• Intelligencer
  • The Cut
  • Vulture
  • The Strategist
  • Curbed
  • Grub Street
  • Subscribe to the Magazine Give a Gift Subscription Buy Back Issues Current Issue Contents
    Subscribe to New York Magazine
  • Subscribe
  • Profile
    Sign Out
The Cut
  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power
Style
  • Fashion
  • Beauty
  • Parties & Red Carpet
  • Fashion Shows
  • Cathy Horyn
  • The Cut Shop
Self
  • Health & Wellness
  • The State of the Uterus
  • Parenting
  • Advice
  • Sex & Relationships
  • Horoscopes
Culture
  • Books
  • Television
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Celebrity
Power
  • Politics
  • Work
  • Money
  • Rebecca Traister
More
  • Latest Stories
  • Video
  • About Us
  • nymag.com
  • New York Magazine
  • Intelligencer
  • Vulture
  • The Cut
  • The Strategist
  • Grub Street
  • Curbed
secret agent man
November 9, 2012

Bond Girls Are Now Women, and 007 a Real Man

By Yael Kohen

Share

  • Share
  • Tweet
Photo: Everett Collection

In the matchup between Sean Connery and Daniel Craig over who makes the better James Bond, it’s hard to imagine that a modern woman wouldn’t choose Craig. Connery may have been the original — the one who created the famous balance between rough and refined and popularized the “shaken not stirred” vodka martini — but it’s hard to get behind a guy who was also prone to slapping his women around (as Connery’s Bond did to his lady in Diamonds Are Forever) and whose sexual exploits sometimes teetered on the brink of rape (see: Pussy Galore in Goldfinger). 

Bond is a 50-year-old franchise, first emerging when the dynamic between men and women in the bedroom was closer to Mad Men. You don’t need me to unpack how those dynamics have changed in the past half-century, except to state the obvious: Things have changed. With that comes an evolution in the fantasy that Bond is selling, a shift that is most evident across 23 movies in the way Bond treats his Bond Girls.   

The six actors who’ve played 007 have slept with many women — the number hovers around 50 — but the women who earn the distinction as “Bond Girls” occupy a special place in the pantheon. For a half-century, the most iconic Bond Girls have been independent women who make it clear that they can take care of themselves and don’t need a man. This starts with the very first Bond Girl, Ursula Andress’s Honey Ryder in Dr. No, who emerges from the blue-green Jamaican sea wearing nothing but a white bikini and a knife strapped to her belt.

She tells Bond that, as a young girl, she’d been raped by her landlord, but, in retaliation, she let loose a Black Widow spider in his mosquito netting, killing him. Independence and strong will are qualities that attract Bond, but these “hard to get” women always succumb to his power and charm. This is true throughout every movie — just think back on Pussy Galore from Goldfinger, Anya Amasova (aka Triple X) in the Spy Who Loved Me, and Octopussy — all the way up to 2006’s Casino Royale. What’s changed is the way Bond wins them over: While regular women throw themselves at the secret agent, the more powerful Bond Girls are the ones that either ward off his advances or remain emotionally unattached when they don’t. In the end, they always succumb to what he wants.          

Sean Connery’s Bond was probably closest to what Ian Fleming wrote in his books, and that character was even more of a cad than the movie version. In the novel version of Casino Royale (the first in the series), Fleming writes of a woman that Bond was after: “He knew she was profoundly, excitingly sensual, but that the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.” In the book version of the Spy Who Loved Me, Fleming writes from the perspective of a female character: “All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken. It was Bond’s sweet brutality against my bruised body that had made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.” All right, then. In the 21st century, the idea of an author promoting rape-sex as titillating is just crazy and about as unsexy as it gets.

But that’s where the original Bond was coming from, and Connery upheld that brutish streak. In the third Bond movie, Goldfinger, Pussy Galore — who is a lesbian in the book (and it’s implied in the film) — works as a pilot for the villain Goldfinger and knows judo. But when she tussles with Bond in the barn, tossing him violently in the haystacks, Bond finally overpowers her. At first she tries to fight him off, then, finally, she gives in. In a more ridiculous turn, she becomes his ally.

By the time Roger Moore took over in 1973, Bond would have to adapt. Moore’s Bond was more debonair and campy, and though he slaps one Bond Girl, his style was more manipulative than physically forceful. In Live and Let Die, Jane Seymour’s Solitaire is a tarot-card reader whose ability to see the future is ludicrously contingent upon her maintaining her virginity. Bond doesn’t care. When he’s in her house, he fiddles with her deck and makes her believe that she is destined to sleep with him, which she does. As a result, she loses her power (empowering Bond to save the day).

By the more PC eighties, force and manipulation would no longer fly, and Timothy Dalton brought Bond one step closer to modernity, transforming him into an actual gentleman who sleeps with only two women in each of his two films, The Living Daylights and A License to Kill. (By comparison, Connery and Moore could bed as many as four women per film.) When ex-CIA agent Pam Bouvier makes the first move in License to Kill, kissing Bond, he tells her, “Why don’t you wait ‘til you’re asked.” She replies, “So why don’t you ask me.” It’s a marked shift from the Connery years when women were taken, but never taken seriously, and always left behind or left for dead.

Bond Girls are always strong, but they didn’t gain decision-making power until the nineties. Pretty-boy Pierce Brosnan is emasculated from the get-go when his boss, M (played by a woman this time, the Dame Judi Dench) calls him “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur.” In Tomorrow Never Dies, Michelle Yeoh is a Chinese spy with martial arts skills that far surpass Brosnan’s. In the World Is Not Enough, Bond is reduced to a wounded puppy by Sophie Marceau when it turns out that she’s not a love interest but a criminal mastermind out to kill him and terrorize the world. Perhaps as some sort of Hollywood apology, this 007 is always upstaged by his female counterparts.

Which brings us to Craig, the absolute best of all the Bonds, who so easily combines ruggedness and sophistication with a psychological and emotional life. In Casino Royale, we hold our breath when Vesper Lynd reads right through his game: “MI6 looks for maladjusted young men that give little thought to sacrificing others to protect queen and country,” she says. “It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine you think of women as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits.” It’s clear that Bond has met his match.

When he demands that she wear a dress he brought her to the casino, he tells her, “I need you looking fabulous,” but it turns out that Lynd — who controls the money that Bond is about to gamble — has her interests, too, leaving Bond a new tuxedo. “There are dinner jackets, and there are dinner jackets. This is the latter. I need you looking like a man who belongs at that table,” she tells him. The two are soul mates, which is what makes Lynd’s eventual betrayal so heartbreaking. When Bond finally discovers it, he doesn’t pout like Brosnan, but we know he’s been hit, as he physically stiffens, frigidity running through his voice as he tries to explain to M that he expected this all along. Bond’s transformation from rape-ready rogue to wounded and woman-weary tough guy is complete.

So, what’s next for Bond’s psychosexual journey? In Skyfall, the latest Bond (which I have not yet seen and which opens tonight), there are reports that Bond’s sexual preferences are again up for grabs. When Javier Bardem flirts with Bond, it’s 007 that sounds like a Bond Girl: “What makes you think this isn’t my first time?”

View
1 / 15 Photos
Ursula Andress As Honey Ryder in Dr. No, 1962 Sean Connery as James Bond with the first and most iconic Bond girl, Honey Ryder in the franchise’s... Ursula Andress As Honey Ryder in Dr. No, 1962 Sean Connery as James Bond with the first and most iconic Bond girl, Honey Ryder in the franchise’s first installment Dr. No. Andress looked perfect for the part — when she emerged from the Jamaican sea in a white bikini — and she also set the tone for 50 years of 007 lady-obsession. Photo: Everett Collection
Honor Blackman As Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, 1964 In Goldfinger, Pussy Galore tries to fight off a horny Bond, who tosses her into the haystacks... Honor Blackman As Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, 1964 In Goldfinger, Pussy Galore tries to fight off a horny Bond, who tosses her into the haystacks and presses his face down to kiss her even as she pushes it away. Once he gets his lips to hers, she gives up and embraces him. Photo: Everett Collection
Akiko Wakabayashi As Aki in You Only Live Twice, 1967 Aki is a top ninja who works as an agent for the Japanese government. When Japanese secret ... Akiko Wakabayashi As Aki in You Only Live Twice, 1967 Aki is a top ninja who works as an agent for the Japanese government. When Japanese secret service official Tiger Tanaka tells Bond that in Japan “men come first, women second” (and, by the way, Bond responds that he “may just retire here.”) the statement is prescient. While sleeping next to Bond, an assassin sent to kill him accidentally drips poison into her mouth instead of his. Even though Bond treats her as expendable, she ends up protecting him ‘til her very end.  Photo: Everett Collection
Diana Rigg As Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969 George Lazenby appeared as James Bond only once, in On Her Majesty’s Secr... Diana Rigg As Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969 George Lazenby appeared as James Bond only once, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In the movie, he actually marries a mob-boss’s daughter, Contessa Teresa — “Tracy” — di Vicenzo, which doesn’t prevent her from being killed at the end.  Photo: Everett Collection
Jill St. John As Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever, 1971 In Diamonds Are Forever, Bond lands a backhanded slap across the face of ditzy diamon... Jill St. John As Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever, 1971 In Diamonds Are Forever, Bond lands a backhanded slap across the face of ditzy diamond smuggler Tiffany Case, but that she sleeps with him anyway. Photo: Everett Collection
Jane Seymour As Solitaire in Live and Let Die, 1973 In Live and Let Die, Solitaire’s psychic talents exist only as long as she remains a virgin. ... Jane Seymour As Solitaire in Live and Let Die, 1973 In Live and Let Die, Solitaire’s psychic talents exist only as long as she remains a virgin. After Bond seduces her, Solitaire ends up in big trouble with the gangsters who rely on her fortune-telling. Bond is forced to save her, becoming a hero to the woman he manipulated. Photo: Everett Collection
Barbara Bach As Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977 Anya Amasova, a.k.a. Triple X, is a KGB agent who partners with Bond (this time played... Barbara Bach As Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977 Anya Amasova, a.k.a. Triple X, is a KGB agent who partners with Bond (this time played by Roger Moore) as they track down missing submarines in the Spy Who Loved Me. The two kick up a relationship, which sours when Amasova discovers that Bond was the agent who killed her former lover. She vows to get her revenge, but obviously, she never does. Photo: Everett Collection
Maud Adams As Octopussy in Octopussy, 1983 She lives in a floating palace in Udaipur, India, where she holds almost goddesslike status as the hea... Maud Adams As Octopussy in Octopussy, 1983 She lives in a floating palace in Udaipur, India, where she holds almost goddesslike status as the head of the all-female Octopus Cult, training an army of assassins. She has a history with Bond as the movie begins. So, when they meet, they fall straight into bed. Photo: Everett Collection
Grace Jones As May Day in A View to a Kill, 1985 In A View to a Kill, Grace Jones is the ultimate femme fatale, bodyguard to Christopher Walken’s... Grace Jones As May Day in A View to a Kill, 1985 In A View to a Kill, Grace Jones is the ultimate femme fatale, bodyguard to Christopher Walken’s evil microchip-mogul Max Zorin. When she slinks into bed with him, she’s briefly under his arms, before she forcefully turns him over and gets on top. Photo: Everett Collection
Carey Lowell As Pam Bouvier in License to Kill, 1989 In Licence to Kill, Pam Bouvier is an ex-CIA agent helping Bond (this time Timothy Dalton), ... Carey Lowell As Pam Bouvier in License to Kill, 1989 In Licence to Kill, Pam Bouvier is an ex-CIA agent helping Bond (this time Timothy Dalton), and she has a feminist streak in her. When the two arrive at a hotel room in South America, Bond introduces her as his “executive secretary,” and she wants to know why he couldn’t be her executive secretary. Photo: Everett Collection
Michelle Yeoh As Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 In Tomorrow Never Dies, Wai Lin is a Chinese spy, martial arts expert badass who upstages B... Michelle Yeoh As Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 In Tomorrow Never Dies, Wai Lin is a Chinese spy, martial arts expert badass who upstages Bond in the kicking-ass game. The emasculation continues from there. Photo: Everett Collection
Sophia Marceau As Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough, 1999 She toys with Brosnan’s 007 emotions, making him believe that she was the innocen... Sophia Marceau As Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough, 1999 She toys with Brosnan’s 007 emotions, making him believe that she was the innocent victim of a psychopath when she was actually the mastermind trying to destroy the world.  Photo: Everett Collection
Denise Richards As Dr. Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough, 1999 Richards comes to us as nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones. She helps ... Denise Richards As Dr. Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough, 1999 Richards comes to us as nuclear physicist Dr. Christmas Jones. She helps Bond dismantle a nuclear bomb and reassemble Bond’s post–Elektra King pride with an end-of-movie romp — that we see in infrared.  Photo: Everett Collection
Halle Berry As Jinx Johnson in Die Another Day, 2002 In Die Another Day, NSA agent Jinx Johnson emerges from the Carribean sea in an orange bikin... Halle Berry As Jinx Johnson in Die Another Day, 2002 In Die Another Day, NSA agent Jinx Johnson emerges from the Carribean sea in an orange bikini with a belt strap and knife attached to her hip, an homage to Urusla Andress’s Honey Ryder. When they first meet on the beach, the chemistry between them is palpable. He tells her that he’s an ornithologistm, prompting her to ask him, “So what do predators do when the sun goes down.” His reply: “They feast.” Guess what happens next. Photo: Everett Collection
Eva Green As Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, 2006 Bond finally meets his match with Vesper Lynd, who steals Bond's heart — he even quits the spy bu... Eva Green As Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale, 2006 Bond finally meets his match with Vesper Lynd, who steals Bond's heart — he even quits the spy business to be with her. But when he discovers that a suitcase full of money never made it back to the government’s coffers, he goes stone cold believing that she betrayed him. In the final battle scene, Vesper Lynd drowns. It isn’t until she’s gone that Bond learns that she loved him after all. Photo: Everett Collection
1 / 15

Tags:

  • james bond
  • bond girls
  • secret agent man
  • 007
  • love and war
  • gallery
  • daniel craig
  • More

More Galleries

red carpet June 5, 2022
All the Best Looks at the 2022 MTV Movie and TV Awards  Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Hudgens, Jay Ellis, and more! 
parties! May 20, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  Harry Styles > everyone! 
parties! May 13, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  Bury me in Dove Cameron’s Saint Sintra skirt. 
parties! May 6, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  Cue the Met Gala after-party FOMO. 
met gala 2022 May 2, 2022
Met Gala 2022: All the Looks [Photos]  Billie Eilish, Kim Kardashian, Michelle Yeoh, Hailey Bieber, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Blake Lively, and more. 
parties! Apr. 29, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  This one goes to Olivia Rodrigo and her sweater vest. 
parties! Apr. 22, 2022
The Bestest Party Looks of the Week  “Fuck those Zoom tops.” 
celebrity style Apr. 18, 2022
The Best Looks From Coachella 2022  From Harry Styles’s sparkling Gucci set to Megan Thee Stallion’s metallic bodysuit. 
style Apr. 13, 2022
A Look Inside the New Museum’s Spring Gala  Featuring all the best looks. 
grammys 2022 Apr. 3, 2022
Grammy Awards 2022 Red Carpet: All the Looks  Lady Gaga, Olivia Rodrigo, Lenny Kravitz, Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, and more. 
oscars 2022 Mar. 28, 2022
How Were The Oscars After Party Looks Better Than The Actual Award Looks?  Finally, some fun. 
oscars 2022 Mar. 27, 2022
All the Looks From the 2022 Oscars Red Carpet  Zendaya, Regina Hall, Timothée Chalamet, Andrew Garfield, Kristen Stewart, Ariana DeBose, and more. 
style Mar. 22, 2022
Bridgerton Season 2 Premiere: All the Red-Carpet Looks 
style Mar. 13, 2022
BAFTAs 2022: All the Red-Carpet Looks  Florence Pugh, Daniel Kaluuya, Emma Watson, and more! 
celebrity fashion Mar. 6, 2022
Spirit Awards 2022: All the Red-Carpet Looks  Julia Fox, Andrew Garfield, Kristen Stewart, and more! 
Mar. 1, 2022
All of Rihanna’s Maternity Looks  From belly-baring looks to sexy leather dresses. 
Feb. 27, 2022
SAG Awards 2022: All the Red-Carpet Looks  Selena Gomez, Ariana Debose, Daveed Diggs, and more! 
paris couture week 2022 Jan. 27, 2022
Glenn Martens Wows As Guest Couturier for Gaultier Haute Couture It is a sight to behold.
By Vivian Chuang
Dec. 9, 2021
All the Looks From the And Just Like That … Red Carpet  Sarah Jessica Parker, Billy Eichner, Sara Ramirez, and more. 
style Nov. 29, 2021
Gotham Awards 2021: All the Red-Carpet Looks  Tessa Thompson! Kristen Stewart! And more. 
  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Help
  • We’re Hiring
  • Press
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Ad Choices
  • Do Not Sell My Info
  • Accessibility
The Cut is a Vox Media Network. © 2022 Vox Media, LLC. All rights reserved.