Reference News Network reported on November 5 (text/Yao Simon)
The new episode of the 007 series of movies, "No Time to Die", recently reached the top of the box office in China, and the subsequent box office affected by the epidemic cannot be predicted, but it has broken a number of box office records in many countries such as the United Kingdom. Since Shaun Connery starred in the first part of the series "007: Dr. Noe" in 1962, Bond has accompanied fans through 60 spring and autumn seasons, and has "played" the classic old IP for so many years, and what posture to continue to "fight" in the future is not only curious for fans, but also may be curious about themselves.
Stills from the movie 007: No Time to Die. Visual China
With 163 minutes of length, Time to Die is said to be the longest Bond film of all time, and the fifth and last Bond film in which Daniel Craig served as secret agent 007. Producer duo Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have announced that the search for a successor for the 53-year-old actor will begin next year.
However, there are already rumors that the new Bond will be a woman. Listen, not "Bond Girl", but "Female Bond".
In recent years, as the feminist movement and the "Black Lives Matter" movement have been widely embraced and responded to around the world, balancing the gender proportion of characters and the racial proportion of actors in films is becoming a common practice in Hollywood diversity. For example, The Super-Powered Eternal Warrior Makari in Marvel's upcoming movie The Eternals was replaced by a woman from a man in the original game. In another Hollywood movie "Dune", which is being screened in China, the supporting role of Dr. Yue is played by Zhang Zhen, a well-known Chinese actor.
When Daniel Craig, who will be stepping off his Bond role after "No Time to Die," was asked if the next Bond would be a woman, he told a reporter for the Capitol Hill newspaper that he didn't think the iconic role should be played by an actress. Instead, producers should offer and create new roles for women and people of color.
"The answer is simple, women and people of color should have better roles," he said. If there are other characters as strong as Bond, why should women play Bond? ”
Craig isn't the only one involved in the big IP series who thinks new characters should be created for women — rather than replacing "male bond" with "female bond."
Barbara Blankley, a filmmaker known for making the 007 series of films, told Variety magazine in 2020, "(Bond) can have any skin color, but he's a man." She told Variety that she prefers to create entirely new characters for women.
"I think we should create new roles for women — a strong female character," she said. ”
No one can do better than she can.
While fans may hope to one day hear classic lines like "My name is Bond, Janice Bond" on the big screen, such a blunt gender swap and the deliberate racial ratio of actors in other movies can be a disservice to talented actresses and actors of color. This is especially true when such deliberate arrangements are often symbolic in order to gain the admiration of audiences and public opinion for the correctness of multicultural politics.
If a new character is not reconstructed to truly serve the story of the film itself, and when the character charm is displayed in it to play the role advantage, then the gender exchange of the characters or the arrangement of racial proportions will not be of much use to the actual performance of the actors, nor will it play any additive role to the film itself.
For example, a film review in the Singaporean media "Asiaone" made an interesting point. In the classic plot of the 007 movie, Bond's favorite drink is Martini. Bond walked into a bar and said to the bartender, "A dry martini, shaken, not stirred!" (A cup of dry martinis, shake well, don't stir!) ）
But what if it's a "female Bond"? She will be revered by the film series as a woman among women, just as "Male Bond" is a man among men, so if she goes into a bar to order a spirit, will the audience be seen as rude? If she didn't order Martini and order Long Island iced tea, would she disappoint the "Bond fans"? But if it's whiskey, is it too bad or too sexy for women?
Of course, in the era of equal rights, there is nothing called "woman of women", and there is nothing that men can do and women can't do. "Female Bond" can certainly drink martinis. But the crux of the matter is that because of the countless movies created since the character's inception, Bond fans have a fixed set of expectations for Bond. At this time, the rigid inclusion of female actors into a male role that has long been strongly symbolic is not as pleasant as people think.
Then again, wouldn't it make sense for writers, producers, and directors to want to make a film diverse, to create a new, unique, and powerful character from scratch?
In recent years, more and more female spy characters have been as popular as Bond. Think angelina Jolie in "Agent Schotter", Angelina Jolie in "Extremely Cold City" who is cool and sassy, and Scarlett Johansson in "Black Widow"... All of these female idols are loved by fans, not because they are women, but because of their own characters.
Stills from the movie Black Widow. Visual China
So if a new spy character is going to join the Bond series, whether it's a female spy, a person of color, or both, she should not just be a substitute for Bond, but as good as Bond.
Perhaps, better than Bond.
Producer Barbara Blankley said in 2018: "Bond is male, he is a male character. This is good. We don't have to turn male characters into women. Let's create more female characters and make the story fit for these female characters. ”
Source: Reference News Network