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The Name is Bond. Comrade Bond.
I spent part of the weekend watching classic 007 films. As weekends go, it’s not the worst way to spend your time. Granted, neither is it the best, particularly if you’re trying to lose weight.
But as I dulled my brain and prepared to accept the absence of the laws of physics, the absurdity of a spy everyone seems to know who always uses his real name, the blatant sexism, the terrible female co-stars and the downright nasty nihilistic violence of the characters in the Bond universe, I had an epiphany. Perhaps that’s too strong. Well, a deep insight.
For you see, midway through the The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, or maybe Moonraker (it was a long weekend) I noticed a common theme. It’s a recurring characteristic of the Bond films set during the Cold War era. A red theme.
James Bond, supposedly a tool of a decadent, capitalistic, free-market, pro-business West, is in reality anything but. Particularly when played by Roger Moore, he’s something else. He’s the opposite.
In the vast majority of Bond films, he’s not taking on and defeating the plots and agents of the USSR or communist China. He’s taking on and defeating the plots and agents of right-wing billionaires whose only crimes (as I see it, anyway) are wanting to liberate themselves from the powers of a bureaucratic state.
These people pay taxes. They employ thousands of people (who admittedly wear the same uniform), some of whom are disabled. They lead the field in their enterprises of choice and are by all accounts at the top of their game. Then suddenly, just when they’re at the peak of their careers and their business is about to help the West take a huge leap forward in space, maritime, or other activity, they’re murdered by James Bond. Their once-thriving businesses are shut down, or worse, nationalized.
I know what you’re thinking. Paddy, you’re reading too much into this. But this has happened more than once. From Goldfinger to Goldeneye, across the decades? This is more than a one-off occurrence. Bond systematically targets entrepreneurs and destroys their companies. Worse, sometimes he even steals the entrepreneurs’ mistresses. The bast—.
These are not the characteristics of an agent of the freedom loving West, but a dirty sneaky degenerate commie. Or a Frenchman. I digress.
What really settled it for me was the number of times he was able to sneak into the USSR or the Eastern Bloc and it just so happened he never got caught. Does this make sense? Everyone behind the Iron Curtain knew about him. He just so happened to walk in and walk out, no questions asked. And how the hell did he manage to get out of a Soviet airbase in the middle of Afghanistan? Or Siberia. Or Berlin.
He’s a communist agent, that’s why.
Finally, it turns out that later in life, he was awarded the Order of Lenin by the head of KGB General Godol. The Order of Lenin. You know who else got that. The Cambridge Five.
James Bond is a communist agent. Deep down you know it’s true. Either that or I have too much time on my hands.
Nah. I’m right. Just look:
Published in General
I thought one of the reasons Alger Hiss was defended by the left was because he was suave, urbane, and dressed well – in comparison to slobs like Whittaker Chambers or Richard Nixon.
Fair point–Hiss was sort of an American Philby type in terms of being from the patrician, old boy network. He probably knew his way around a wine list, but would have failed the jumping out of an airplane in a Brioni suit test.
Good fun! You’re theory is going to swirling around my brain the next time I see a Bond flick.
Speaking of Bond, there is a great-true-story about a friend who was rescued during the War (II) by a Bond type character. Perhaps we can persuade her to write it up…
You are just discovering this? It’s not just Bond, it’s all of them. Now that TV has tried to focus on anti terrorist heroes, it turns out most of the Muslim characters are innocents or victims and the bad guys are generally on our side and are rich, or CIA looking for budget or places to sell guns, or buy drugs. Nothing changes. Hollywood has to see the world this way.
In the retelling of Goldeneye in the new game for Nintendo, the villain sounds like a communist. Or at least an Occupy Wall Street guy.
My favorite in this category is Tomorrow Never Dies. Bond has to save the world from it’s not Rupert Murdoch but yeah, it’s totally Rupert Murdoch.
Melissa—A friend of yours? Please, please do get her to write it up! In the meantime, what do you know about her story?
The makers of the film said it was based on Robert Maxwell the man who used to own the Mirror. His life would be a very decent movie with his actions.
Sure it is…
Not trying to snark at you in particular, but I don’t buy it. It reminds me of my college friends who argued the V for Vendetta movie was commenting on Thatcherite England like the original comic book was. Uh huh, and the paranoid liberal fantasy with clearly identifiable characters from the here and now (well, here and then, now. Err, you get my drift) had absolutely nothing to do with the Bush administration.
Serious answer to your tongue-in-cheek post, Bond films are big budget Hollywood affairs, and they reflect the prejudices of Hollywood. James Bond is a communist because it’s the state religion over there.
If there is a Commie bad guy, it’s almost always been a rogue: Klebb in From Russia with Love; Orlov in Octopussy; Koskov in The Living Daylights; Trevelyan/Onatopp/Orumov in Goldeneye; Renard in The World is not Enough; the kid in Die Another Day.
The only bad commies were the ChiComs in Dr. No and YOLT. This would make an interesting topic of discussion.
Not even close in the Craig films. Contrast this with the CIA being generally corrupt (with the exception of Felix Leiter) in Quantum of Solace.
China bankrolled Auric Goldfinger in the movie version.
The idea of moral equivalence between the West and the communist East was so pervasive in the 70’s, people like Reagan who saw communism for the evil empire it was were treated as borderline insane.
Bond movies were hardly the worst. Movies like “Cassandra Crossing” and most of the Ludlum novels (and all of the Robert Le Carre novels) went out of their way to show there were no real good guys in the West and no really bad ideas from the East.
This stands in marked contrast to the Bond novels, as others have said. In the books, the Soviet Union was a very bad thing indeed. SMERSH was always the villian, (unless it was resurgent Nazis in Moonraker) and it wasn’t until the later days, when Fleming had to write for the movies, that the idea of SPECTRE was introduced and the villains no longer were based on communism.
Did they bankroll him or just give him the bomb? In the other two, SPECTRE was working for the ChiComs.
Interesting racial and political issues.
Three movies where the ChiComs are evil but need white or demi-white help. Zero movies* where the Ruskies are evil.
*Arguably, we have For Your Eyes Only. The absurd moral relativism of the conclusion wipes that out.
Pretty much. It doesn’t much matter if Bond is a Commie or not, because the writers are (Sorry, Rob).
Well put.
OK, where did Timothy Dalton come from? Who’s next? George Lazenby?
Kevin—I’ve read Le Carré’s “The Russia House,” and while I enjoyed it, I was bothered by the false moral equivalence. I’ve seen the movie version of one of his early ones, maybe “The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,” and got a similar impression.