believes that h.o.m.os.e.xuality is "a direct consequence of giving votes to woman and 's.e.x equality'" (Goldfinger 222). Bond himself is characterized as an unequivocal patriot, as the t.i.tle of the twelfth book, (On Her Majesty's Secret Service) attests, and is often cast in the role of a national champion. His response to the Head of the j.a.panese Secret Service (who has "formed an unsatisfactory opinion about the British people since the war") perfectly sums up Bond's (and Fleming's) politics: "England may have been bled pretty thin by a couple of World Wars, our Welfare State politics may have made us expect too much for free, and the liberation of our Colonies may have gone too fast, but we still climb Everest and beat plenty of the world at plenty of sports and win n.o.bel Prizes" (You Only Live Twice 81).

On the other hand, however, the Bond novels embrace certain aspects of social and cultural change. Fleming is at some pains to present Bond as a modern, even cla.s.sless hero. He differs from the clubland heroes of the pre-war British thriller, such as Sapper's Bulldog Drummond and John Buchan's Richard Hannay, in so far as he is not a talented amateur-the Drummond stories, especially, tend to give the impression that fighting diabolical criminal masterminds is just another form of "sport" to be fitted in between rubbers or bridge or hearty games of rugger-but a ruthless professional a.s.sa.s.sin. Time and again the books emphasize Bond's professionalism, whether getting into peak physical shape for an arduous a.s.signment (Live and Let Die, Dr. No) or acquainting himself with all the known methods of cheating at cards (Moonraker). His att.i.tude towards his job reveals the ultimate professional: "It was his profession to kill people. He had never liked doing it and when he had to kill he did it as well as he knew how and forgot about it. As a secret agent who held the rare double-O prefix-the licence to kill in the Secret Service-it was his duty to be as cool about death as a surgeon" (Goldfinger 3). Bond exemplifies what the social historian Harold Perkin called "the rise of professional society", one that is "structured around career hierarchies rather than cla.s.ses, one in which people find their place according to trained expertise and the service they provide rather than the possession or lack of inherited wealth or acquired capital" (359). Contrary to some accounts, Bond is not a quintessentially British gentleman hero: he feels out of place in the cozy clubland world of his generic forbears ("Doesn't look the sort of chap one usually sees in Blades") and knows "that there was something alien and un-English about himself" (Moonraker 34). As the critic James Price observed: "It is the fact of his not being a gentleman-both in this sense and in the chivalric meaning of the word-which immediately distinguishes him from Buchan's Richard Hannay" (69).

The social politics of the Bond novels-which, it seems reasonable to a.s.sume, broadly reflect Fleming's own views-are essential to understanding the role and representation of women in the stories. One of the features that most obviously distinguished the Bond stories from previous generations of British thrillers was the greater visibility of women both in narrative terms and as s.e.xualized objects. Bulldog Drummond and Richard Hannay, for example, had little room for women: both seemed more comfortable in h.o.m.osocial relations.h.i.+ps with close groups of male friends than in their marriages to Phyllis Benton and Mary Lamington. Bond, in contrast, meets a different girl in each novel-Fleming invariably refers to the heroine as "the girl"-and usually enjoys a s.e.xual union with her by the story's end. (Moonraker is the exception to this rule: Bond does not sleep with Gala Brand who is engaged to a police officer.) While Bond's s.e.xual conquests in the books do not match the numbers in the films-in most stories there is just the one main girl-he was nevertheless the first protagonist of spy fiction to indulge his s.e.xual appet.i.te so openly and frequently.3 The graphic (for the time) accounts of s.e.x in the Bond books have caused some critics to see them in the context of the emergence of ma.s.s-market p.o.r.nography during the 1950s. In his study of British spy literature, for example, Michael Denning avers that "the James Bond tales can rightly be seen as an important early form of the ma.s.s p.o.r.nography that characterizes the consumer society, the society of the spectacle, that emerges in Western Europe and North America in the wake of post-war reconstruction" (Cover 109-10). Fleming lent credence to this view when he remarked that "the target of my books [...] lay somewhere between the solar plexus and, well, the upper thigh" ("How To Write A Thriller" 14). There are many instances of erotic spectacle in the Bond novels: the gypsy-girl fight in From Russia, with Love and the performance of the strip-tease artiste in The Man with the Golden Gun are just two. It is symbolic that the publication of the first Bond novel came in the same year as the launch (in America) of Playboy, the first mainstream p.o.r.nographic men's magazine. While it was not until the 1960s that the link between Bond and Playboy was inst.i.tutionalized, when the magazine serialized some of the later stories as well as running photo-spreads of starlets from the Bond films, from the outset there was a clear parallel in their representation of s.e.xuality. Like Playboy, the Bond novels construct a male fantasy world of s.e.xually available females and guilt-free s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps. Fleming's somewhat outre names for his female characters-including Tiffany Case, Honeychile Rider, Kissy Suzuki, Mary Goodnight and most notoriously p.u.s.s.y Galore-have sometimes been seen as a parody, though they serve to reinforce the a.s.sociation between femininity and s.e.xuality.

The women of the Bond novels conform to the Playboy ideal of s.e.xuality in two particular ways. The first is their representation as erotic spectacle. Fleming's descriptions of his female characters construct them unashamedly as s.e.xualized objects: they are usually tall, athletic, and toned, while their most frequently commented on physical characteristics are their "fine", "firm" or "splendid" b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Like Playboy models they are often wearing a swimsuit (such as Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service) or underwear (Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever, Jill Masterton in Goldfinger) when Bond first sets eyes on them, or might even be naked (Tatiana Romanova in From Russia, with Love, Honeychile Rider in Dr. No). Bond's first glimpse of Honeychile Rider on a Caribbean beach exemplifies the strategy of what one critic called "the technique of the erotic distraction" (Bear 24): It was a naked girl, with her back to him. She was not quite naked. She wore a broad leather belt round her waist with a hunting knife in a leather sheath at her right hip. The belt made her nakedness extraordinarily erotic [...] She stood in the cla.s.sical relaxed pose of the nude, all the weight on the right leg and the left knee bent and turning slightly inwards, the head to one side as she examined the things in her hand. (Dr. No 79) Bond is thus represented as a voyeur and the woman as an object of "to-be-looked-at-ness" (Mulvey, "Visual" 837). Bond is endowed not only with a license to kill but a "licence to look" (Denning, Cover 110). And the reader, implicitly male, is a.s.sociated with Bond's point of view.

The other way in which the Bond novels exemplify the Playboy ethos is in their representation of guilt-free s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps. s.e.x in the Bond stories is something to be enjoyed rather than regarded as a sordid affair. As Bond reflects on his night of pa.s.sion with Jill Masterton in Goldfinger: "It hadn't been love [...] Neither had had regrets. Had they committed a sin? If so, which one?" (48). This emphasis on guilt-free s.e.x is a.s.sociated with female as well as male desire. The Bond Girl is usually characterized as being independent and willful. Domino Vitali, for example, is "an independent girl, a girl of authority and character [...] She might sleep with men, obviously did, but it would be on her terms and not on theirs" (Thunderball 115). The emphasis here on the woman's freedom to make her own s.e.xual choices can be seen as an early stirring of the greater social and s.e.xual freedom that emerged in Britain during the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s, especially following the availability of the contraceptive pill (Marwick 21). This is not to say, however, that the Bond stories reflect a particularly progressive view of women's s.e.xuality. Indeed Fleming's view of what women really want from s.e.x would surely be enough to leave some readers apoplectic with rage: "All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful" (The Spy Who Loved Me 148). Even an otherwise a.s.sertive and independent woman such as Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service "knows" that her proper position is laying on her back: "Make love to me [...] Do anything you like. And tell me what you like and what you would like from me. Be rough with me. Treat me like the lowest wh.o.r.e in creation" (On Her Majesty's Secret Service 31). To this extent the Bond stories rea.s.sert a traditional-and culturally problematic-male fantasy of women's s.e.xuality.

The caricatured and one-dimensional characterization of women in the books (unlike some of the male characters like Quarrel and Kerim Bey who are particularly well-drawn) has led cultural theorists to suggest that women should be seen less as characters and more as functions of narrative. Umberto Eco's structuralist a.n.a.lysis of the Fleming novels employs the metaphor of a game of chess in which the characters all play out familiar situations: Bond is a.s.signed a mission by M (Head of the British Secret Service); he travels to an overseas location where he meets friends and allies, and makes his first acquaintance with "the girl"; Bond gives first check to the villain, or the villain gives first check to Bond; Bond seduces the girl, or begins the process of doing so; Bond and the girl are captured by the villain, who tortures Bond; but Bond escapes, vanquishes the villain and possesses the girl (Eco, "Narrative" 52). This narrative structure can be seen, with minor variations, in most of the novels, including Casino Royale; Live and Let Die; Diamonds Are Forever; From Russia, with Love; Dr. No; Goldfinger; Thunderball; On Her Majesty's Secret Service; You Only Live Twice; and The Man with the Golden Gun. Moonraker is a partial and unusual exception in that it is set wholly in England and Bond does not possess the girl at the end.

Tony Bennett has modified Eco's reading of the Bond stories by a.n.a.lyzing them in terms of a set of narrative codes-the "s.e.xist code", the "imperialist code", and the "phallic code"-which regulate the relations.h.i.+ps between characters. The imperialist code, for example, regulates the relations between Bond (British) and his allies (foreign), who are presented in subordinate roles, while the phallic code informs the relations.h.i.+ps between Bond and M (who endows him with authority: his "licence to kill") and between Bond and the villain (who threatens Bond with castration through torture: literally so in the case of Le Chiffre in Casino Royale). The s.e.xist code is posited on the notion that the girl is usually "out of place" either ideologically, in that she is in the service of the villain (as in Live and Let Die, Diamonds Are Forever, From Russia, with Love, Thunderball and Goldfinger), and/or s.e.xually, in that she is either physically or emotionally "damaged", and is initially resistant to Bond (as in Casino Royale, Diamonds Are Forever, Dr. No, and Goldfinger). In this reading Bond's seduction of the girl serves an ideological purpose as he "repositions" her into the "correct" place: he seduces her away from the villain and/or restores her normative heteros.e.xuality. As Bennett argues: "In thus replacing the girl in a subordinate position in relation to men, Bond simultaneously repositions her within the sphere of ideology in general, detaching her from the service of the villain and recruiting her in support of his own mission" ("James Bond as Popular Hero" 13). This interpretation of the gender relations of the books also explains why Bond does not sleep with Gala Brand in Moonraker: she is neither working for the villain (she is an undercover policewoman) nor is she emotionally damaged.

Yet to interpret the Bond Girls merely as pa.s.sive and waiting to be "repositioned" by the dominant male hero does not entirely fit some of the stories. There are several occasions in the books when Fleming allows the girl a much greater degree of narrative agency. Indeed on several occasions it is the girl who comes to Bond's rescue. In Diamonds Are Forever, for example, it is Tiffany Case who effects their escape when she knows how to drive a railroad handcar. Domino Vitali saves Bond's life at the end of Thunderball when she shoots villain Largo with a spear gun. And in On Her Majesty's Secret Service Bond-physically exhausted, surrounded by enemies and at the end of his tether-is saved by the arrival of Tracy: "What a girl! [...] He had gathered enough strength, mostly from the girl, to have one more bash at them" (172). On other occasions the girl possesses superior knowledge that a.s.sists Bond in his mission. Honeychile Rider is able to escape the fate devised for her by the evil genius Dr. No-staked out as "white meat" for black crabs-on account of her knowledge of nature: "That man thought he knew everything. Silly old fool [...] The whole point is that they don't really like meat. They live mostly on plants and things" (Dr. No 220). Elsewhere the girl sometimes exercises her own narrative agency entirely independent of Bond. In the short story "For Your Eyes Only", Judy Havelock sets out to kill the gangsters responsible for her parents' murder. She rejects Bond's a.s.sertion that killing is "man's work": "You go to h.e.l.l. And keep out of this. It was my mother and father they killed. Not yours" (For Your Eyes Only 67).

It may have been partly as a response to the criticisms of s.e.xism levelled against his books that Fleming once tried to place the girl at the center of a Bond narrative. The ninth novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, is unusual in that it is written in the first person from the perspective of heroine Vivienne Michel and that James Bond enters only two-thirds of the way into the book. Eco excludes The Spy Who Loved Me from his a.n.a.lysis on the grounds that it "seems quite untypical" ("Narrative" 38). Yet the novel is part of the corpus of Bond texts and cannot be left aside simply because it does not conform to a particular theoretical framework. It would be fair to say that Fleming's attempt to present a woman's point-of-view is less than wholly successful. The book was not well received and Fleming never wrote another one like it (Lycett 401-2). Jeremy Black has suggested that The Spy Who Loved Me was more in the tradition of the so-called "kitchen sink" realism exemplified by John Braine's Room at the Top (which had been filmed to great acclaim in 1959) than the imperialist spy thriller (71-2). Fleming's account of how Vivienne loses her virginity at the back of a dingy cinema includes the sort of sordid detail that characterizes the social realist novels of the time. Nevertheless there is some evidence that Fleming was attempting to say something more serious about att.i.tudes towards women in 1950s Britain. Vivienne's first s.e.xual experience with her boyfriend Derek presents her not as the instigator but as a woman who has been exploited: "Now I couldn't refuse him! He would come back and it would be messy and horrible in this filthy little box in this filthy little backstreet cinema and it was going to hurt and he would despise me afterwards for giving in" (The Spy Who Loved Me 28). The book is particularly notable for its unsympathetic representation of men. Vivienne's first boyfriend Derek is a wealthy public schoolboy who dumps her after having his way with her because his parents disapprove of her. Her second lover is a German called Kurt who makes her have an abortion when she becomes pregnant. While the first half of the book is successful in presenting Vivienne as a more rounded character than other Bond Girls, in the second half she resorts to type. Vivienne is running a motel in upstate New York when the owner sends two gangsters to burn it down as part of an insurance fraud. The two "hoods" are about to rape Vivienne when, miraculously, James Bond arrives. He immediately understands the situation, rescues Vivienne, kills the gangsters, makes love to her, and leaves in the morning. Vivienne constructs a romantic fantasy of Bond as a man who "had come from nowhere, like the prince in the fairy tales, and he had saved me from the dragon [...] And then, when the dragon was dead, he had taken me as his own reward" (The Spy Who Loved Me 147).

The Spy Who Loved Me should be seen as a flawed but genuine attempt to identify with the woman's point of view. However, it was bound by the extent of its difference from the other stories to remain a one-off experiment, hence its marginalization in most accounts of Fleming's stories. Yet in its own curious way it exemplifies the paradoxical nature of the gender politics of Fleming's Bond. On the one hand Fleming sought to present women as independent and in control of their own s.e.xuality. The emphasis in his books on s.e.xual freedom for both men and women can be seen as antic.i.p.ating the emergence of the "permissive society" in the 1960s. This would be taken further in the James Bond films, which began in 1962. But on the other hand the perpetuation of gender stereotypes and the representation of women as s.e.xualized objects means that the books are unable to explore the social consequences of this independence in a realistic way. Ultimately what the Bond books seem to suggest is that greater s.e.xual freedom for women amounted to greater s.e.xual opportunities for men. At their worst they pander to male fantasies that women are "easy" and willing s.e.xual partners. This tension between the progressive and the conservative (in some cases even downright reactionary) is a constant feature of the books and it is this tension that makes them such fascinating cultural artefacts.

NOTES.

1 Reference to the Penguin publication of the novels.

2 "Angry Young Men" was a term that gained currency in theatrical and literary circles following the production of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger in 1956 and referred to a group of dramatists and writers whose work was characterized by its broadly "anti-establishment" outlook.

3 The exceptions are Goldfinger and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, where Bond sleeps with two women.

CHAPTER 2.

THE BOND GIRL WHO IS NOT THERE.

The Tiffany case.

Boel Ulfsdotter.