The good idea jeans were not put on.

[seriousfic]

So apparently there's talk of Naomie Harris as Moneypenny in the next James Bond movie. Now, Naomie Harris is a fine actress and Moneypenny isn't a bad character, so this is bad for one reason only: They're going to take the entire dynamic of James Bond, the biggest cocksmith in genre fiction, and the one woman he won't have sex with, and it's a white man and a black woman? I mean, c'mon. Even in Britain, there's gotta be unfortunate implications there. If they're the same race, at least you can argue that as big a sex pest as Bond is, he won't go in for an office romance, or that one of them is gay and they're just camping it up. Actually, that last one sounds kind of interesting, but I'll stop before we get to the scene where MI-6 is attacked, so Moneypenny strips down to a tanktop and starts shooting terrorists with a shotgun she keeps in her desk.

Maybe Q could be black instead? That seems like a much more positive PoC character, and if there's one thing Doctor Who has taught me, it's that there's got to be a cool black guy just waiting to say "Grow up, 007!" (Richard Ayoade? Dude. Dude.)



ETA: Speaking of Doctor Who, Catherine Tate as Moneypenny. I'd be able to have head-canon that after being mind-wiped, Donna Noble changed her name and started temping for MI-6, because Captain Jack got her security clearance for the really high pay-grade stuff. Now she saves the world with office work.

Comments

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head, 007 has already had sex with Halle Berry, so rest assured he is indeed willing to have sex with black women (and he tapped Michelle Yeoh back in Tomorrow Never Dies, so that covers Asians; actually, he had sex with that Chinese spy in Dr. No, so I suppose that goes back much further).

I'm interested to see what they'll do with Moneypenny (and Q) if they're reintroducing them; the past two movies haven't shown any inclination to include perfunctory single scenes just because that's what the series always does, so I wonder if they're planning to make more use of these staple characters when they bring them back.

Certainly, Harris is a lot more attractive than past Moneypennys (Lois Maxwell and Samantha Bond were hardly unattractive, of course, but next to the rotating Bond girls they were always overshadowed).

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

1) Having personally known a few unrepentant racists in my day, Halle Berry is their blanket exception, not in the least because a) she's very light-skinned and b) she's insanely fucking hot by any standard.

2) Are they not rebooting the casting of James Bond himself with the Mendes film (yet again)? Because part of the whole point of the Daniel Craig Bond films, as I understand it, was that they basically pulled a John Byrne Man of Steel on the entire pre-Craig Bond series, so neither Berry nor Michelle Yeoh are even in modern Bond continuity anymore.

3) Regardless of any previous liaisons, part of the entire point of recasting all your fucking characters from the ground up is to attract new audiences who neither know nor care about the previous movies, which makes it pretty goddamned pointless to say, "Oh, yeah, Bond had sex with exactly ONE black woman, back when Moneypenny was still white," because they're not SUPPOSED to have to be familiar with those OLD movies, so what you're left with in the NOW is exactly as seriousfic said: Unless Bond is specifically sticking his dick in a United Colors of Benetton of girls in the new films, we're probably looking at Bond hooking up with a whole lotta white girls (based on how the casting for such films almost always goes) and repeatedly turning down the only black woman in his life.

[mcity.livejournal.com]

The Dirk Pitt books--wait, come back!--explained this perfectly in Iceberg. Basically, Dirk, waking up in a hospital bed, gets hit on by his boss's secretary, who has never been mentioned before, and says he doesn't even know who she is. He reels off her vitals, down to her birthmark and heart rate, from memory, and says, bluntly, that he is simply not going to "play games" around that close to his boss. She marries some other dude at the end of the book, quits, and is never mentioned again.

Yes, that's right, a Clive Cussler book did a Bond cliche better than the Bond films ever did.

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

The Bond films have very little continuity to speak; my point was that James Bond, the cinema icon, has had non-white love interests, so the idea that he doesn't sleep with non-whites is a non-starter. It strikes me as an incredibly silly concern.

and repeatedly turning down the only black woman in his life.

Bond and Moneypenny jokingly flirt, typically, neither of them is ever particularly serious about it. She's not actually waiting around M's office listening to "On My Own" on repeat and awaiting the day when Bond finally notices her.

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

Now for something that actually is a serious concern, the trailer for the new Adam Sandler film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO44MjU69xo).

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

The Bond films have very little continuity to speak

And yet, the film studio itself took great pains to specify that the Craig films were specifically divorced from any and all previous Bond continuity. Hell, even Brosnan's Bond visited the grave of Lazenby Bond's dead wife.

my point was that James Bond, the cinema icon, has had non-white love interests

Except that the vast majority of them have been white women, and given how movie studios tend to cast their roles, let's not kid ourselves; the vast majority of them will continue to be white women, which, once again, leaves us with a story of a white guy working his way through a stream of white girls, while for some reason NOT accepting the advances of the black woman who's part of his recurring cast.

It strikes me as an incredibly silly concern.

James Bond is hardly the source to go to for feminist portrayals of women, I'll agree, and I doubt there was any malice whatsoever intended in this casting (indeed, they probably had very noble, progressive intentions here), but from the standpoint of being yet another story about a white man who looks directly past an attractive black woman for no good reason to go chasing after a whole bunch of white women (because Bond has always led with his dick), it IS adding to an unfortunate overall pattern of how black women are portrayed in larger pop culture.

Am I saying we should treat this as some great affront worthy of protest? No. I'm simply pointing out, as seriousfic did, that they didn't think this one all the way through, even though the saga of Martha Jones over on Doctor Who should have served as an object lesson.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

... Why must Adam Sandler exist?

I mean, did I rape a nun in a past life? Because that's all I can think, as far as how I could possibly deserve this.

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

And yet, the film studio itself took great pains to specify that the Craig films were specifically divorced from any and all previous Bond continuity. Hell, even Brosnan's Bond visited the grave of Lazenby Bond's dead wife.

As I said, very little continuity; each film can reference or not reference past stuff, but it almost never matters.

while for some reason NOT accepting the advances of the black woman who's part of his recurring cast.

Moneypenny's "advances" were never serious, so far as I recall; most of the time it's just her and Bond bantering none-too-seriously while he's waiting to see M.

[colonel-green.livejournal.com]

Oh shit, I just looked at the release date, that's coming out on Remembrance Day; way to dishonour the sacrifice of our veterans. And that's just a week before my birthday.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

Several shitty movies are coming out that day. I suspect the appeal of releasing a film on the ultra-memorable date of "11/11/11" is too much to resist.

[pendown.livejournal.com]

... Brain bleach please.

[pendown.livejournal.com]

My understanding was that each had turned the other down at times and that it was just banter. If Bond pushes too far, Moneypenny will cut him off at the knees.