Oh absolutely. The attitude that most everyone has that they’re always the hero and never the villian is exactly how bad habits like sexism and racism continue to exist. I laugh when people say “If I was born in 1850, I wouldn’t have been racist”. Yeah, most likely you would have been, because you would have simply inherited the worldviews you were born into.
The reality is that even if you were born in 1980 as a male in North America, like I was, you will have inherited a sexist way of thinking from one or all of the following: parents, relatives, friends, relationships, coworkers, classsmates, politics, religion, pop culture, etc. we mostly don’t question the way we were herded through society as children, but as soon as you take off the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and re-examine it as an adult, the problems become immediately obvious.
Denying this doesn’t make it go away, but nor does crying and whining about it. Admitting our own faults, holding ourselves appropriately accountable, understanding where our influences came from, and practicing forgiveness before we jump at other people is how we more forward.
At the heart of issues like ageism, sexism, homophobia, and racism is essentially preferentialism: we prefer things we understand. We prefer to work with people who look and act like us. It’s kinda this self-affirming bias we’re all guilty of to some degree.
I honestly find all of the social unrest of the last decade truly fascinating, because for the first time, we’re all connected as people, so we’re learning A LOT about each other, and very rapidly. Of course it’s going to be explosive. Any time the world changes, our preferentialism gets shaken up, and the world has been going through more rapid change in the last few years than at any other point in history.
Blah blah blah, I could go on for hours on this.
So how does all this relate to Bond?
Well, James Bond is simply a product of his time, and his time was simply more sexist and racist than it is today. So what was going on in 1962 when Dr. No was made and the blueprint for 007 was being drawn?
The civil rights act was 1964, so racism was clearly a big issue, and the fair credit act wasn’t until 1974, so many women couldn’t even open a bank account independently.
Like any laws that aim to lessen discrimination, it’s simply law. It doesn’t change how people think overnight.
Dr. No and James Bond are simply products of their time.
Like others here have said, I still love these movies and have a machine on preorder from game room guys (great experience with them btw on getting a first wave premium Godzilla last year).
We can both love a franchise like James Bond while also acknowledging dated and problematic attitudes towards gender, sexual orientation, ethnicities, etc.
Evansvile, IN
Warrington
Edmonton, AB
Essen
