For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond

James Bond, as a character, is virtually inconceivable without women. They serve as his enemies, allies, and lovers, and their characters are defined almost exclusively by their relationships with him. While scholars have explored the representation of Bond Girls, female villains, M, and Miss Moneypenny, little critical attention has been directed towards examining the women and, more specifically, the female bodies, featured in the opening title sequences. This chapter will redress this critical oversight by examining the form and function of these title sequences, as this element has helped producers to integrate more women and especially female sexuality into the Bond franchise. Using the work of Laura Mulvey and particularly her gaze theory, I will argue that the (semi-)nude female body is served up as an appetizer to a presumed male audience in order to peak their interest in the forthcoming film.

HISTORY AND TYPOLOGY OF THE TITLE SEQUENCE

The term “title sequence” denotes the part of the film that preludes the main narrative. It serves three key purposes: first, it provides detailed information about the cast and crew (Stanitzek 12); second, it helps to draw the audience into the film (ibid. 8); and third, it prepares the viewer by integrating relevant information from the film, announcing how it is to be read and providing clues about the genres they will be confronting (Gardies 25). The title sequence can be presented in a variety of forms including live-action, animation, or even a mixture of the two. It also features writing and, in some cases, a title song. As Georg Stanitzek notes, this diversity renders the title sequence a small work of art or even a “little auteur film” (9, 13, 17).

The history of the title sequence dates back to 1897, when Thomas Edison inserted cards with the title, company name, and copyright information before the start of his films to indicate ownership. Over the next 50 years, title sequences expanded to include more content such as the cast and the scriptwriter (Stanitzek 12). In the 1950s, the design and production of title sequences evolved as companies began to produce them. Title sequences created in the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by “a single metaphor into which the film seems to be concentrated in its title sequence” (ibid. 16), and are related stylistically to contemporary poster art (ibid.). Title sequences of the 1980s and 1990s began to reduce the credits, and it is becoming more common to name only the title, lead actors, and key creative personnel such as director, producer, and screenwriter, and to move all other credits to the end titles (Hediger 112).

Given the diverse range of title sequences, numerous attempts have been made to create a typology. This has not always proven to be easy since title sequences contain mixtures of different elements, both graphic and live-action, which make it difficult to assign them to distinct categories. The following typology is based on Deborah Allison’s categorization, but also takes into account André Gardies’ observations about the embedding of writing in the title sequence. Unlike the film, the title sequence always has to contend with writing, which is both a characteristic and obligatory part of it (Gardies 23), and which is always meant to be emphasized (especially if there is next to no film material, and the title sequence consists almost solely of writing).

1. Title Sequences that have No Direct Connection to the Diegetic Space

The first category described by Allison includes title sequences that show no connection, or only a potential connection, to the diegetic space (“Innovative” 93-5). Here she works on the assumption that the credits are written on objects that are not always presented as part of the diegesis. André Gardies’ classification of writing in title sequences seems to be relevant here, and especially his remark that the writing can also be superimposed on an abstract background (24). This renders the title sequence even more separate from the film and serves the sole purpose, according to Stanitzek, of naming the people responsible for the film and drawing attention to production processes, for economic and legal reasons (12). One example of a title sequence completely separate from the film is The Terminator (James Cameron 1984).

2. Title Sequences with a Connection to the Diegetic Space

Allison’s second category includes films that “inscribe their titles into the diegetic space by positioning the text as part of the scenery in which the action occurs, occasionally proceeding without even a cut at the end of the title sequence” (“Novelty” ¶ 20). A good example is the title sequence of The Birdcage (Mike Nichols 1996). The film opens with an aerial shot moving across the Atlantic Ocean towards the Birdcage drag club located on the coast of South Beach, Florida. In a long single-take shot, the mobile camera enters the establishment, slowly drawing viewers into the narrative and the diegesis. As observed by Allison, the title sequence merges into the body of the film without any visible boundary (ibid.).

3. Interaction between Credits/Titles and Actors or Crew Members

In her third category, Allison describes title sequences that are created by the actors of the film, or in which the protagonists of the film play a part independently. One prominent example is The Pink Panther (Blake Edwards 1964): here, “The Pink Panther” manifests in the form of a pink panther that happily hops and skips its way through the title sequence. The sequence is animated, in the tradition of most title sequences of the 1950s and 1960s, and shows the panther moving between the letters and playing with them. The letters also respond to him: for example, when he wolf-whistles at the credits for Claudia Cardinale, the ‘E’ turns into a hand that slaps him. This title sequence is an early reference to gender theory discourses; the sequence hints that Cardinale is emancipated and can defend herself against shameless “flirtation”.

FEMININITY IN TITLE SEQUENCES

Since the 1960s, title sequences have presented femininity and female bodies in an erotically charged and appetizing manner. When examining gendered verbal communication, Julia T. Wood notes that “language reflects cultural values and is a powerful influence on our perceptions […] our language continues to devalue females and femininity by trivializing, deprecating, and diminishing women and anything associated with femininity” (123). Women are often labelled as immature or juvenile (e.g. baby, girlie), equated with food (e.g. sugar, sweet thing), discussed as animals (e.g. chick, bitch), and called derogatory terms (e.g. slut, whore). And so, the representation of women as appetizers—small dishes of food served before the main course of a meal in order to stimulate one’s appetite—through non-verbal means has the same effect of deprecating femininity. The seduction taking place on screen is often achieved through disguising, defamiliarizing, and, importantly, fragmenting the female body. Title sequences rely on the principle that “sex sells,” which requires the overt sexualization and exploitation of the female body and a clear ascription of gender as defined by Simone de Beauvoir (295) and Judith Butler (25). In these schematic representations, feminine contours of the body are emphasized to an extreme degree. As noted by Jean Baudrillard “eroticisation always consists in the erectility of a fragment of the barred body” (102), a statement that draws attention to the essence of a fetish. In the title sequence for Last Woman on Earth (Roger Corman 1960), for example, the camera pans across a photo in a close up shot and fragments the body of the subject. This body becomes a puzzle that viewers have to put together themselves. At the same time, this title sequence eroticizes the individual fragments of her body and presents the woman in a de-individualized manner.

The title sequence for Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow-Up also presents the eroticization of female body fragments. Cut-out letters of the credits reside in the foreground while female body parts appear in the background and offer the viewer mere glimpses of the dancing body; the viewer senses the body rather than really seeing it. This is exactly what makes the title sequence appealing—it stimulates the viewer’s interest in the film much like an appetizer does for a meal. While the dancing woman plays a critical role in helping to draw the viewer into the film and diegesis, she remains anonymous and is not granted an identity in the film.

In comparison, the title sequence in Barbarella (Roger Vadim 1968) not only presents femininity but also celebrates it in the form of a strip-tease performed by a space woman while the whole body can be seen. As noted by Alain Bernardin, the woman is “dancing in the void. Because the more slowly a woman dies, the more erotic it is. So I believe that this would reach its apex with a woman in a state of weightlessness” (qtd. in Baudrillard 107). Jean Baudrillard expands on this point when he writes: