Introduction
The James Bond series have become one of the most popular espionage stories in the world, generating a huge cultural industry and cultural appropriations. The plot, the characters, and numerous associations have gone beyond cinema and literature to exert a profound influence in the construction of the social construct, and more so, in mediating the contemporary experience of social change.
Over the course of more than fifty years, contemporary Western society had dealt with revolutionary social issues and moral debates, especially concerning gender equality as part of the social process of modernization. The formal conventions of these series and their discursive nature as a cultural forum have been determined by various evolving forces. On the one hand, the Hollywood industry still maintains its grip on society through popular media products using a variety of arguably manipulative mechanisms, and thus continues to propagate its imagery which become embedded in the minds of the public. On the other hand, with the rapid commercial shift in the film industry, which has undergone a restructuring and the introduction of competition, popular media is also seeking to relay the social concerns and emotional demands of the public, which it realized can be particularly effective.
Background
In order to fully understand the complexity of the stereotypical representations of characters, especially women, as part of social functions and operating mechanisms of the 007 series, it is important to refer to the recent studies on the emotional turning point that have emerged in several disciplines of the human and social sciences and visual media. This conceptual shift recognizes the primacy of the emotional in the reception of the image, and as such offers a new way of thinking about the meaning of roles that characters are assigned that goes beyond purely ideological concerns. Due to its pervasive reach, the field of commercial popular culture has become a primary place where affective relations are articulated, whereby the consumer culture industries increasingly rely not only on ideological consensus, but also on contemporary social structures.
In the case of the 007 series, this means paying attention to content as much as to the whole social practice of the series production and consumption as an emotional articulation of the social circumstances. By reorienting the critical perspective from representational and ideological content to the dynamic, entertaining aspects of the series, a nuanced way the multidimensionality and complexity of the contents, outlines and roles of female characters can be examined consider a number of different aspects. More specifically, it concerns a discourse on monumental changes in the realm of work as part of economic reforms, arguing that the series have reformulated the ideological practice of the ethic of autonomy in women which comes from the market economy. As a popular cultural platform, it has thus been sharply criticized for the social stratification, injustice, and moral corruption caused by sexist productions which expresses in the critical and unrealistic tradition a socially complaisant context in which women are seen as compliant, and whose main purpose in the film is to serve as the protagonist’s sexual conquest.
The latter represents a physical, concrete space where various forms of social relations take shape. But it is also an abstract space, the space of collective representations which become a part of sociocultural history, and where a set of social practices takes place, and collective representations become perpetuated. In connection to the concept of collective representations, is also a concept of memory because it mobilizes and rebuilds the foundations of past socialization. That is to say, those that constitute the social frameworks of present and future actions or situations that have at that time symbolized society or individuals’ roles in it.
This plot shows the existence of a set of defined and prioritized functions assigned to women, whereby they become associated with the acquisition of know-how and experiences. Structured, trivialized, stigmatized, and preconstructed, which can certainly also be said about men, and the leading man himself, this is the cliché as embodied by the genre. As such, the memory of the story is already modified by prejudices, whereby the media and many up-to-date concepts echo an ongoing policy of socially assigned roles, but ultimately misunderstood in the reality of a population and its complexity.
Social and ideological function of the 007 series in popular culture
Although this apprehension of the social and ideological function of the 007 series is, to a certain extent, an exaggerated representation of the social circumstances of the times, a closer reading reveals a deeper level of meaning. It relates to the emotional and moral impact in mediating the public’s contemporary experience of change. Despite appearances of the positive message sent by the aspirations of the characters that punctuate these stories, it is rather the recurring theme of incompetence and submissiveness that dominates the plot.
In order to show how the series communicate emotions and feelings of a social nature in a context of societal change, an analysis of their narrative forms and audiovisual clues also use aesthetic techniques of dramatization and intrigue to explore psychological and sexual subjugation as a way of reacting to a time of historical transition and social change. This mode of melodramatic narration is evident in Fleming’s books, and is only further emphasized in the transfer of the social roles to the cinematic visual style.
Even if the women were considered obliging to the needs of the protagonist, they were still presented as categorically desirable. It can be effectively argued, however, that reducing their purpose to being sexually appealing is not a sensible way of saying that they were also powerful, but it was a function of a social marker throughout the series. These scenes, lyrically exposed in idle mode, use the expressive techniques of slow motion and the melodramatic peaks that aim to communicate the feeling of catastrophe and trauma experienced by these women, but can actually still be interpreted as showing their vulnerabilities and neediness. Arguably, in their implicit role of propaganda and ideological settlement, the series dismissed women emphasizing the emotional, and even unprofessional disposition, with these symptomatic cries becoming not only the core of the characters' experience, but also functioning as a major typecasts that have percolated through the public and popular culture.
In part, they have served to reassure male dominance in society, but also moral corruption and abuse of power and prestige, and have done little to correct the gender injustices and divisions, in turn actually creating more tension and confusion over the change in social values over the years. And their popularity only attests to the direct expression of the public’s acceptance of the assigned gender roles, even if there is a backlash imbued with complex ethical judgments and closely associated with his social rise upon the release of each new film which, for a short while, represents a moral dilemma that is inextricably linked to a potential narrowing of the gap of social stratification.
In a more general perspective, the series share several thematic and stylistic characteristics – especially from the point of view of the traditional themes of women in the workforce. Often used to convey social criticism and a means of choice to represent the struggle between political ideals and frustrations within a patriarchal society, they refer to a collective unconscious and social moods at the time, which form the basis for the articulation of sometimes unreliable intrigues. In other words, they represent the lower echelons of society.
The narrative clearly seeks to exaggerate and provoke the typical presentations propagated in the popular culture and the Hollywood industry embodied in individual experiences and in everyday life in which emotional antagonism and subtle criticism manifest themselves. This form of representation leads to a different conception of social changes compared to the ideological optimism that characterizes media reports on the same theme. In other words, there are subtle layers of controversial meanings beneath the apparently harmonious ideological surface of elegance, luxury, and even intelligence, layers of meanings that are arranged according to different levels of sexual explicitness in order to reflect on the sometimes divergent, sometimes contradictory social situation.
The above can also be interpreted as a powerful example of what changing mindsets can do because it mediates social experiences and responds more subtly to the historical forces and social crises that emerged during the periods of social transition. Serving as a time capsule, the symptomatic of the powerful underlying social implications in the domain of popular culture represents the growing autonomy of women, whereby the trajectory marks their struggle in the sociopolitical atmosphere, discipline, hierarchy, and homogeneity.
However, most of the time, the series have turned out to be actually even more complex and ambivalent than the expectations of their producers, because they raise various social controversies and present a range of voices and emotions, sometimes in contradiction with the official implications to serve as popular culture entertainment. In other words, the use of typecast forms in the series for the purpose of mediating social problems and collective emotions produces meanings that go far beyond their superficial ideological content.
Social Changes Throughout the Series’ Production
For over fifty years now James Bond's films, inspired by Ian Fleming's novels, have had an increasing international audience and global appeal. The series are one of the biggest popular culture phenomena, and from the point of view of the film economy, Bond is at the heart of a very efficient production system.
The genre itself is a collection of clichés, whereby the luxurious locations are juxtaposed with bleak totalitarian places, sophistication with poverty, and the women within the intelligence sector were also frequently employed to spy for the enemy using their potential in the seduction game as their only skill, in addition to their beauty, which compartmentalize them in the series. This is accentuated by the scenarios and in the very construction of the characters, and is a position, which obviously reinforces the exteriority of the audience, as the plot does not, insists on much more in terms of the complexity of the female character. In this manner, their confined role as seductresses and beauty objects seems only further reinforced.
Furthermore, during his career, Bond had to face a number of enemies, especially as the first films came out doing the Cold War, and the USSR was prominently featured, and continued to be featured as a source of evil repeatedly throughout the series – to the point where other similar characters were typecast as sinister in subsequent espionage films as a result. The personalization of historical and social forces, and the clear polarization of good and evil intertwines to play on the public’s senses even if the performances do not necessarily confer a subversive function, they still strongly suggest, at the very least, the social complexities within a changing world, and dramatize the essential conflicts of a historic transition to a new economic order.
An intuitive answer to these questions can be immediately formulated to direct from the start the very problematic factor that Bond often frequents the same representative social constructs. The hypothesis underlying the text is that the authors of the script evoke a number of sensations such as exercise of power, enticement, exoticism, and sophistication. Recognizable and endowed with important values by a society, this form of power, and especially the immediate familiarity with the situation are perceived as realistic. The women thus appear most of the time as a background useful for contextualizing the action and recalling that the main theme is temptation and control, especially the protagonists’ vocation as a saviour of the world, regardless of their position in the intelligence sector.
Behind these trivial questions is another question, probably one more difficult to solve: were they a realistic representation of the world that appears behind each film, and how have they influenced the public in positive or negative ways? With the progression, it becomes clearer that the most recent films have kept the fold so as to typify the protagonist – and, arguably his choice in women, as well – as quintessentially British. That means that the outdated colonial mentality has been much more subdued, though not entirely erased.
But another reason at least as essential is more prosaic: the women are part of the accepted socially narrow world, in which Bond has to be able to move with ease and elegance, knowing they are conquerable, and often only a minor obstacle. A figure of cultural otherness, the females are often exotic, fascinating and attractive, and staged in a more or less patronizing manner, the females of the 007 series often serve as an element of the décor –as supporting objects, sometimes not even serving the purpose to effectively move the plot along, but only to tactfully reinforce his image – but to present an alterity of the action that Bond disturbs. The series thus shows an immutable order of fixed social norms and activities.
Cultural Appropriations
The series follow the same formula that has proven to be successful, and is used in the most systematic way all along: Bond is urban, and the rurality and primitiveness – in both the locations and the characters he encounters in the films – are conducive to action and contribute to the change of scenery to, again, reinforce his traits of versatility and adaptability. Not so much with the women, as – with only a couple of exceptions – the women he is interested in are all highly attractive and perceptive, but just canny enough so that they can be persuaded otherwise.
Such a description of the world around us is not devoid of any commercial motives, that is to say of an eminently lucrative, reflexive purpose. After all, the Bond films are selling a lifestyle – mostly for the men, but also the women to get involved in the professional services, if only for a chance to meet someone like Bond, and becoming his conquest. Bond demonstrates great taste – a signature one, now – prefers expertly mixed martinis and high-end champagne, owns a Rolex, and uses only reputable brands, which the women admire, regardless of their own financial standing. Achievements of prestige, thus illustrating gigantism but also technology and modernity, are what appeals to them. Their intelligence itself is not often taken into account, even if some films have lightly touched on the female character’s ability to capture Bond’s attention with her resourcefulness. As such, there is the question of the reception of these characters, where modernism, in the social meaning of the term, combines with a certain closeness in the primary sense of the term.
The scenarios of the series thus play on the audience’s unconscious and schematic representation of the conduct of the people in these high institutions, to the point that they have even served to reinforce the mental image of the place in the minds of the public as corrupt establishments. It is certainly a usual process in the cinema, but the peculiarity here is the worldwide distribution of these films which reinforces a standardized representation of precise behaviours that Hollywood further exacerbates.
While the cliché can be understood as a snapshot and as a stereotype, a common character that is a supporting object, the archetype assumes the idea of invariant figure, which is repeated in the course of history, even with all the changes that have taken place socially. This idea of process is essential here playing with pre-existing representations, as Bond does not create this image of women in these positions, he reinforces it.
The concept supposes the idea of going beyond a certain realism to engender the construction of a type of a female recognizable by all, by simplification and borrowing other universally identifiable attributes. Once again, this is the classic Bondian theme, regardless of the world reality, and regardless of whether the image conveyed is that – recognizable by the Western audiences – of the role of women in the intelligence sector. This, too, serves to reinforce his image a constituent element of the Bondian cinematographic experience, and what the audiences come back to see.
For this reason, the films obey a genre script, which make them part of a series with its invariant codes, which does not really make it possible to record real social evolution in the long term, but still can be interpreted as such by audiences. The format of the films, the construction of the scenario, and the female characters are therefore intrinsically identical from one film to another, and do not deviate much. Because of this seriality, they serve to present a certain similarity from one film to another, but also in their representation. Namely, the immutability of the characters and situations thus refers to that of landscapes and their relationship in the world of Bond.
Although the female characters sometimes reflect a reactionary ideology defending the good against the evil, structural narratives borrowing from this symbolism, also correspond to this notion of archetype. Indeed, the cinema accentuates these characteristics: not allowing the long developments, it leads to the simplification, which is especially evident in the names that the women are given and how they are dressed to make the entrance into the scene. Insisting on the visual aspect, they seek the reduction of the image to some salient elements, identifiable even if simplified and reduced to a common cultural trait.
These characteristics are erased in the films which reinforces otherness, but especially to feed the different individual experiences. The genre of writing is both the cause of this archetypal vision of the world, but also a consequence. In fact, it has recently been argued that changing these distinctive and signature trademarks of Bond and his entourage would endanger the expectations and, therefore, the commercial success of the film. This was vehemently argued in Skyfall, whereby ‘M’ was played by a male character after so long. One of the only reassuring figures, her role was not only to present the audiences with her role in power, but also to contrast the unimaginative – but not insipid – females objectified as such throughout the series. Even then, her status is not superior, or even equivalent, as she also shows that she can be less in the service of action due to the emotional connection that she feels towards Bond.
Women as Objectified Supporting Characters
A man of networks, both social and spatial, Bond does not live in the common sense, and so this recurring theme of intelligence bartering should also be understood as uncommon and unreasonable. Even so, the women in these roles shift with the simple change of scene, whereby understanding that they have served their purpose is facilitated by the appearance of a visual atmosphere, even caricatured, and reduced to a few their characteristic elements in a collective imaginary. Erasing the distances but also the temporalities, they are there to serve Bond’s needs, which can be sexual in nature, or for the purposes of gathering information and intelligence to advance his cause. As such, Bond gives the audiences to see at the same time a very small world in which the temporalities and the distances do not count any more but also testify to the disposability of people, and not only women. They are often obliged to collaborate in the establishment of the contacts, and their purpose is to escape the suspicion surrounding their roles.
It is clear that Bond maintains a very ambiguous relationship with anyone, which is, after all, how he thrives in the world of espionage, or at least a testament to what the producers (and Fleming) want the audiences to perceive. In his line of work, he has access to many women, especially as they seem to be always secondary compared to the action.
In the end, the relationship of Bond to women in specific espionage positions, and their treatment in the popular culture medium, even if exaggerated, is deeply marked by a familiarity of what can also be readily found in society. It is indicative of a certain cultural and social practices in both the social and professional realms, and it is this familiar practice that gives them meaning. The series use the archetype by reinforcing it, and the popular culture accept it at face value, and hope that it would in some ways capture the evolution of society according to Western standards and the emancipation of women through time.
The Formula Applied to the Espionage Genre
Often of an undeniable artistic value – and this explains the inflation of the critical discourse about them – these representations correspond to the generic expectation defined by similar works in the espionage genre. After all, there have not been any notable female spies in the popular culture even remotely close to the level of success and notoriety.
As such, the internal structure of the series is very stable. The very composition of the films in the series remains repetitive, which logically is more characteristic of the series so as to ensure the coherence of its characters, both the protagonist, his entourage, and the supporting cast – by recognition of their distinctive features, and is thus in some ways obliged to reuse them again and again in similar situations, so the female roles do not evolve as much as hoped.
The use of these historical sequences can be fully justified with regard to this type of genre. In this case, these female roles are presented inside the fiction itself, as they have the same logical status in the world of fiction as in reality: in both cases, they are objects. Thus their first use, in the first films, is symbolic of this, as the plot relied only very little on any scenes of empathy that would deliberately portray the performativity of compassion towards the circumstances of these women, even if there is some increasing evidence of it towards the later series, which raises the question of the motivations of screenwriters and their mental representations of society.
More frequently, their use is motivated narratively but cannot be said to be justified logically. Namely, even if they no longer have the status of objects belonging to the world of fiction, but are integrated into the narrative material which follows some real-world geopolitical scenario. From object of the story, they, however, do not effectively become the vehicle of the story, but singular events whose presence is justified, as aforementioned, by Bond’s own division of the action.
As these narrative sequences, the women are arguably reduced to their function of connection, as their act is narrowed down to only short sequences, swallowed by the discursive, the paradigmatic action that the movie is carried on. To the point that the only action represented, in the sense of representation of a violence, of a conflict, seems to put this action at a distance, returning it to the domain of the epic, the mythical, a paradoxical world of espionage.
All the narrative and filmic possibilities hereby become at the service of this idea embedded in the minds of the audiences and consumers of popular culture, and it is this choice that rejects the real action out of the story. Clearly, the series is not intent on building realistic characters whose physical presence on screen would be interpreting as legitimizing the narrative levels thematic of a montage producing a visual statement of the realm world. The protagonist’s purpose especially, is not to serve a pragmatic purpose, but gives himself freedom to be thematic, mythical, and unobtainable capable. In that sphere, the protagonist only requires the supporting cast to advance his story, and the women’s metaphorical roles are included with the adversary or his substitute, the femme fatale.
The conditions and the same procedure of the reception of the series by the public, leads one to wonder about the phenomenon appearing characteristic above all of the culture of the market society, and especially women’s entry into the workforce, and their positions in the high end professional sectors. This permanence of the Soviet role in Western popular culture does not, however, go without internal transformations, notably the elevation of some of its manifestations to the dignity of pop culture, a phenomenon of the order of aesthetics, linked to the passage of the Russia to the market society and their cultural categories of the post-modern Western context.
The recurrence of the same types of characters could be used and reduced to that of the same universe of reference, a code of the possible narratives, in which each account serves to present a point of complication, or its resolution. As such, Bond was also always portaged as sacrificing his whole life and the relations with others for his mission, even if he is portrayed as very frequently turning to women to take care of his carnal needs. In order to discover how the situation will develop or resolve itself, the women are used to alternate two essential structural models: either the character has an ulterior motive of deterring Bond from his mission, or she serves a purpose to him to elicit some information and advance his mission. It is a reciprocal play which illustrates that the women are often reducible to a stereotype. This assimilation of a specific character trait symbolizing it is a general phenomenon.
The series thus has purely the function of defining the character, both of the protagonist and his line of female ‘side-kicks’. This reduction of psychology to thematic and ideological underlines the aesthetic system of the Hollywood industry by embracing the clichés. They are introduced into the narrative as externalizing reflections on these same characters. The effect of reality can swing into the real without effect, the archive images speak by themselves, cease to be the controlled representation of a world with the already fixed meaning, to become material to generate a critical discourse.
At the same time, this connection that the absence of this form of legitimation of women in professional positions in the intelligence sector is reflected in the superficialization of their content. Namely, the narrative fictionalizes these images of women transformed into action sequences, to control the reception of the genre and used to simplify the story by conferring on it the very clear structure of the axiological system of the narrative.
Hyperbolized Fictional Characters in Real World Settings
Although vaguely drawn from partial experiences of the author of the original literary works, born from the purest imagination of Fleming, 007 – and thus all the other characters, especially female roles – are serving the ideal alter-ego of Fleming, and thus a fantasy that has become archetypal, which has proven to be the most fundamental. Thus, in need of exotic female characters in these exotic locales in order to complete the fantasy, not to augment pertinent social issues. Attractive in its relative simplicity and conventional representation of relations between men and women, and each of their respective roles in society, with promises of euphoria, adventure, and devout attention, his female counterparts in the film are his conquests, most shown to unable to resist his charm and advances to show how, in his own way, he always has insolent luck.
They is pushed to their extremes, and exceeding the limits of the thinkable. Clearly, it is strongly ideologized, with a very obvious propaganda function and commercialization overtures, but that does not disturb their reception of the traits that the popular culture subsequently appropriates. Indeed, stereotypes seem to be an unavoidable and accepted element, so much so that the majority of the audiences do not even question it, similar to the decoding ideology.
The narratives become collective scenarios in which the audience allocates to the characters of the fiction, especially in the Western popular culture, as elements which serve to fulfill many receptions. They serve as objects of worship, place of fictional participation, and therefore of cultural and social reappropriation. Finally, they serve as a code of recognition, for it has become a global phenomenon concealed behind that of the organization of a cult for series.
Participating in the culture of intelligentsia, this interpretation is very characteristic of a need for meaning and moral justification, often linked to a certain tradition, or strong idealistic at the time, such as the first films that were produced during the Cold War. The interpretations reject, to varying degrees, this importance given to the message of the series, as they borrow judgmental categories opposed to it, and very characteristic of the post-modern context.
And yet, this absolute internal necessity for a subject to commit series of crimes by neglecting to put forward the hypothesis that this principle of constancy is not what these women should be drawn to is a question of differentiating here between the sensory and the affect, namely that of the attribution of judgment. By subjecting it to a critical discourse, questioning of meaning, of the unique interpretation, the series is a typically post-modern phenomenon brought by this eminently post-modern media. It illustrates the ambition to make the synthesis between the real world of espionage and the popular culture in the contemporary Western context, an ambition in itself already post-modern, which is the sign of a real participation of reciprocal influences of our time.
Conclusion
The series represent the paradox of the immortal human who brilliantly succeeds in the most dangerous missions, does not get emotionally attached, is emphatically devoted only to his mission, does not hesitate when killing an enemy or punishing those who have transgressed him – and is thus a perfect specimen for the world of espionage.
The risk encounter with these women can only be sustained if the risk is reduced to the smallest possible share, which is possibly why their scenes together are very short, and these encounters quick, and though not meaningless, still seem trivial. This is also partly because they serve as a search for strategies and to allow more chance to be blinded, than to justify the merits of taking risk after the necessary information has been obtained by him, or his physical needs fulfilled. This repetition throughout the series, this relentless compulsion to repetition is only the imprint of the impulse that he so perfectly embodies – one that is one of Bond’s main traits. The purpose of this is for the mythical to make it possible to authenticate the fiction, to put it in agreement with the history, and especially to fictionalize history in the sense of putting it in narrative, so that it loses its status as a statement to encoded random interpretation of social roles and rankings.
Instead of featuring confident and mature businesswomen, the female roles in this series became an example of the film industry’s cultural policy, used to underline their stereotypically feminine virtues of patience and compassion, but otherwise having no strong personal qualities to match those of the protagonist. Similarly, in their roles as professionals in the intelligence sectors, those women served to pursue the goal of embodying the ideal transformation of state employees, especially in preserving the traditional feminine virtues such as hard work, mothering, forbearance, guidance, and encouragement. This was arguably part of the function as means to reshape female subjects in accordance with the changing social structure or, in other words, as agents of social change themselves. Although overemphasized, they still largely seemed to echo the professional and social circumstances of the public, and their general conception of life, not specific to any one character, but to echo the lives of almost every female character in the series.