[HN Gopher] James Bond Unmasked (1968) ___________________________________________________________________ James Bond Unmasked (1968) Author : uniqueid Score : 40 points Date : 2021-05-30 17:59 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.commentarymagazine.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.commentarymagazine.com) | akomtu wrote: | I've been thinking just days ago that ending the Bond franchise | will be the number 1 target of the woke crowd (or whoever steers | them). The reason is obvious: Bond is the pinnacle of "whiteness" | - the character is all about excellence and superiority, all | attributed to a white dude (this brazen heresy is making me feel | a bit uneasy). And since the censors can't make their own PC | movie that would outcompete Bond, they'll have to cancel it. | halfmatthalfcat wrote: | Idris Elba is heavily favored on the internet as the next Bond. | It's on MGM (now Amazon) to push a more contemporary and | progressive Bond. This isn't dismissing the past "white" and | stereotypical alpha male persona of Bond, but there's plenty of | room to move forward and bring Bond into the 21st century. | setpatchaddress wrote: | You really need to stop watching Fox News. It is poisoning your | brain. No one other than Twitter grifters thinks the way you | seem to think they do. | | - A Bond of color is probably an inevitability. | | - Bond is usually incredibly incompetent and succeeds in spite | of himself through sheer luck. | asguy wrote: | > You really need to stop watching Fox News. It is poisoning | your brain. | | What's the point of typing this out? When you write things | like this do you think you're going to convince anyone to | change positions? Is it just to gain internet points? Imagine | this as a response to your comment: | | > You really need to stop watching MSNBC. It is poisoning | your brain. | | It's like playing tennis. | | I'm replying because this type of stuff is so tiresome. It's | hard enough to avoid on the rest of the Internet; please | don't bring it to HN. | curtainsforus wrote: | You agree with fox news on half of your points? | [deleted] | leephillips wrote: | This is a rather odd and fatally incomplete essay. Its final | suggestions, verging on explicit charges, of antisemitism against | Fleming seem like guilt-by-association. | | The criticism of the writing in the novels is not totally unfair. | Although the worst of it is barely readable, at his best Fleming | could spin a scene or passage with resounding skill. But his most | interesting work is in his short stories, which Richler doesn't | mention. If you think you have the measure of Fleming, read the | story "The Hildebrand Rarity", which rises to the level of | literature, and takes Bond to psychological places that may | surprise you. Also, in stories like "007 in New York", Fleming | shows real wit and something like self-deprecation toward his own | output, or at least the ability to have fun with it. | | Finally, although Richler runs on quite a bit into anecdotes | about Fleming's promotion of the Bond books and their commercial | fortunes, he doesn't mention what caused the sharp turning point | in their popularity, which was a comment by JFK. | CamperBob2 wrote: | It's a revealing bit of contemporary criticism, but it comes | across as a bit naive, as if the author somehow expected | something different from an author of popular spy fiction and | was disappointed. He's not wrong, he just misses the point. Of | _course_ Bond is a head case whose psychological foibles are a | reflection of his creator, or at least of his era. A woke Bond | would be about as interesting (and about as profitable) as a | woke Batman. | | And as for Fleming's predilection for writing about card games | and golf games: if you can make those interesting -- and he | could, and did -- you're certainly entitled to be listed among | the ranks of Real Writers. That's when I realized it was time | to take Stephen King seriously -- not when he wrote interesting | stories about vampires or demons or aliens, but when he wrote | interesting stories about _baseball._ | | Edit: on finishing the essay, I'm being too generous to the | author here. His rambling about an anti-Semitic subtext in | Fleming's books has no justification, and he knows it, which is | why he starts rambling about anti-Semitic subtexts in other | authors' works. | woodruffw wrote: | > It's a revealing bit of contemporary criticism, but it | comes across as a bit naive, as if the author somehow | expected something different from an author of popular spy | fiction and was disappointed. | | Well, John le Carre had already published at least 4 popular | spy novels by the time (1968) this critique of Fleming was | published. | | I, for one, think it's fair to expect something different | when other contemporaneous authors were doing something | different. | B1FF_PSUVM wrote: | > John le Carre had already published at least 4 popular | spy novels | | By the time I read my tenth or twelfth le Carre, I was | ready to contest the point that they were different novels. | It all seemed to boil down to "It's a mistake, we don't | know what we are doing, woe is us" in different locales. | woodruffw wrote: | That's been my experience of them as well :-) | | They're certainly a different subgenre, but I think the | larger point stands: it's possible to be a British author | of spy novels in the 20th century without sublimating | your fear of British decline through one-dimensional, | reactionary characterization. | whakim wrote: | I didn't read the author's charge of antisemitism as strictly | guilt by association. I think Richler's argument is that the | fixation on shadowy global plots threatening "good old England" | both fits into a pattern of 20th century antisemitism (Russia, | Germany) and provides a kind of "dog whistle" appeal to the old | (antisemitic, xenophobic) aristocracy. | leephillips wrote: | I agree, but that's what I meant. Toward the end he comes | right out and practically calls the books antisemitic, but | his evidence is that they contain plot elements that | _resemble_ other, truly antisemitic fantasies, such as global | plots to take over the world. | whakim wrote: | But knowingly echoing antisemitic tropes _is_ antisemitism | - that 's why I used the phrase "dog whistle." | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | I think one of the sad things about Idris Ilba not getting to | be Bond is, in the hands of a nuanced writing team, they | really could have used the character to dig into some of the | stuff the aristocracy still has not fully self reflected | over. | curtainsforus wrote: | Why do you think the aristocracy cares about Bond films? | Bond films are trash for proles. Any attacks in an Elba- | bond would only cause damage to the proles. That being the | reason the aristocracy can, and will when prompted, say "oh | yes, it's a stunning and brave work of art"- because it's | like chemo, or antibiotics- a mild poison that damages the | scum far more than you. | | The scum likes bond films; when bond films say "England is | racist", the scum sours and turns on itself. The human | aristocrat breathes a sigh of relief and goes back inside. | karaterobot wrote: | Fifty years on, the article reads to me like one writer was angry | at another writer's outsized success, and went really hard at | them in the cattiest possible way. | darthrupert wrote: | I can recommend the podcast Kill James Bond! (featuring at least | Philosophy Tube's Abigail Thorne) if you're at all perplexed why | this monster and the mostly very mediocre movies are so | glorified. | blowski wrote: | Is there any great mystery to their popularity? Surely it's the | same reason other franchises are popular - good promotion from | the studio, a loyal fanbase that loves the familiar characters, | and a wider audience that loves a brainless action-flick with | attractive actors. | akomtu wrote: | I'd make a guess that it's the non trivial plot, outstanding | performance and top notch actors that make Bond such a | successful franchise. | watwut wrote: | Wut? The plots are fairly trivial and predictable. Bond | movies are schematic movies with completely average | performances. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | I like Craig's version but agree with you in general. I | like the old movies for nostalgia reasons but they are not | exactly high quality cinema. That's ok. They can just be | fun, but I think it's a little silly to hold them up as | more than they are just because they had some cultural | cache half a century ago. | | Brosnon is a fine actor, but I never liked his version. It | was like watching a prep school dweeb act like he's a macho | badass. Just never came across as particularly believable | or compelling. | | I hope moving forward the franchise continues the trend of | getting into some more serious/substantial character | development and conflicts. The Craig versions were mostly | better on this point, but they could go so much further. | beaconstudios wrote: | Bond films are glorified for something that snobby elitist | critics have disdain for; they're fun. | | Not a big fan of the Daniel Craig bond films though, they've | joined the 20xx trend of everything having to be dark and | gritty. | FearlessNebula wrote: | This franchise has too much childhood nostalgia for me to ever | "cancel" it. It's gonna be the blue pill for me. | | That being said, it's interesting and humble to see my internal | biases. My gut instinct to all of these critical comments of the | Bond movies was "these idiots are wrong". I had to consciously | tell myself "they probably have a lot of valid points but in | favor of protecting childhood memories I'm not going to look into | this". | howmayiannoyyou wrote: | Anyone interested in Bond's author, Ian Fleming might find | interesting Fleming's activities in Washington DC during WWII. An | account this NPR feature: | https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=242536... | follows below. | | As England was fighting for its life against the Nazis, the | British government sent its most charming spies -- including | Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, Noel Coward and David Ogilvy -- to | America to blackmail, bully and cajol the U.S. into the war | effort. | [deleted] | jmkni wrote: | Fascinating, I just wish the NPR audio was much longer (like | hours longer)! | | It felt like the intro to a podcast series (except without the | podcast series). | dredmorbius wrote: | Protip: author interviews on broadcast media are almost | always part of a publicity tour for a book. | | Here, the guest, Jennet Conant and her book _The Irregulars_. | | A YouTube search for longer-duration videos should provide a | few talks based on the book. Or you could read the book | itself ;-) | | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=JENNET+CONANT+i. | .. | | Here's a 50-minute talk: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w-iPz6brO0 | | You can also try podcast search (in your podcast app or | online). A starting point: https://www.listennotes.com/search | /?q=JENNET%20CONANT%20irre... | | And another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWtDq5rWmmc | | (I've listened to only a minute or so, it's highly likely the | talks are near-identical.) | | The book: https://www.worldcat.org/title/irregulars-roald- | dahl-and-the... | ghaff wrote: | I've found that about 30 minute interviews work about right | for me. When I'm recording them, I may go as short as about | 15 and as long as about 45. But 20-30 always feels like the | sweet spot. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-30 23:00 UTC)