What Would The Reaction To A Female Bond (007, that is) Be?

[Nathaniel Grey]

I find it pointless to swap the gender, or race, of a character if you're just going to keep the same personality traits. Not saying the main characteristics can't stay, but a black Bond or female Bond would be different then if he were a white male. Not only that, the people around Bond would act differently towards him also.

Eh, two things.

1- You can have the character's personality traits be the same and have other characters react to them differently, as in how people would react to a female Bond that's always got a different man on her arm as opposed to the classic Bond.

2- If it changes nothing, fuck it, it's visually different, why not change it.

But personally, that's just my opinion, I don't have much reason to care what they do with Bond. I don't see what's special about Bond in the first place, and I don't just think that's because he's a manly man for men character- as I normally have no problems liking those.

Yeah but if you are going to change the race or gender of a major character like Bond. A character who lives in a world similar to ours. A war were there is discrimination and prejudices the character has to change. He can still be the suave and cool person that he/she is but something has to be added or subtracted from the current Bond in order to make the character believable.

 

[FFHAuthor]

I think it's just kinda...lazy.

James Bond fills a certain set of characteristics for what 'James Bond' is in popular culture. Change a character so dramatically (and yes, changing a gender IS a dramatic change no matter what some people may think about it being an 'artificial construct) makes you ask why would you do it? Taking it back to it's end point, I can't help but see it as deeply patronizing and insulting to women since the idea says at it's core 'a woman can't be a secret agent' or 'nobody's going to watch a movie about a woman spy' so they have take the James Bond role so you can actually write a story with a developed character and simply swap out the gender so that you get a 'woman secret agent' who's really just James Bond with different genitalia.

It's not an open minded and forward thinking concept, it's a patronizing cash grab at best, and a thinly veiled misogynist's plan at worst.

A good writer could create a story about a female secret agent without simply hijacking an already established character.

 

[Phasmal]

Yeah but if you are going to change the race or gender of a major character like Bond. A character who lives in a world similar to ours. A war were there is discrimination and prejudices the character has to change. He can still be the suave and cool person that he/she is but something has to be added or subtracted from the current Bond in order to make the character believable.

Uh, why? I'm not sure what you're getting at. I don't see anything particularly exclusive to white men about Bond's character, maybe that's just me.

I think it would probably make it a little more interesting for me personally, as I've never gotten into Bond films. I just find them too unintentionally funny. James Bond is just... such a Mary Sue and it's just silly to me.

It's funny when you think about when Mary Sue means, an author insert so that the author can live out his awesome fantasies, and then you remember Ian Fleming was actually a spy and probably did more awesome shit than his character did and you're just like "Oh. Huh." Somehow that's extremely amusing and humorous to me.

Do remember by the way, the cheese factor is totally intentionally funny. I'm always cackling during the older Bond movies, God that shit is hilariously dumb. And the puns man, the puns. It helps if you don't even remotely take Bond movies seriously.

I think I just had a bad introduction to the whole thing really, through my ex boyfriend who took it way too seriously and didn't get why I found the whole thing so silly. And then a few years later I went and watched the first Daniel Craig Bond film and it bored the crap out of me. I don't get why but there's something I just dont -get- about the Bond films.

 

[mecegirl]

They probably wouldn't need to use the Bond name. I'm sure there is a book somewhere just waiting to be adapted into a film.
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/female-spy Or they could just finally make a damn Black Widow movie.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

We already have one, Kate Archer, and she didn't have to steal the identity of another character to be awsome.

 

[happyninja42]

We already have one, Kate Archer, and she didn't have to steal the identity of another character to be awsome.

Who is that? That name doesn't ring any bells.

 

[kasperbbs]

I wouldn't mind at all, but then again i'm not really a fan of the franchise. I enjoyed the movies that i have seen, but i wouldn't be heart broken if the lead had a different name/race/gender as long as it's entertaining to watch.

 

[Eliam_Dar]

We already have one, Kate Archer, and she didn't have to steal the identity of another character to be awsome.

Who is that? That name doesn't ring any bells.

She is actually a character in the videogame No One Lives Forever... and I just realized I misspelled her name (sry about that), here you can find more details https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Archer

 

[FireAza]

It would be odd to say the least. Bond's entire character is based around him being uber macho and manly. He always wins in a fight, he can bang any woman he lays eyes upon (and never see them again!) and he gets to play with all kinds of cool cars and gadgets. It's going to seem really out of place gender-swapping him.

Of course, if you made the character more cerebral like Jason Borne and and them solving problems with wit instead of fists, bullets and penises, that could work.

 

[Story]

I might actually care about Bond for the first time in my life. Being a female minority living in the United States there isn't much that I could relate to the classic Bond.
Besides the franchise is so old, I honestly think it would be a nice twist.

 

[Mikeyfell]

World War 3...

Either that or all the "undesirables" in the world would just have a heart attack at the sheer gall of someone making a movie that acknowledges that a literal half of the population is capable of doing spy stuff as well.

But the more important question would be... does anyone who matters actually give a fuck?

 

[Cowabungaa]

I think I just had a bad introduction to the whole thing really, through my ex boyfriend who took it way too seriously and didn't get why I found the whole thing so silly. And then a few years later I went and watched the first Daniel Craig Bond film and it bored the crap out of me. I don't get why but there's something I just dont -get- about the Bond films.

He took it seriously?! I can never imagine how, I mean...

Just look at all that huge ball of cheese! It's so freakin' cheesy it's a miracle Bond isn't French. Hell, it's the reason why I enjoy it so much, it's so deliciously campy. You have to surrender yourself to the sheer stupidity and the camp of it all. Don't expect it to be relatable, don't even expect it to have aged well (I mean just look at that last .gif), just bask in the dumbness of it all.

It's actually why I wasn't too fond of the new Bond films (up until Skyfall) with Craig; they took out that unique, if very outdated, flavour that that made Bond flicks, well, Bond flicks and and instead turned them into generic Bourne-esque action films. However, Skyfall took a step towards giving that typical flavour again while firmly putting it in the 21st century which they struggled with before. SPECTRE seems to do that even more so.

 

[AgedGrunt]

Unless she matches wits, maturity, intrigue, acting skill and is a believable character, it will go over like female movie super-heroines and stand-up comedians.

Also, James Bond is a man-slut and the films are full of sexed-up women. About the best thing is we can finally say: "Jane, you ignorant slut" in a news anchor voice.

Nagging thing to me, like always, is the subtext with this always seems to be about empowering women and inserting them into male worlds with vanity to somehow represent the opposite sex. That would be fine if creators actually took one of these projects and did something, you know, good with it, rather than play up women as the weaker sex that needs to go out and show the boys that girls are just as good and show girls that they shouldn't be afraid to enter a man's world, but that's what happens and that's why women still appear to live in the shadow of men in certain ways. Stop trying to be men.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

It would be odd to say the least. Bond's entire character is based around him being uber macho and manly. He always wins in a fight, he can bang any woman he lays eyes upon (and never see them again!) and he gets to play with all kinds of cool cars and gadgets. It's going to seem really out of place gender-swapping him.

Of course, if you made the character more cerebral like Jason Borne and and them solving problems with wit instead of fists, bullets and penises, that could work.

Have you seen Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace, and [the worst of the bunch... ] Skyfall? Bond's not been overly Bonde-esque for a while, now, and I'm glad because I always disliked the whole concept (though with Skyfall and, seemingly, Spectre, the ol' boy's club dullard may be back again).

Daniel Craig's Bond is a bit of a sociopathic headcase, and the scripts actually deal with some of those themes (the much unfairly maligned QoS, in particular). Bond across Casino Royale and QoS arguably has a broader, more resonant character arc than Bourne does in the whole trilogy (I love the first two Bourne films, btw, so I'm not being critical - without The Bourne Identity, Craig's Bond wouldn't have been anywhere near as good).

And the underlined is precisely why I'd like to see a female Bond. I mean, he's never really been a character on screen until recently - he's been little more than a sexist, archaic, masculine fantasy on the screen. There's not much you can say is particularly sacred about the actual character himself. So for me, that iconoclasm lends itself perfectly to a female expression of that icon.

I'd also love to see a female Bond just to smirk at all the angry men who'd froth at the very notion. There'd probably be death threats, whining about dem pesky 'SJW's', and a fightback/backlash campaign by the various wacky MRA's of teh internetz - it'd be grimly hilarious.

Also, this:

Besides the franchise is so old, I honestly think it would be a nice twist.

/edit

See also: Idris Elba or Chiwetel Ejiofor would be awesome as Bond's, and would reflect a Britain that hasn't been so starchly and blandly white for ages.

So be it a gender change or a change in ethnicity, I'm all for a different twist on the next Bond.

 

[FireAza]

It would be odd to say the least. Bond's entire character is based around him being uber macho and manly. He always wins in a fight, he can bang any woman he lays eyes upon (and never see them again!) and he gets to play with all kinds of cool cars and gadgets. It's going to seem really out of place gender-swapping him.

Of course, if you made the character more cerebral like Jason Borne and and them solving problems with wit instead of fists, bullets and penises, that could work.

Have you seen Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solace, and [the worst of the bunch... ] Skyfall? Bond's not been overly Bonde-esque for a while, now, and I'm glad because I always disliked the whole concept (though with Skyfall and, seemingly, Spectre, the ol' boy's club dullard may be back again).

Daniel Craig's Bond is a bit of a sociopathic headcase, and the scripts actually deal with some of those themes (the much unfairly maligned QoS, in particular). Bond across Casino Royale and QoS arguably has a broader, more resonant character arc than Bourne does in the whole trilogy (I love the first two Bourne films, btw, so I'm not being critical - without The Bourne Identity, Craig's Bond wouldn't have been anywhere near as good).

Ah, I'm a fan of the classic, campy old Bond films, never really seen the new ones.

 

[freaper]

Remember when the internet shat itself because they were going to reboot Ghostbusters with an all-female cast? I'd wager it would go down the same way.

 

[Batou667]

Besides the franchise is so old, I honestly think it would be a nice twist.

See also: Idris Elba or Chiwetel Ejiofor would be awesome as Bond's, and would reflect a Britain that hasn't been so starchly and blandly white for ages.

So be it a gender change or a change in ethnicity, I'm all for a different twist on the next Bond.

But then it wouldn't be James Bond. Bond is a character who is established to be a Scots-British, white, heterosexual male - change any one of those things and he becomes a different character. A Bondesque character, sure. A Bond-oid, you could say. A character in the style or tradition of Bond. But it wouldn't be Bond.

That's why I'm not a fan of race-switching or genderbending in fiction. It destroys established lore in favour of token diversity or representation.

For example, I think Idris Elba is a great actor, and he could certainly handle a role like Bond. But call the franchise something else, for the love of God.

As for a female Bond... it would either have to be played as a straight-up parody to deliberately highlight all the differences in gender roles, because they'd be incongruous as all hell, or else they'd need to modify the character to the point where there's scarcely any resemblence to the original. Bond was always a power fantasy, and not a particularly realistic or subtle one at that, but for the most part he wasn't farcical. A trouser-suited female lead going around pinching men's bottoms and socking bad guys in the jaw would be surreal. Suspension of disbelief, meet window.

 

[kris40k]

Meh, it would be lazy writing and, in my opinion, a warning/death knell of the character. I'm not for gender-swapping characters. It shows writers are really running out of ideas to use with a character. If people are looking for more diversity within a genre, create new characters, not try to ride on the previous character's success with tumblr/deviant art/Rule 63 -esque antics. I'm sure there are plenty of interesting female spy characters that deserve a shot at the big screen without riding on James Bond's coatails; the before listed Joanna Dark or Natasha Romanoff, for instance.

As others have also mentioned, Nathan Drake is basically just a male Lara Croft, who is basically just a female Indiana Jones, however each is a distinct character, personality, and background (compare old Lara's rampant gunplay and destruction of ancient sites to Jones's more careful approach, albeit with lots of requisite Nazi-busting). Had they just made an American female archeology professor who punched out Nazi's while saving artifacts for safe keeping in a museum, she may not have been as unique or interesting as a British billionaire adventurer.