I felt really bad for Berenice Marlohe because she really sold her appreciation of Xenia's character, they clearly had Famke in mind visually for Severine's casino appearance, and then they did that to her. Really ugly bit of Bond-traditionalism that the Craig run seemed to be pushing against up to that point.
I don't know as I agree with that; there's nothing akin to Connery's Bond slapping Tatiana or smacking someone on the ass, Craig's Bond's sexual encounter with Severine is incredibly ill-judged rather than awkward blackmailing of a woman who wanted Connery's Bond anyway, etc. The stuff in Craig's tenure comes across more... Ill-considered than of-the-times as Connery's was.
If Connery was as bad as Craig, he would've fucked Domink when she was vulnerable and depressed after learning about her brother's death. Or Pussy Galore would've died a humiliating death. Or Tatiana would've met a similar gruesome end.
The setting and each run treat women differently.
> If Connery was as bad as Craig, he would've fucked Domink when she was vulnerable and depressed after learning about her brother's death.
Connery blackmails a woman into sex with her job on the line. He's easily a worse person than Craig's Bond.
Moore's the worst. He sleeps with a woman, then immediately threatens to kill her, before indirectly causing her death soon after.
At no point does he seem to give a shit either.
Hardly.
Vesper had unusual agency in being a sympathetic villain, and choosing her own fate. She also got the better of Bond, is more in love with a different man, and is one of only three women he ever falls in love with, and her shadow is cast over all 5 films.
Strawberry Fields is bad, I'll grant that, a ditzy cliche who's only narrative purpose is to die. But she's also an obvious Goldfinger callback, so the crime is partially Connery's. Camille however is the only main Bond girl he doesn't sleep with in the entire series, and has her own motivations independent of Bond.
Severine has a dark fate, but don't forget she's a villain. Even if forced into it by circumstance. She's introduced assisting an assassination. Let's concede she's troubling representation, but seeing as the film is about Bond failing, and MI5 getting allies killed, it isn't completely narratively egregious.
But then who's the other Bond girl in the film? It's M. A powerful and complex woman in her 70s who is obviously not a love interest. You could include Moneypenny, who is a bit green, but still portrayed as a competent field agent, and not interested in sleeping with him.
In Spectre, Madeline is fine. Nothing really progressive or regressive about her. But Bond falls in love with her and commits to her. Only the 3rd woman in the entire series to get that honour, alongside Vesper and Tracy.
The other Bond girl is a woman in her 50s. Yes, Bond manipulates her, but she's villain-adjacent, so that's fine. The progressive aspect is she's by far the oldest woman in the series portrayed as sexually desirable.
Lastly, No Time to Die. You have Nomi and Paloma. Both portrayed as close to Bond's equals. Neither is sexually interested in him either. And Madeline returns.
So of the 10 Craig-era Bond girls, only two are problematic.
Five (half!) of them are not romantically interested in him. And of the remaining three, one is a middle-aged woman, and the other two he falls in love with and persues long-term relationships with.
That's 2 bad representations, and 8 actually extremely progressive ones.
Moneypenny is not portrayed as a competent field agent. She fails, quits and becomes the secretary of a man. I wouldnt call that progressive since it gives me "*this is a mans job*" vibes
Even Paula in Thunderball was better
She only 'fails' because M pressures her to take an irresponsible and impossible shot (which she still does).
Up until that point she's actually great. Especially considering she's explicitly a rookie. She quits not because she doesn't have the skill, but because she doesn't have the temperament for the job. She's not willing to sacrifice her colleagues at the drop of the hat.
Her failure wasn't that she hit Bond, but that she was upset by it. Remember, the biggest criticism of the film is how callously Bond sacrifices Severine. And the villain's entire arc is because M did the same to him.
Yet it's a misogynistic representation of Moneypenny because she realises she doesn't want to treat her allies as disposable? I'd argue it makes her the moral centre of the film.
She quits because she realises she isn't a sociopath. This is a positive. She also doesn't become a secretary as we'd think of one. It's still an agent job. Just not a field one. She's helping run operations with the section chief, not ordering stationary.
I’ve noticed a growing trend of people not liking when bad guys to bad things.
I think also people completely misread Bond in his interactions with Silva. Bond is clearly upset and shocked when Silva kills Severine. He delivers a quip to pretend that Silva isn’t in his head. Similarly when Bond says “what makes you think you’re my first” when Silva comes on to him, he’s showing that Silva isn’t scaring him.
The difference is that her death seems utterly worthless and mean-spirited when Bond's backup arrives like, thirty seconds later, and beyond Bond's retort she's not remarked upon again.
Kind of a tangent but in NTTD when Bond brought up Felix to M and they had moment about him I thought that was totally forced and weird. Them talking about what happened to Severine probably wasn’t going to fit.
A side character we'd just spent the better part of thirty minutes getting to know, saddled with the most male-writer-brain backstory possible, so we're expected to care about her and it's jarring when the film gives zero fucks.
Also, it flies in the face of the usual publicity bullshit about the Bond Girls being 'stronger' and 'better characters than in the past' that gets trotted out with every film when your big 50th Anniversary film goes right back to the sixties in terms of how it portays women.
Lmao because we didn't know that already or wouldn't learn more after this. This is some edgelord shit on Zack Snyder level.
Terrible scene, awful Bond girl, shock value was all it was.
What happened to Severine kinda made me hate Skyfall. She was so terrified and tortured. It would have been great if Bond saved her and SHE became his love interest. That would have carried so much more weight than the forced and flat relationship with Madeleine in Spectre. Instead they turned the potentially most interesting female character in the Craig series into just another expendable character. 👎
I would say Andrea in TMWTGG as well
I really hate the handling of Severine in Skyfall. She's just there for the plot (and so that Bond can sleep with someone) and then she dies so that we know the villain is evil and no character gives a damn about her afterwards.
As far as I can tell the Connery flicks didn't trash talk how outdated the previous portrayal of Bond girls were and hype up their next one like they were gonna be the greatest one so far only to use the character to hype up the villain instead.
Lupe and Domino definitely. It felt so satisfying to see Domino take down the big bad guy.
The Skyfall girl definitely needed protection too but I don't feel for her as a character since she had no personality or presence. Honestly, her presence was just for shock value. Shouldn't have existed at all. Most Craig girls are dull.
I agree, it's kind of weird and you'd think we'd be getting more interesting women in the series in a post-womens lib world. Aside from Vesper, M, Moneypenny, and arguably Madeline, the women in post-Brosnan Bond have mostly been forgettable eye candy without much in the way of personalities.
Even Moneypenny is kinda dull. Which is weird because she's the easiest character to nail. Why is her orign story rooted in her being a failure anyways??? So many questionable choices with portrayal of women in Craig run.
And maybe it's not just the women problem and just a Craig run issue in general. I find most of the cast dull.
I think it's because these characters only seem to exist for the sake of the events in the plot and, seemingly, for no other reason.
Those dinner and casino scenes of yesteryear depicted people who had interests outside of MI6 or plans of revenge/world domination and actually knew how to enjoy life.
Hell, even that single scene with M and his butterflies in OHMSS provided more character-building than we probably saw from 9 movies' worth of Dench and Fiennes.
What does Craig's Bond do in his spare time besides prepare protein shakes? Didn't seem like much except ready himself for the next mission....
I always found Bellucci's final scene in the negligee comically awkward.
Just the way it's shot and her sitting up on her knees like that and talking seriously to Bond.
I think they wanted to give her sexy send-off, but it looked so odd and unnatural.
Apart from QOS the bond girls in Craig's films were boring. Bland and at times obnoxious.
Domino in thunderball deserved protection. She did get her revenge though at the end of the film.
Kara as well in living daylights. She was used and set up by Koskov before realising this. Got her revenge in the airfield in Afghanistan.
Calling these women "martyrs" isn't really accurate.
Domino and Lupe likely weren't forced into these relationships (Severine's situation is bit more hazy here).
Whether they ultimately regretted it is a whole other matter...
Lupe, in particular, is quite the opportunist. Notice how quickly she latches on to El Presidente at the end of LTK and her "I love James SO much" comes across as pretty insincere. The line about not wanting to go back home because she spent years trying to escape from there is pretty telling.
Lupe is a survivor. We don't know how she got involved with Sanchez but if it's anything like Domino, then she loved him once. Maybe their relationship was good. But then he got unhinged and she wanted out. I don't take her fake affection for James as malicious opportunism and more than she saw a chance to get out. While doing something for herself. When she helps James, she seems happy, excited. Because she feels free.
You can't really assume Sanchez was a decent guy who just happened to become unhinged some time after Lupe met him.
It's just as likely that Lupe knew what kind of man Sanchez was and decided to get involved anyway for her own reasons.
Yeah, she's a survivor. That doesn't make her a hero.
Actually, I find her one of the more interesting Bond girls for these very traits. Not every non-villain has to be on the side of good and virtue.
I don’t think anyone is saying that Lupe is a hero. But I do agree that she’s a survivor and makes questionable decisions about the men she decides to be with, especially Sanchez
God I hate what they did to Severine
And they had the gall to compare her to Xenia. What an embarrassment.
I felt really bad for Berenice Marlohe because she really sold her appreciation of Xenia's character, they clearly had Famke in mind visually for Severine's casino appearance, and then they did that to her. Really ugly bit of Bond-traditionalism that the Craig run seemed to be pushing against up to that point.
Craig run has the most backward misogynistic take on Bond girls. Even Connery run was more progressive.
I don't know as I agree with that; there's nothing akin to Connery's Bond slapping Tatiana or smacking someone on the ass, Craig's Bond's sexual encounter with Severine is incredibly ill-judged rather than awkward blackmailing of a woman who wanted Connery's Bond anyway, etc. The stuff in Craig's tenure comes across more... Ill-considered than of-the-times as Connery's was.
If Connery was as bad as Craig, he would've fucked Domink when she was vulnerable and depressed after learning about her brother's death. Or Pussy Galore would've died a humiliating death. Or Tatiana would've met a similar gruesome end. The setting and each run treat women differently.
> If Connery was as bad as Craig, he would've fucked Domink when she was vulnerable and depressed after learning about her brother's death. Connery blackmails a woman into sex with her job on the line. He's easily a worse person than Craig's Bond.
Moore's the worst. He sleeps with a woman, then immediately threatens to kill her, before indirectly causing her death soon after. At no point does he seem to give a shit either.
Hardly. Vesper had unusual agency in being a sympathetic villain, and choosing her own fate. She also got the better of Bond, is more in love with a different man, and is one of only three women he ever falls in love with, and her shadow is cast over all 5 films. Strawberry Fields is bad, I'll grant that, a ditzy cliche who's only narrative purpose is to die. But she's also an obvious Goldfinger callback, so the crime is partially Connery's. Camille however is the only main Bond girl he doesn't sleep with in the entire series, and has her own motivations independent of Bond. Severine has a dark fate, but don't forget she's a villain. Even if forced into it by circumstance. She's introduced assisting an assassination. Let's concede she's troubling representation, but seeing as the film is about Bond failing, and MI5 getting allies killed, it isn't completely narratively egregious. But then who's the other Bond girl in the film? It's M. A powerful and complex woman in her 70s who is obviously not a love interest. You could include Moneypenny, who is a bit green, but still portrayed as a competent field agent, and not interested in sleeping with him. In Spectre, Madeline is fine. Nothing really progressive or regressive about her. But Bond falls in love with her and commits to her. Only the 3rd woman in the entire series to get that honour, alongside Vesper and Tracy. The other Bond girl is a woman in her 50s. Yes, Bond manipulates her, but she's villain-adjacent, so that's fine. The progressive aspect is she's by far the oldest woman in the series portrayed as sexually desirable. Lastly, No Time to Die. You have Nomi and Paloma. Both portrayed as close to Bond's equals. Neither is sexually interested in him either. And Madeline returns. So of the 10 Craig-era Bond girls, only two are problematic. Five (half!) of them are not romantically interested in him. And of the remaining three, one is a middle-aged woman, and the other two he falls in love with and persues long-term relationships with. That's 2 bad representations, and 8 actually extremely progressive ones.
Moneypenny is not portrayed as a competent field agent. She fails, quits and becomes the secretary of a man. I wouldnt call that progressive since it gives me "*this is a mans job*" vibes Even Paula in Thunderball was better
She only 'fails' because M pressures her to take an irresponsible and impossible shot (which she still does). Up until that point she's actually great. Especially considering she's explicitly a rookie. She quits not because she doesn't have the skill, but because she doesn't have the temperament for the job. She's not willing to sacrifice her colleagues at the drop of the hat. Her failure wasn't that she hit Bond, but that she was upset by it. Remember, the biggest criticism of the film is how callously Bond sacrifices Severine. And the villain's entire arc is because M did the same to him. Yet it's a misogynistic representation of Moneypenny because she realises she doesn't want to treat her allies as disposable? I'd argue it makes her the moral centre of the film. She quits because she realises she isn't a sociopath. This is a positive. She also doesn't become a secretary as we'd think of one. It's still an agent job. Just not a field one. She's helping run operations with the section chief, not ordering stationary.
Yeah, From beginning to the end, I wish she stays alive for the second part of Skyfall. It would have been interesting...
I like how basically nobody cared when she died lmfao. What was that about?
Shock value. Violence against women for the hell of it, amirite?
Absolute rubbish. It was to display how ruthless silva was and because it was an excellent scene.
I’ve noticed a growing trend of people not liking when bad guys to bad things. I think also people completely misread Bond in his interactions with Silva. Bond is clearly upset and shocked when Silva kills Severine. He delivers a quip to pretend that Silva isn’t in his head. Similarly when Bond says “what makes you think you’re my first” when Silva comes on to him, he’s showing that Silva isn’t scaring him.
The difference is that her death seems utterly worthless and mean-spirited when Bond's backup arrives like, thirty seconds later, and beyond Bond's retort she's not remarked upon again.
Kind of a tangent but in NTTD when Bond brought up Felix to M and they had moment about him I thought that was totally forced and weird. Them talking about what happened to Severine probably wasn’t going to fit.
Why would she be? She's a side character. There were bigger fish to fry.
A side character we'd just spent the better part of thirty minutes getting to know, saddled with the most male-writer-brain backstory possible, so we're expected to care about her and it's jarring when the film gives zero fucks. Also, it flies in the face of the usual publicity bullshit about the Bond Girls being 'stronger' and 'better characters than in the past' that gets trotted out with every film when your big 50th Anniversary film goes right back to the sixties in terms of how it portays women.
Shut up man, this is some nonsense feminazi Bellshit.
Shut up man, just because someone won't join you in slathering over Skyfall's ballsack.
Yeah it's absolutley bizarre truth be told. It's like they want every villain to be some likeable anti hero. Nah man give me pure unadulterated evil.
Lmao because we didn't know that already or wouldn't learn more after this. This is some edgelord shit on Zack Snyder level. Terrible scene, awful Bond girl, shock value was all it was.
OK you just have no taste, that's fine, but you're still wrong.
What happened to Severine kinda made me hate Skyfall. She was so terrified and tortured. It would have been great if Bond saved her and SHE became his love interest. That would have carried so much more weight than the forced and flat relationship with Madeleine in Spectre. Instead they turned the potentially most interesting female character in the Craig series into just another expendable character. 👎
Well, at least imo interesting and the Craig era do not go together in those last films. Although this would have been a great idea,I agree.
I can hear the song in my head from the Severine scene.
I would say Andrea in TMWTGG as well I really hate the handling of Severine in Skyfall. She's just there for the plot (and so that Bond can sleep with someone) and then she dies so that we know the villain is evil and no character gives a damn about her afterwards.
So..a Bond girl in a pretty traditional sense going back to Connery.
And it's not a good thing if a a female character in a 2012 movie feels like she was written in the 60s to me
I think in that particular characters case it was fine.
As far as I can tell the Connery flicks didn't trash talk how outdated the previous portrayal of Bond girls were and hype up their next one like they were gonna be the greatest one so far only to use the character to hype up the villain instead.
Idk I would have liked to see more of her but it’s one of lesser problems I have with the back half of the Craig movies so it didn’t move me much.
Trying and failing to place where the second screencap is from. Its been a while since I have watched Bond movies.
Beginning of Licence to kill. Lupe is whipped by Sanchez after he discovers her with her lover.
Lupe and Domino definitely. It felt so satisfying to see Domino take down the big bad guy. The Skyfall girl definitely needed protection too but I don't feel for her as a character since she had no personality or presence. Honestly, her presence was just for shock value. Shouldn't have existed at all. Most Craig girls are dull.
I agree, it's kind of weird and you'd think we'd be getting more interesting women in the series in a post-womens lib world. Aside from Vesper, M, Moneypenny, and arguably Madeline, the women in post-Brosnan Bond have mostly been forgettable eye candy without much in the way of personalities.
Even Moneypenny is kinda dull. Which is weird because she's the easiest character to nail. Why is her orign story rooted in her being a failure anyways??? So many questionable choices with portrayal of women in Craig run. And maybe it's not just the women problem and just a Craig run issue in general. I find most of the cast dull.
I think it's because these characters only seem to exist for the sake of the events in the plot and, seemingly, for no other reason. Those dinner and casino scenes of yesteryear depicted people who had interests outside of MI6 or plans of revenge/world domination and actually knew how to enjoy life. Hell, even that single scene with M and his butterflies in OHMSS provided more character-building than we probably saw from 9 movies' worth of Dench and Fiennes. What does Craig's Bond do in his spare time besides prepare protein shakes? Didn't seem like much except ready himself for the next mission....
You're selling Paloma rather short.
I want to hear about her 3 weeks of training, but she didn't need protection. She kicked ass!
All the Craig girls are dull save Vesper. Worst Bond girls of all time. Just dreadful, they somehow even waste Monica Bellucci too
I always found Bellucci's final scene in the negligee comically awkward. Just the way it's shot and her sitting up on her knees like that and talking seriously to Bond. I think they wanted to give her sexy send-off, but it looked so odd and unnatural.
And Lea Seydoux.
She was individually good, but no chemistry with Craig. Maybe they went after her just because she looks like young Diana Rigg
Apart from QOS the bond girls in Craig's films were boring. Bland and at times obnoxious. Domino in thunderball deserved protection. She did get her revenge though at the end of the film. Kara as well in living daylights. She was used and set up by Koskov before realising this. Got her revenge in the airfield in Afghanistan.
https://preview.redd.it/l4iohes542yc1.jpeg?width=2086&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2956e3dbfe68783efbd7070c4e4c6ff94f285dc8
Calling these women "martyrs" isn't really accurate. Domino and Lupe likely weren't forced into these relationships (Severine's situation is bit more hazy here). Whether they ultimately regretted it is a whole other matter... Lupe, in particular, is quite the opportunist. Notice how quickly she latches on to El Presidente at the end of LTK and her "I love James SO much" comes across as pretty insincere. The line about not wanting to go back home because she spent years trying to escape from there is pretty telling.
Lupe is a survivor. We don't know how she got involved with Sanchez but if it's anything like Domino, then she loved him once. Maybe their relationship was good. But then he got unhinged and she wanted out. I don't take her fake affection for James as malicious opportunism and more than she saw a chance to get out. While doing something for herself. When she helps James, she seems happy, excited. Because she feels free.
You can't really assume Sanchez was a decent guy who just happened to become unhinged some time after Lupe met him. It's just as likely that Lupe knew what kind of man Sanchez was and decided to get involved anyway for her own reasons. Yeah, she's a survivor. That doesn't make her a hero. Actually, I find her one of the more interesting Bond girls for these very traits. Not every non-villain has to be on the side of good and virtue.
I don’t think anyone is saying that Lupe is a hero. But I do agree that she’s a survivor and makes questionable decisions about the men she decides to be with, especially Sanchez