“The James Bond franchise has a long history of using gender stereotypes to underpin and reinforce its narrative of Bond’s hegemonic masculinity”. (Coghlan, Hackett and Nolan, 2023, 2) This is what this dissertation will investigate. There are little opportunities for women in the Bond franchise. They are either the love interest and therefore the Bond girl or a secretary, whose duty it is to serve Bond such as Moneypenny. Arp and Decker sum up the Bond franchises reputation when it comes to women when they say, “Objectification is everywhere in the James Bond film series: Bond constantly uses others to gain information, the upper hand, or sex.” (Arp and Decker 2006, 202) Christopher Lindner follows on by saying, “Women not only enable and help to define the extreme masculinism of the Bondian multiverse, but also figure as sites of contestation and experiment over the cultural politics of the body, gender, sexuality, race, nationality, and more.” (Lindner, 2015, xvii)
The Bond girls are there to serve Bond in a romantic capacity and once their purpose have been served, they are disposed of either by not appearing in the following film or by being killed off. The dead Bond girl poses interesting ideas around the passivity of women and how the dead female body becomes an object to be used by men. The best example of this is in Goldfinger (Hamilton, 1964). However, this is not something this essay will discuss further. Instead, it will be focusing on female characters from the 1990s to present. This is because, “The greater presence of female characters in the franchise and their voicing of disapproval of Bond’s attitudes and behaviour are positive signs in introducing feminist discourse within the films, I view those changes as only superficial, acknowledging the issues without doing much to address them in meaningful ways.” (Johnson, 2009, 114-115).
Johnson’s argument can be applied to Judi Dench’s M, Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny and Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann. These three characters all reflect a modern woman trying to forge a path in a male dominated space. They are allowed a limited opportunity to be progressive and challenge the mould set out for them. However, ultimately their main purpose is to serve Bond and aid him in his masculinity. They move from one stereotype to another either resulting in becoming a mother figure or being questioned in a position of power. Dodds writes about the opening to Skyfall when they say, “In the space of about 10 minutes Moneypenny’s performance and M’s competence are questioned” (Dodds, 2015, 219) Dodds highlights the complexity of these characters this dissertation will explore.
The dissertation is split into three chapters. Each is centred around one female character. The texts that will primarily feature as part of the textual analysis are Skyfall (Mendes, 2012), Spectre (Mendes, 2015) and No Time to Die (Fukunaga, 2021). There will be discussion of Goldeneye (Campbell, 1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (Spottiswoode, 1997) and The World is Not Enough (Apted, 1999). These films show the struggle women face in a male dominated space. Bond will always be the hero, so the female characters have to find a way of surviving in that.
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