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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32945 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I forget what it is called, but what does this community think about when a movie takes a character that was white or a male and makes it a different gender or race for the sake of it?

It's vandalism at best, and more likely outright colonisation. Planting a flag in something and saying "this isn't yours anymore".

And it was clear in that moment that there's a compelling need, to some extent, for more representation of x demographic, because, for instance, it can't be positive to grow up watching superhero movies and none of them look like you.

So make some new properties. What kind of lesson do you think you're teaching young white boys when the whole world seems geared around taking things away from them and telling them "actually no, this is good, shitlord, and if you object you're basically a white supremacist/domestic terrorist"?

(for instance, the bond films. The characters have historically been white, but 007 is really just Britain's top spy job and it's totally plausible that a black guy could land that job)

I don't remember this ever being stated anywhere. This sounds like something people just made up out of whole cloth in order to justify taking more icons away from white men.

Planting a flag in something and saying "this isn't yours anymore".

Did their original race make the character more or less 'yours' ? If the answer to that is yes, then it would make sense to add more representation in media so others could experience that connection to a character. If the answer is no (as I presume), then changing their race shouldn't affect your relationship with said character.

taking more icons away from white men.

Why is James Bond an icon to you?

I don't remember this ever being stated anywhere. This sounds like something people just made up out of whole cloth in order to justify taking more icons away from white men.

I'm pretty sure this is stated in the books somewhere, but at the very least it's in the movies in Casino Royale. It makes it very clear that 007 is Bond's job title, one which he hasn't always had (he attains it in that movie). So yes, there's no reason we couldn't have a black 007. What they couldn't have (without throwing logical consistency to the wind) is a black Bond.

I'm pretty sure this is stated in the books somewhere

It is, and FWIW Craig's Casino Royale is perhaps the most faithful adaptation of the source material. Where most of the other Bond movies had loose relationship with Fleming's books at best. Much of Casino Royale is word for word and I feel like it's shows. How was your lamb?

007 isn't some hereditary title that passes on. It's his agent number. They have numbers so that they aren't referred to by name in intelligence agency documents, so they can't be betrayed. Post-WWII (and pre-WWII) Britain's secret service was full of communist traitors who could and did give away operations to the enemy.

Still by virtue of it being a very small number, you'd imagine it'd have changed hands a bunch unless he's literally only the 7th person to hold the post since the secret service debuted.

As a Bond geek, let me insert here that the double-oh status is simply (if that's the right word) a "license to kill" and the films/books regularly refer to, say double-oh-nine, or even a double-oh-twelve.

007 is just the number of Bond himself, and in the first film of Craig's it's stated outright：

Dreyfuss： "The benefits of being section chief; I'd know if anyone had been promoted to 00 status. Your file shows no kills. And it takes--"

Bond： "Two."

(Bond proceeds after a moment of banter to kill Dreyfuss, solidifyng these requirements, which we see in the opening credits.)

Thus ends my contribution here.

Indeed, that's what I was referencing. What I took from that scene is that Bond doesn't have a number at all until then. That is, he didn't go from "7" to "007" by killing those two men. But I admit this is my interpretation and not directly stated by the movie.

In Ian Fleming's novel You Only Live Twice, Bond was transferred into another branch and given the number 7777. All of the British spies have numbers. The 00 prefix is just used for those few special agents who are assassins.

In the very first 007 novel, Casino Royale, Bond telephones to HQ to report that Vesper Lynd was spying for the Soviets and is now deceased. He refers to her only by her number, 3030.

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