Page 34 - Seniorstoday November 2021 Issue

Spotlght
Best of Bond, James Bond
Writers, directors, co-stars take a backseat as Bond, James Bond, lives on,
writes Deepa Gahlot
James Bond was called, by M no less, that
is Judi Dench, who broke the macho mould
by being the first, and so far only, female
head of M16, in the world’s longest-running
movie franchise, “a sexist, misogynistic
dinosaur, and a relic of the Cold War”;
which of course he was, the charismatic
character created by Ian Fleming for his
best-selling novels—the tuxedo wearing,
martini-sipping, Aston Martin-driving,
serial seducer of sexy women—the spy,
codenamed 007. However, a movie
character could not have lasted nearly 60
years and 25 films, if he did not upgrade
himself.
You could tell, when Daniel Craig was
asked in Casino Royale, his first film as
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James Bond, if he wanted his vodka martini
shaken or stirred (a famous Bond line), and
he said, “Do I look like I give a damn?”
In the latest, recently released No Time To
Die (2021), the villain (Javier Bardem) feels
up Bond and smirks that it must be his first
time. Without twitching a facial muscle,
Bond asks, “What makes you think it’s the
first time?” Ian Fleming must not have
imagined a non-binary Bond!
Fleming was a journalist, and British
naval intelligence officer, who created
the series of spy novels with James Bond
as 007 with a licence to kill as the larger-
than-life hero in 1952. The success of
Casino Royale resulted in 11 novels and
two collections of short stories. Fans could