James Bond cannot be genderbent

[Saltyk]

I'd rather make a new female super spy. Why change an established character for it's own sake? That doesn't speak well to the potential quality of such a film.

Might as well make a version of Dragon Ball with a female lead character named Gokie. That would totally be a better series, right? And how about a Tonia Stark? Helen Jordon of the Green Lanterns?

Spoiler: Though female Goku is oddly adorable

The only way I feel a female Bond wouldn't be an example of the worst sort of pandering would be if they ran with the fan theory. That 007 and James Bond are code names. And even then, I still feel like making a new character would be better and less insulting to fans and women in general.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I remember this having been discussed earlier some time ago. And I still think taking established characters and genderbending them or whatever solely for its own sake or to evoke gender discussion is borderline reprehensible. It not only speaks of a propagandist attitude, but also laziness and lack of creative drive. Not that you couldn't make a female Bond without changing a thing about the character, but they way they would be perceived would be hugely fucking different.

Back then I had a vision of a female spy spinoff set in the James Bond universe, with the main character being 008 or some other spy of equal caliber with Bond, played by someone like Emily Blunt or Lea Seydoux. But here's the twist: she's the backroom guy. While Bond is out seducing and charming people to further the mission, 008 is putting people in black bags, driving them out into the boonies and extracting information just so Bond can even know where to go in the first place. While Bond engages in shootouts and car chases, 008 is hacking, infiltrating and sabotaging her way through the villain's plans. As in, doing actual spy stuff as opposed to standard action movie fare. Now there's a movie I'd like to see.

 

[Phasmal]

We don't see it because taking like the 3 female characters that exist and turning them into more boring dudes wouldn't exactly be the most stunning thing ever

Now... that's interesting: why more boring? I thought we'd all established genderbending doesn't take anything away from the character, why would making a female character a male be boring? Can you rationalise that for me?

Well when like 90% of main characters are male, changing a male character to female is not the same thing as changing a female character male. Isn't that kind of obvious?

I hear quite a lot that James Bond is 'the ultimate male fantasy', and I'm just... like... really?
I mean, Bond's fine and all, but ultimate fantasy?

Perhaps it's just me, but I always found Bond a little silly, and kinda boring.

I think that's exactly why he's seen as the ultimate male fantasy, as there's little else to him but to appeal to a broad male demograpic. He's literally just collection of 'this is what dudes like'. He's boring and silly because he's all fantasy.

You're probably on to something with that. I certainly get that he has broad appeal, even if the result makes him more than a little shallow. I'm certainly not down on people who like Bond, I just can't get into him at all.

OT: I do think it's funny no one is even really talking about changing Bond to female in reality, but people are already clutching pearls about it. It's fine. Diversity isn't gonna take your balls away.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

We don't see it because taking like the 3 female characters that exist and turning them into more boring dudes wouldn't exactly be the most stunning thing ever

Now... that's interesting: why more boring? I thought we'd all established genderbending doesn't take anything away from the character, why would making a female character a male be boring? Can you rationalise that for me?

Well when like 90% of main characters are male, changing a male character to female is not the same thing as changing a female character male. Isn't that kind of obvious?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we need more FtM genderbends, there is definitely a skewed ratio of dude to dudettes in popular culture. But I'm disputing that it'd make the character more boring to swap them, I thought we were pretty agreed that swapping a gender doesn't detract from the character so a male version of a female character should be equally as viable.

(of course, I personally think we need more original female characters, but that's neither here nor there)

 

[Phasmal]

We don't see it because taking like the 3 female characters that exist and turning them into more boring dudes wouldn't exactly be the most stunning thing ever

Now... that's interesting: why more boring? I thought we'd all established genderbending doesn't take anything away from the character, why would making a female character a male be boring? Can you rationalise that for me?

Well when like 90% of main characters are male, changing a male character to female is not the same thing as changing a female character male. Isn't that kind of obvious?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we need more FtM genderbends, there is definitely a skewed ratio of dude to dudettes in popular culture. But I'm disputing that it'd make the character more boring to swap them, I thought we were pretty agreed that swapping a gender doesn't detract from the character so a male version of a female character should be equally as viable.

(of course, I personally think we need more original female characters, but that's neither here nor there)

I think what the person you quoted meant by 'more boring', wasn't that it would make the character themselves more boring, but more boring in the sense of 'Oh look, another dude, because we don't already have enough of those'. Of course I can't speak for them, but that's how I see it.

(And yeah we pretty much need more of everything that isn't straight white and dude, nothing against straight white dudes, there's just a lot of them in popular culture and I think it speaks to companies low expectations of audiences that that's all they think we want, c'mon a little variety never hurt).

 

[MrFalconfly]

Genderbending is the lazy way to make a character.

Honestly, if you want a "female MI6 agent", then there's literally a billion ways to do it well, and none of them involves naming said character 007 Jane Bond.

Look at how Marvel did it with Spiderman.

They didn't genderbend or racelift Peter Parker, rather they made a new character to bear the mantle of Spiderman (Miles Morales).

 

[Breakdown]

On the subject of female to male genderbend ideas, I think a remake of Buffy could work - Bertie the Vampire Slayer, about an upper class male English student in a Californian high school, who has to fight vampires while coping with issues. He could be helped by a dorky female librarian.

 

[rosac]

To clarify, my thread title was worded in that way in order to try and provoke discussion. I'll be brutally honest, I don't know what hyperbole is.

The crux of my argument is- if you genderbent James Bond, is it still a James Bond film? I understand the different actors and codename theory (which I believe is the case) but changing bond to a woman is a different kettle of fish.

As mentioned in the thread, is there any real reason to change Bonds gender rather than spend time and effort creating a new character? I doubt Ian Fleming realised how much his books would take off and become a cinema icon, so maybe a budding author/scriptwriter with an understanding of the spy genre, female characters and a target audience in mind could create a character that develops to an equal scope. It may have to be done in books first then adapted due to hollywoods tendency to play it safe regarding new IPs.

And I get that there are female spy films about, but a lot of them are very serious and gritty, whereas Bond knows how to have a bit of fun. The tone is entirely different.

 

[Zhukov]

The crux of my argument is- if you genderbent James Bond, is it still a James Bond film? I understand the different actors and codename theory (which I believe is the case) but changing bond to a woman is a different kettle of fish.

Depends if you consider maleness to be absolutely inherent to James Bond.

I personally think you could make a pretty solid case that it is. Some may disagree. (I'm not all that invested either way, I haven't been interested in Bond movies since I was 14 years old.)

However then you're essentially just saying, "If you change the character then the character will be different." Which is kinda self-evident.

 

[rosac]

The crux of my argument is- if you genderbent James Bond, is it still a James Bond film? I understand the different actors and codename theory (which I believe is the case) but changing bond to a woman is a different kettle of fish.

Depends if you consider maleness to be absolutely inherent to James Bond.

I personally think you could make a pretty solid case that it is. Some may disagree. (I'm not all that invested either way, I haven't been interested in Bond movies since I was 14 years old.)

However then you're essentially just saying, "If you change the character then the character will be different." Which is kinda self-evident.

It is a difficult one, as bond himself has been slightly changed over the years, and people are not bothered by the idea of him changing race (although oddly there's no real calls for an asian bond which is a discussion in of itself, potentially due to the British identity.)

You could also argue that Michael Douglas' kingpin and Morgan Freemans Red have been altered through race yet the character is not much different. Again, different characters' gender could be altered with little difficulty; I wouldn't be adverse to a female Doctor Who for example who is similar to Bond in that actors change over time. But I feel that maleness is Bonds schtick.

Also, remember the upset when Thor was gender swapped? I always found that an odd choice by Marvel seeing as there are many female super hero "versions" of superheroes (Spider Gwen as a key example). Thor is tricky due to the fact that both his Birth name and title are Thor (They who are worthy of the power of Thor may wield Mjolnir) and it was handled pretty badly if I recall.

EDIT- Also, regarding the codename theory, I would like it if every 007 was made to take a new identity out of respect to Bond, the idea that Daniel Craigs was the original (thanks to the reboot) and the rest are more a "legacy"

 

[JimB]

This sounds like a pretty fun movie to watch. I'd enjoy it, but it wouldn't be Bond, it would be its own thing.

If the movie goes through literally all the same beats as a Bond movie except for the inversion of penis to vagina ratio, then I think I'd be compelled to describe it as a Bond movie, because to do otherwise is to say that the only Bond characteristic that matters toward his definition is his penis. Bond stops being defined by his actions, and is reduced to his cock n balls.*

ITT: People take hyperbole meant to express a strong opinion at face value and treat OP like an idiot for saying it. Classy. Obviously you can genderbend any character. Don't be a smarmy dick like you've never seen someone say someone "can't" do something before. Jesus.

There's not much to respond to, otherwise. "I assert my personal standards and will not change them" provokes no conversation, so "Please tone down the hyperbole" becomes just about the only direct response to him.

Other than everyone who has contributed their own opinions to the topic. Did you even look to see what I was talking about before responding?

And in my two-sentence response, I included two qualifiers to admit that the lack of anything else to say is not absolute. Should I have included more than that? How many qualifiers would be sufficient? Or is your argument that by describing those posts as asking to please tone down the hyperbole, I am not being harsh enough?

Contrast the dozen or so people who were able to state their own opinions on the matter without snarking against obvious hyperbole, including you. Why did you even try to call me out?

I did not try to call you out. I disagreed with your characterization of events. Let us be clear, Kolby Jack, if anyone has "tried to call anyone out," then I am going to accuse the person who deliberately calls people "smarmy dicks" of that particular crime.



*Strong Male Character's name should totally be Dick Coquenbahls.

 

[Joccaren]

Honestly, I'm against gender/race/sexuality bending any established character simply for the sake of 'equality' or 'because we can'. I mean should someone who fits the part well be cast and it isn't what they traditionally were? Yeah, sure. However I kind of find it ironic here how James Bond is a male fantasy character, and we're going "Nothing wrong with gender bending him", yet we look at Ghost in the Shell and we go from Japanese based character to a very white character and its "This is wrong must be Japanese, cultural homogenisation". Apparently established characters only matter if they're not white men.

If you want to gender bend something, Don't. Just create a female version with their own brand that pays homage to the male one. No need to gender bend an established character. The few exceptions I can think of to this are:
-Doctor Who. Can be male or female, doesn't matter at all, and in-universe it even works if you gender-bend and fits with established lore of the series. Other similar characters are acceptible.
-Non characters. Characters like Link, who don't really have much of a character, and exist merely as an avatar into the world for a player or viewer [I would not include Link, however, even though he was my example in terms of being a non-character. Part of his overall backstory is that he is the reincarnation of the male hero spirit that saved the human world and fought for the female goddess Hylia - who revives as Zelda constantly. Plus, Zelda exists, just use her in a role bender rather than gender bender - though even that kind of goes against the whole 'fated to relive the old battles' part of the lore. Maybe as a final Zelda game where it breaks that cycle and finally ends Ganon, because they've broken free of their old fate, but I want the series to run on a while longer so... Yeah. Anyway, not really upset at things like Linkle, but I think its probably not the best non-character to gender bend].
-Videogame characters that serve as aspects of the player's expression - ones with character creators, or other such things. Your Shepards, Wardens, Dovahkiin's of the world. By nature these are gender bendable, so maybe its cheating a bit in saying so.
-Brief comedy stint bending. See Bender from Futurama and such, where the character is normally male, but in a couple of episodes becomes female in order to tell a new joke, or simply as a contrast to compare what a female bender would be like, rather than trying to continue the series with Bender sometimes being male and sometimes being female for equalities sake or W/E.

But gender bending an established franchise generally isn't a good idea long term. Everyone knows you're just trying to milk brand recognition whilst gaining points with the "Equality!!" crowd, who are about the only ones that'll be really impressed with whatever you're doing. If you want more female centric films, make more films with females as a main character. Don't just grab an established male character and gender bend them to try and bring an audience with it. That audience is going to be annoyed that an established character has been changed, you need to remain faithful to the source material in order to not lose more interest and be truly accused of just being a brand recognition cash grab, yet you also need to alter things a bit so that its not just a token change of gender, and so that the new cast can stand on their own instead of being a gender change for the sake of it, which people will take offence to too. Your better off just creating a new homage brand, that pays tribute to the show you want to gender bend, but that doesn't rely on brand recognition in the name to call people in. If its a good movie, people will see it and say "Hey, this thing pays homage to [x] a lot, you should watch it its really cool". If its bad, people will say "Hey, this thing just rips of [x] a lot, don't watch it". Either way, you end up still being associated with that brand, without the negative image of just trying to use brand recognition to cash grab.

Gender bending an established character though? I don't see the point. All it'll do is create ill will, and you gain nothing that you wouldn't have by just creating a new brand. It really is just a cynical brand name cash in, and people are getting smart enough to just see through it these days. You've got to find a better method, and create a character that's interesting in their own right, not just because they're called "Bond" or whathaveyou.

I'll be brutally honest, I don't know what hyperbole is.

Essentially, exaggeration.
"James Bond cannot be genderbent" is an exaggeration of the opinion "James Bond should not be genderbent", because regardless of whether you should or shouldn't, you still can do it. Its a really silly place to call hyperbole on, usually you'd call it on someone who said something like "Everyone hates [x]" when its really "Me and my close friends hate [x]", or "This is the worst [x] ever" rather than "This is really bad [x], though there have been ones in the past that are worse", rather than a bit of semantics that I think everyone understands what was trying to be said [Though apparently I'd think wrong].

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

You don't have to make Bond a female. There are 9 00's in the License To Kill program. Any one of them could be female. Let them have their own spinoff series.

 

[Souplex]

I hear quite a lot that James Bond is 'the ultimate male fantasy', and I'm just... like... really?
I mean, Bond's fine and all, but ultimate fantasy?

When Phasmal pointed it out, I have to agree and tilt my head. Ultimate male power fantasy? Uh, no thanks. I don't consider fucking the lesbian out of someone to be a fantasy. Bond is a pretty sexist character, of course he is, he's from the 60s.

So the fact that he's suave, always cool headed, great with ladies, can kick ass and look good doing it, has the most badass cars, tours the world while saving it on a regular basis, DOESN'T strike you as a male power fantasy? Freaking a, I don't even LIKE Bond movies and even I can see the appeal of being him!

Also, king, Fist of The North Star is pretty sexist as well. At the very least one of the morals in that show was that women shouldn't be fighting when there's men to do it. It's not fucking the lesbian out of someone, but it's still pretty bad by our standards.

Bolded for your convenience.

I'm sure there are dudes who want to be Bond. I just don't buy him as the 'ultimate' male fantasy, as, like I said, he comes off as kind of hard to take seriously.
To be honest, though I have limited Bond-experience, his personality always fell a little flat to me. It's not like he's great with ladies because he's just so irresistible and awesome, to me it always came across as he's great with ladies because the writer wanted him to be. Seemed a little forced.

But anyway, yeah. Not an ultimate fantasy in my books. Guys can imagine better than Bond.

And also cars are boring.

As the actual "Ultimate Male Fantasy" I resent the idea that Bond is.

 

[JimB]

I kind of find it ironic here how James Bond is a male fantasy character, and we're going "Nothing wrong with gender bending him," yet we look at Ghost in the Shell and we go from a Japanese-based character to a very white character, and it's, "This is wrong! Must be Japanese! Cultural homogenisation!"

Just because I've been noticing what seem to me like false conflations on both sides of the aisle, may I ask who "we" are? Which people in this thread have argued in favor of James Bond being female but against Motoko Kusanagi being white, and what rationales did they offer for holding those positions? If one intends to accuse others of hypocrisy, then I think to avoid falling into the trap of strawmanning, one has a duty to establish clearly who is being a hypocrite and how.

 

[Denamic]

'007' and 'James Bond' are not one person. They are codenames for secret agents, just like 'Q' or 'M'. There's literally no reason there can't be a female 007.

 

[Joccaren]

I kind of find it ironic here how James Bond is a male fantasy character, and we're going "Nothing wrong with gender bending him," yet we look at Ghost in the Shell and we go from a Japanese-based character to a very white character, and it's, "This is wrong! Must be Japanese! Cultural homogenisation!"

Just because I've been noticing what seem to me like false conflations on both sides of the aisle, may I ask who "we" are? Which people in this thread have argued in favor of James Bond being female but against Motoko Kusanagi being white, and what rationales did they offer for holding those positions? If one intends to accuse others of hypocrisy, then I think to avoid falling into the trap of strawmanning, one has a duty to establish clearly who is being a hypocrite and how.

To be honest, I'm not looking at specific individuals as I'm not going to run back and forth between a bunch of threads and compare names, more the general attitude of the site at large as I've seen [Hence the general "We", rather than "Jack, Jill and Thomas"]. Were I talking about specific members, rather than the broader community and what I interpret as its primary view on a given subject based on responses at the times I've looked, I would quote those individuals, and their other posts,

As for the general rationales:
-Bond can be gender bent because anyone can be genderbent and I think it'd be acceptable to see a female bond, even though I will acknowledge his character is meant as a male fantasy - but still a woman could do the things he does.
-Ghost in the Shell's main character should be Asian as the story draws on a lot of Japanese cultural things and its an important part of her character that she is Asian.

Basically, why I find this interesting and a little ironic - as its kind of hard to accuse a community of hypocrisy, considering its a bunch of individuals some of which may be being hypocritical, others not [Not, I never personally said anyone was being a hypocrite, I said ironic, which two viewpoints being held by a community that seem in opposition can be, even if it isn't the same individuals] - is that in the case of bond, despite the fact that his status as a man and the associated power fantasy that lets his audience live being an important part of his character, even as acknowledged by some [I haven't seen many dissenting opinions to this, but I leave 'some' as we'll get some nitpicking that I'm implying everyone - including those who haven't made their opinions known - thinks this] who believe he can be genderbent, its still considered more acceptable for him to be genderbent, whilst for an Asian character who has that Asian ethnicity as a core part of her character [Never watched the show, merely regurgitating the arguments I saw when I popped into those threads] it would be wrong to change that part of her, and it should be kept the same.

Basically, I find it interesting that we talk about the rules, kind of, as to when its acceptable for a character to be gender bent/race swapped/whatever, whilst the main thing that seems to matter in the eyes of the community in general is getting more minorities into film. I don't mean that as a bad thing, though I disagree that established characters should be changed without good reason [And "Getting more minorities in" isn't a good reason when they could do so with a new character], I merely find it interesting that the criteria for acceptableness in changing a character is whether the role goes to a more minority-based person or not, rather than any actual criteria of the character themselves, and how arguments made by the wider community to argue against one character casting change, are dismissed by the wider community when considering another potential one, because it isn't oriented to a minority.

I had a feeling that bit might get picked on, but no, I am not calling any individuals here hypocritical. I merely find it interesting and ironic the attitude that the wider community has shown towards the two issues at the times I've checked up on them.

 

[JimB]

I kind of find it ironic here how James Bond is a male fantasy character, and we're going "Nothing wrong with gender bending him," yet we look at Ghost in the Shell and we go from a Japanese-based character to a very white character, and it's, "This is wrong! Must be Japanese! Cultural homogenisation!"

Just because I've been noticing what seem to me like false conflations on both sides of the aisle, may I ask who "we" are? Which people in this thread have argued in favor of James Bond being female but against Motoko Kusanagi being white, and what rationales did they offer for holding those positions? If one intends to accuse others of hypocrisy, then I think to avoid falling into the trap of strawmanning, one has a duty to establish clearly who is being a hypocrite and how.

To be honest, I'm not looking at specific individuals as I'm not going to run back and forth between a bunch of threads and compare names, more the general attitude of the site at large as I've seen.

The thing about that is, it's just not super cool. I first noticed this a couple of months ago, when I saw someone saying the people who dislike the trailer for the new Ghostbusters are the same people who send vile, criminal death threats to video game feminists, and ever since then I can't seem to stop noticing people who look at two separate groups and seemingly say to themselves, "I disagree with both of these groups; therefore these groups are composed of the same people."

Take whatever stance you want on whether Jamie Bond is a good idea; it makes no difference to my life, especially since it's never gonna happen anyway, so I got no profit on trying to tell you what to think about it. I'm just asking that we as a society kind of knock it off with tying one group's opinion to another group's opinion in order to mock them for both when the first group does not have the second group's opinion.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Honestly, I'm against gender/race/sexuality bending any established character simply for the sake of 'equality' or 'because we can'. I mean should someone who fits the part well be cast and it isn't what they traditionally were? Yeah, sure. However I kind of find it ironic here how James Bond is a male fantasy character, and we're going "Nothing wrong with gender bending him", yet we look at Ghost in the Shell and we go from Japanese based character to a very white character and its "This is wrong must be Japanese, cultural homogenisation". Apparently established characters only matter if they're not white men.

The problem with the part I made bold is not that it's a change, it's that it's part of a racist trope that was used to exclude non-whites from mainstream Hollywood movies up into the 1980's. It's called "whitewashing" and it still represents shitty practices in Hollywood, along with highlighting a bitterness that the vast majority of characters in movies are white. Worse still we rarely get an Asian protagonist unless the film is a kung-fu film, or how there's rarely a black protagonist unless the movie is about gangs, or is a "buddy-cops" film.

In the case of Ghost in the Shell we have a particularly bad case of whitewashing, where they make an entire Japanese cast from a police agency in cyber-punk future Japan into white people. Yeah you can hand-wave explain it with the fact that they're all cyborgs with mostly prosthetic bodies, but it's still kind of taking the cultural identity away from Ghost in the Shell, which is also pretty damn central to the series. As Ghost in the Shell is very much a social comentary on the world, coming from sensibilities and a world view that's very Japanese. Also I know they didn't do it to be racist, but because this is an American production of this canon, and there aren't really that many well known Japanese, or even Asian actors and actresses in action to fill out the cast. So they filled the roles with white actors, because that's who's well known in the American market and really in the world market for Hollywood films, while name name recognition is how they put butts in seats for movies.

That all doesn't make it any less of a slightly offensive thing to have done though.

It doesn't help that when a film is inclusive, where the main characters aren't taken from a pool of stock generic white male actors, that some people bawl how it's "white genocide" and an "attack on white heterosexual men". Like how the vast majority of the complaints revolving around Star Wars: The Force Awakens before it even came out were all framed. I mean there is more vehement backlash when a film is inclusive than when a film whitewashes the cast, and that just smacks of an entitled mentality, paired with a persecution complex. Not exactly a pretty thing, which also doesn't help the chronically risk adverse film industry in American, get away from making bland safe films that are guaranteed to make a box office profit by being bland and safe.