Representations of female characters The archetypal female role in Bond films is that of the Bond girl.

Bond Girls are often victims rescued by Bond, fellow agents or allies, villainesses or members of an enemy organization, most typically the villain's accomplice, assistant or mistress. In the more recent Bond films, Bonds boss M, the Head of the Secret Service organization MI6, switched from a male to a female role (played by Judi Dench since 1995s Goldeneye). Like Bonds representation, the role and characteristics of the female characters have undergone changes throughout the film series, reflecting societal changes and contexts.

Read the articles on the next two pages, each presenting a different view of Bond. Which one do you agree with most?

http://www.theguardian.com/film/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2012/oct/30/skyfall-lesssexist-bond-film

Is Skyfall a less sexist Bond film?

In the latest film in the franchise, James Bond is no longer the irredeemable misogynist of old. And much of the credit for his conversion goes to Judi Dench's M
Judi Dench started life as M, the fictional head of MI6, by calling James Bond a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur". Oh how we cheered, us feminists sick of a long-running multibillion-pound franchise that left a series of beautiful women as little more than roadkill in the path of the spy we never loved. Seventeen years later, the great Dame seems to have left us with a film, Skyfall, we can all cheer. Or at least a proper female hero.
This statement may cause offence both to other feminists and die-hard fans who have long maintained that us laydeez can just go and talk on the phone while they enjoy the ultimate in male fantasy. Feminist author Bidisha once said: "Ian Fleming hates women and I don't buy into anything to do with that. The Bond films are generally sexist. I don't like anything that descends from a sewer of misogyny." And writer and broadcaster Fay Weldon said: "These characters were male fantasy figures. These films were attempts by men to keep women in their place and to ensure they still ironed their shirts." The procession of women with ludicrous names (Pussy Galore: arf arf) and the patronising use of "girl", dreadful dialogue (some of which you can enjoy here) and ridiculous storylines have made me hate the whole idea of Bond. Until now. The main cause for celebration is Judi Dench as M, the real hero of the film. Not only is she in charge but she shows both emotional power over her subordinates and human failure. She is no longer the joke older woman, there to act as the only foil to Bond's charms, but a real character with heroic traits.

When she first took the role in 1995 for Pierce Brosnan's Bond debut,GoldenEye, Dench's appointment was inspired by the rise to prominence of real-life MI5 boss Stella Rimington, who had recently become the organisation's first female director-general. Rimington retired in 1996, aged 61, after just four years in the top job. In Skyfall, Dench, who has had far longer in the fictional post, is judged to be past her best as the Whitehall mandarins try to edge her out. (I didn't miss the fact that the most hostile questioning from an ensuing committee-roasting comes from a female politician as if the film's creators can't resist a bit of girl-on-girl action.) Barbara Broccoli, one of the two co-producers, previously elicited derision when she called the Bond girls of the 60s "feminist role models" career women who were "sexual predators" giving as good as they got. With Judi Dench's M she has finally provided a role model. Without the sex. (I'm largely ignoring the oedipal overtones of Javier Bardem's villain.) There are moments when the old Bond comes back in Skyfall. The film opens with a vehicle chase in which Bond laughs at Naomie Harris's driving skills (gasp, she knocks a couple of wing mirrors off while swerving at supersonic speed through rush-hour Istanbul) and then shows her less-than-sure aim with a gun. And, as Peter Bradshaw points out in his review, "the scene in which 007 steps suavely into the shower with delectable Svrine (Brnice Marlohe) could have happened at any time in the last half-century." The backstory for Svrine (spoiler alert), that of trafficking and abuse, also seems a bit of a turning point for Bond, although I'm no aficionado so forgive me if I'm wrong. Maybe the Bond women have all been victims of violence and I just wasn't listening while I shouted at the screen. I can't help thinking that this shift in the position of women in the film (well, one film really) is part of the reason why Skyfall has had thebiggest ever Bond opening and is on course to outpace 2006's Casino Royale (with $586m) as the most successful Bond film of all time at the box office. Yet I'm sure many of the die-hard fans of the franchise will disagree. Even the Guardian's own Xan Brooks dissed the "touchy-feely indulgence" in Bond's childhood trauma and his relationship with a woman old enough to be (of course) his mother. "Don't they realise that 007 has always been at his most convincing when he's at his crudest and least adorned; when he's serving as a blank canvas for macho fantasy; the dark angel of our disreputable natures?" I don't agree. I don't think it's good for boys or men to grow up thinking that misogyny and xenophobia are sexy (not to mention the idea that all baddies have a disability). Perhaps my head was turned not on Saturday night when I saw Skyfall but 19 months ago when Dench and Craig teamed up to create the Equals video calling for equality. If you haven't seen it, watch it here. In 2011, says the disembodied voice of Dench, a man is still likely to earn more for doing the same job and less likely to be judged for promiscuous behaviour. Hardly a ringing endorsement for a spy with money to burn and a string of lovers was it? Some will argue that Bond is still awful for presenting a consumerist utopia where only the people with the money (to buy cars, computers, helicopters) can win. But that's a whole other piece. For now, will you join me in celebrating a sexy Bond with just a bit of the sexist left out?

http://reciperifle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/bond-villain.html BOND, VILLAIN by Giles Coren There is a moment in the new James Bond film so vile, sexist and sad that it made me feel physically sick. If you have not seen the film and fear a spoiler, then look away now. Or cancel your tickets and do something less horrible instead. Like pull all your fingernails out. In short, there is a young woman in this film whom Bond correctly identifies (in his smug, smart-arse way) as a sex-worker who was kidnapped and enslaved as a child by human traffickers. She is now a brutalised and unwilling gangsters moll. She gives no sign of being sexually interested in Bond, merely of being incredibly scared and unhappy. So he creeps uninvited into her hotel shower cubicle later that night, like Jimmy Savile, and silently screws her because he is bored. That is vile enough. And totally out of keeping, Id have thought, with Daniel Craigs Bond. But it gets much worse when she is later tied up with a glass of whisky on her head in a hilarious William Tell spoof, and shot dead in a game devised by the baddie. We knew already knew the baddie was bad, so there was no plot developing element here. It was merely disgusting, exploitative, 1970s-style death-porn (like when Roger Moore torpedoed the beautiful girl in the helicopter in The Spy Who Loved Me and then joked about it a scene from which it has taken me 35 years to recover). The new Bonds immediate response to the killing of a tragic, abused, indentured slave woman is to say, waste of good scotch (this must be the humour Daniel Craig said he was keen to put back into the role) and then kill everyone. He could have done it three minutes before and saved her. But that wouldnt have been as funny, I guess. That Macallan (the whisky brand on her head) presumably paid to be involved in the scene, as part of the films much-touted product placement programme, is utterly baffling to me. Personally, I am ashamed, as a journalist, of the five star ratings this film garnered across the board from sheep-like critics afraid or unable to look through the hype, to its rotten soul. I am ashamed, as a man, that women are still compelled in the 21st century to watch movies in which the three female outcomes are:

1) Judi Denchs M dies, and is replaced by a man; 2) The young abuse victim is shagged by Bond and then killed for a joke; and 3) The pretty girl who manages to remain chaste despite Bonds charms is rewarded at the end with a job as his secretary. And I am ashamed, as a British person, that this film will be mistaken abroad for an example of prevailing values here. It is a sick, reactionary, depressing film and its director, Sam Mendes, should be ashamed of himself, all the way to the bank.