Thursday, 1 November 2012

Skyfall: sexist?

A response to Giles Coren's article: http://reciperifle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/bond-villain.html

Giles, I agree with some of the points you make about Skyfall and disagree with others. It seems to me that you have fallen in to the trap of taking fictional female characters and trying to extrapolate messages and trends that tell us about how we view women in the 21st century. Female characters are never taken as just characters, they have to be viewed in terms of something beyond themselves, everywoman, as an explicitly female character. Why can't they just be a character?

I agree with your comments about the sex worker-whisky-murder-William Tell-cheap gag-shower surpise. It was a weak, cringe-inducing point in the film. If nothing else, downright creepy.

However, I don’t agree that Judi Dench’s M dying and being replaced by a man sends a bad message. She is an incredibly "strong" female character who has been in 7 Bond films and has challenged James Bond in every one of them. If you actually examine the situation, she died heroically, wounded in 'battle' – she refused to just be shuffled out the door. Female characters dying is not, in itself, sexist – women die too... As for being replaced by a man, she was going to be replaced by either a man or a woman. So it was a man. That, in itself, is not sexist. Every time a man replaces a woman in a job, are we supposed to view that as a defeat for the female species? If you choose to watch Judi Dench’s M in terms of "gender politics", then why not celebrate her character for being the "strong" female film icon that dragged Bond into a more modern age. She says it herself to Bond’s face in Goldeneye, calling him a “sexist, misogynistic dinosaur”. She’s one of the 'strongest' female characters on the screen.

As for Moneypenny, is it sexist that she decided that a career in the field wasn’t for her? What about all the women who decide that a career as some sort of ‘licensed to kill’ Lara Croft isn’t for them? I’m sure most secretaries don’t see themselves as second-raters, but you clearly do. Is her ‘settling’ for a desk-job a betrayal of feminism? A capitulation to the misogynistic forces at work in modern Britain? Or just her decision? Plus, she’s M’s secretary, not Bond’s.

So there you go. Despite the Macallan and the shower, I thought it was fantastic.