It Has to be Bond — Kate Symondson

British actress Lashana Lynch has been assigned Bond’s codename. We have our first ever black, first ever female 007. But hang on. She’s not Bond (James Bond). That’s still Daniel Craig. The long legacy of the louche remains intact: he’s still white, still posh, still a he. Not that I’m complaining – ish . I’m no fan of Bond – the trope or the franchise – but I am a fan of Waller-Bridge. Depending on how this plays out, Lynch’s assignation of ‘007’ (bald synecdoche for Bond) answers the clamour for diversity onscreen without committing (what many claim) would be sacrilege. What’s in a name? Well, here, it serves our chuntering society well that our beloved spy has always been known by two. What deft, delicious deviousness to separate them. Cleverer still, there seems to be scope for 007 to play foil to her predecessor, perhaps highlighting the shabbiness of his chic. We shall see.

The campaigns for doing a ‘Dr Who’ and for bringing a bit of Wakanda to MI6 have, therefore, both been (sort of) appeased. Something niggles though. Bond strikes me as being at the epicentre of the ‘diversity on the big screen’ debate, and, despite the doubling of 007, the matter is by no means settled. This, we are told, is Craig’s last reprisal of Bond, and so the opportunity for change will provoke further sociologically charged debate.

@Doomcock was never going to love this, was he?

Bond has a cultural compatriot, Sherlock Holmes. Both boast iconic status because both tread an intrepid middle ground. They speak to certain tropes – of tradition, of masculinity, of drawing-room or cocktail hour refinement – and yet both twist away from convention, courting us with mystery, eccentricity, and intellectual/ physical abilities seemingly super human. Despite the implausibilities of their characters, they are oddly real in the popular imagination, and that we keep recycling them is something of a phenomenon. But whilst the paying public seem by and large happy to buy into a female, gay, or black Holmes, queering Bond is, well, not even up for discussion. The fact that the Broccoli family and Eon Productions have been in charge of creating the Bond movies since Dr No is unquestionably a large factor in the more rigid control of his character. And that’s not to say the character is stagnant. Though ever encased in black tie, actors have undeniably reinterpreted and refreshed the literary figure over the decades. Connery’s Bond is velvety, urbane; Craig’s is thuggish, nihilistic. The former, a man for the mad men generation; the latter, a man for the maddening days of disenfranchisement and identity crisis. Different Bonds for different days. There have been other reimaginings too. Bond girls have got older; Miss Moneypenny, more empowered. Craig’s Ursula Andres-esque scene in Casino Royale – where, like Andres, he emerges from the sea wearing something skimpy – invites the gaze onto the male body. Men can be objectified too, okay (though who that’s good for is not entirely clear). But whilst the gadgetry Q proffers has been modernised beyond the scope of today’s world, the changes to casting and characterisation have been somewhat conservative. Relative to previous tweaks, the creation of Lashana Lynch’s character is pretty radical, and, whilst delighting some, has mega-triggered others.

Wading through the popular backlash it is on the whole unclear whether reactions are merely a product of a misunderstanding. Many don’t seem to recognise that Lynch’s character is new and is no queering or querying of the man himself. Misunderstanding or not the (no doubt hoped for) vociferous response says a lot about the socio-political currency of Bond.

In the figure of Bond, quintessential, imperially bred notions of masculinity, nationality, and whiteness converge.

Why is Bond the lightening rod for these debates? Why, for some, is it his character that is ripe for redress? Why, for others, is it his racial, gender identity that warrants no holds barred ward from the ‘woke’? Partly, I think, because in a world of flux and ever widening opinions, his character and the world he is couched in remains relatively constant, reassuringly formulaic. Those who want change don’t see enough of it, those who don’t want it are anxious it’s coming. Bond is undeniably one of the most persistent, entrenched fictional figures in our culture. He’s so blooming British, so brilliantly masculine, so sublimely smooth, he parachuted the Queen into the 2012 Olympics. In the figure of Bond, quintessential, imperially bred notions of masculinity, nationality, and whiteness converge. Like the British under Churchill, he will prevail. Like the white man in the colonies, he will overcome. And, like a roguish chancer of empire, he will pioneer in the most splendid fashion, in the most exotic of contexts. And, as we all know, he cannot be killed. Because he is such a heady cocktail of nostalgic tropes his character will stay seductive whilst increasingly being identified as toxic. So no matter how many new diverse characters find their way on to our screens (and may there be many), the ultimate protagonist for playing out this debate has to be Bond.