For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond

The first scene of the first Bond film, Dr. No (Terence Young 1962), opens with a formative introduction: “I admire your courage, Miss…?” – “Trench. Sylvia Trench. I admire your luck, Mr…?” – “Bond. James Bond”. 007 has just won a game of baccarat and learns the name of his next sexual conquest. But this is not another case of “boy meets girl.” It is this brief situation that sets the framework for the Bond formula: rather than generating new stories, the film series constitutes a game world in which the characters merely act and react, and in which courage and luck are elementary. Seen in this way, all the components within that game function as instruments that Bond uses in order to win. We can therefore assume that Bond’s encounters with women are as inevitable as they are constitutive. But these encounters are always ephemeral, with women of a certain type, and individually rather meaningless. Although women are woven into the narrative, there is never enough time to fully develop their characters and, as a result, there is no time for Bond to get to know them either. He seems to pick his girls at random, or, one could argue, that they are randomly picked for him as much as the game system allows for coincidence. These factors contribute to the impression that Bond’s women are mysterious sphinxes, which cannot be fathomed on every level. This is the case for the main “Bond Girls” and minor female characters in the series—be they good or evil. In fact, these minor characters, which I will refer to as “Secondary Girls”, encompass and problematize the basic traits of Bond Girls and Bond Girl Villains without being one or the other. Instead, they build on the mythical quality of the female body rooted in the opening credits of the films. This chapter will explore this argument by bringing into focus the narrative structures and aesthetic strategies of the Bond films, shifting the emphasis from Bond to the women surrounding him and inspiring him into action.

SECONDARY GIRLS

As many scholars have noted, the Bond films are structured around their plot and repertoire of characters. For instance, John Cawelti’s concept of “formula” has been used to define the seriality of Bond films in a cultural context (Moniot 25, 33). According to Cawelti, formula “represents the way in which a culture has embodied both mythical archetypes and its own preoccupations in narrative form” (387). In the franchise, Bond does not merely follow in the footsteps of traditional heroes, but rather serves as a mythical archetype himself, representing the phantasmagoric male imago of the 1960s in a transnational shape. Primarily being a servant of the British Empire, Bond’s cultural contexts and geopolitical interests involve both Britain and America. The character, originally depicted in Ian Fleming’s novels, has been remodeled in order to present a more “mid-Atlantic” image suitable for the American film market. Due to the influence of producer Albert R. Broccoli, Bond was envisioned “to appeal to American filmgoers as a man of action without putting them off with jarring British mannerisms” (Black 113). His character arguably corresponds with what Charles A. Reich describes as the “new man” of the technological age: “He is an artificially streamlined man, from whom irrationality, unpredictability, and complexity have been removed as far as possible” (161). Bond as an “artificially streamlined man” is a highly technical figure, surrounded by commercial goods and values being consumed within the framework of tourism. This is what constitutes his game plan and renders him a “man of action” in the world in which he operates. The superficial exoticism of the Bond films can be seen as a mechanism to provide them with a certain mythic metalanguage. It connects 007 to a world that is both accessible and enigmatic, where he is just as secret as he is an agent.

Bond’s various mythic journeys circulate around key settings, situations, and figures that have to be “unlocked” in order for him to progress. All of these factors revolve around the films’ female characters and their positioning in the narratives, the pattern of which originates in Fleming’s novels. In his summary of Umberto Eco’s patterning of the typical Bond narrative scheme, Toby Miller writes:

M assigns a task to Bond; the villain or his agents appear to Bond; the villain and Bond do battle; the woman appears to Bond, who seduces her; the villain captures Bond and sometimes the woman, then tortures his captives; Bond kills the villain and/or his perversely proportioned assistant; and Bond escapes to temporary happiness with the woman, who is then taken from him. (130)

As foundational texts, the Bond novels provide a narrative pattern that has been played out in the Bond films. It is the villain who serves as the male counterweight to Bond’s agency. The woman, however, functions as a seductive device to overbalance this constellation—working for one side or the other, but never motivated by her personal ambition. As a result, the woman functions as a “tipping point” that helps to ensure the success of Bond’s mission (Black 109).

The film Octopussy (John Glen 1983) provides one of the best examples of the functionality of the Secondary Girl. At a hotel casino in India, Bond makes the acquaintance of Magda, a mysterious blonde woman he had noticed at an auction. As he speaks to her, she replies, “You have a very good memory for faces”, with Bond responding, “And figures.” Bond peaks Magda’s interest when he reveals that he is in possession of the Fabergé egg she thought she had acquired at the auction. Although she initially declines his offer for a drink, she later meets him in his hotel room where their materialistic game is transformed into a love story. John Barry’s romantic score sets the scene: the camera pans from clothing scattered across the floor to the bed where Bond and Magda have just made love. As she leans over, an octopus tattoo on her lower back becomes visible. When asked about it, she replies, “That’s my little octopussy.” Not only is this statement an allusion to Magda’s sexual attractiveness, but the word “octopussy” is also a reference to the film’s title and Bond Girl. An enigmatic figure, Octopussy commands a squadron of Amazonian beauties living and training on an island, where men are excluded. Magda belongs to this mysterious cult of women withdrawing from patriarchal society. Bond’s intimate encounter with her is thereby labeled as an exquisite achievement. Moreover, it relays the impression that sleeping with Magda will bring Bond one step closer to meeting and bedding her female leader. Thus, it is Octopussy, symbolically marking Magda as one of her subordinates, who represents Bond’s sexual goal.

As exemplified by Magda, Bond’s Secondary Girls are “unknown women” whose potential, once revealed, is turned into effectiveness again. They have to stay unknown to be means of attraction and keep the story going. Their myth is not only constituted on mystery and fascination, but draws on reproducibility, randomness, and a systematic affirmation of anonymity. In this regard the apparent demystification, that is, the undressing and instrumentalization, of the Secondary Girl is part of her “remystification”—it pushes her back into randomness, so that the game can start over again—in another Bond movie, with other women.

MOVING IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS: THE FEMALE BODY IN THE BOND OPENING TITLES

While the positioning of the Secondary Girl serves a narrative function, it also helps to structure the visual aesthetics of each film. The image of the mysterious but reproducible woman is set up and reinforced by the title sequences. The female body serves as a projection site for erotic fantasies, ideas of power, and danger. Maurice Binder’s opening titles set the precedent for the depiction of Bond’s unknown women. His first title sequence in From Russia with Love (Terence Young 1963) projects credits onto the body of a belly dancer. The movement of dimly lit arms, legs, and veils makes the neon letters dance with/on them. A fragmented body, divided into several close-ups, moves within the frame. In terms of ancient legends, this depiction is reminiscent of Salome’s dance of the seven veils. But in regards to the cinematic apparatus itself, Mary Ann Doane argues that the veil “acts as a trope that allows one to evade the superficial, to complicate the surface by disallowing its self-sufficiency. But what the veil in the cinema makes appear to be profound is, in fact, a surface” (Femmes 55). Consequently, the dancer’s face is revealed once early in the sequence, but is then concealed in shadow and later three neon numbers, “007”, are superimposed onto it. In the following film, Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton 1964), the title sequence not only shows production-related text merging with the female body, but also displays a woman painted in gold, with actual scenes from the film projected onto her body. This image is a reference to Secondary Girl Jill Masterson who is found dead on a hotel bed, suffocated by gold paint.

It is my argument that the title sequences both anticipate and illustrate the treatment of Secondary Girls within the Bond narrative. These female silhouettes are just as anonymous as the Secondary Girls featured in the films, and similarly reduced to their physical appearance. This exploitative strategy reflects a symbiotic relationship: the female body is the foundation on which the narrative and imagery of the Bond films is structured. It is the underlining framework for the secret agent’s actions. As such, the unknown woman is consequently framed in terms of visual aesthetics.

The title sequences link the female body with objects of power, violence, and nature. The living body is reduced to a surface onto which different textures are projected. In the title sequence for Thunderball (Terence Young 1965) plain black silhouettes of naked women are set against an underwater background, while in Diamonds Are Forever (Guy Hamilton 1971), a woman’s body is decorated with jewelry, and even becomes a diamond textured silhouette. In other films, female figures are linked to gun barrels, as in Licence to Kill (John Glen 1989), or even oil drills in The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted 1999). In some cases, their faces might be shown, but this only underscores their lack of relevance in the film; these women never appear in the movie and are merely positioned as models of idealized beauty.

The motif of the shadow-figure is highly significant for the Bond title sequences. It represents a thoroughly stylized body that is a product of and driving force for these visual dynamics. While the female body is presented as an object of desire, it is also reduced to a surface with a somewhat mechanical quality. The most elaborate example can be found in Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode 1997). The title sequence starts with a shattering screen and an inward movement through a digital matrix with bits and bytes, and twitching electric impulses. Then tiny female bodies emerge while floating next to each other like small organisms observed through a microscope. Radiographic images of a watch, bullets, and guns contrast with smoothly winding figures of women. In this collage, all objects are somehow connected to female figures and these bodies become deadly weapons, gaining control over time and violence. Following this, the image dissolves to a computer chip, with a female face emerging from within. Shortly after, a full body rises from the bottom of the screen, being partially radiographed again. This time, the X-ray fragments superimposing the technological physical structure are presented as deceptions. They conceal the woman’s true mechanical nature. Technology is treated as a manipulative threat to human existence, which is a familiar topic of the Bond narrative. In Tomorrow Never Dies, this threat becomes more subversive, infiltrating civil society, and maneuvering the fallible minds of everyday people. As a product of the 1990s, the film is critiquing the political power of media. The seductive woman can therefore be seen as a metaphor for the media’s persuasiveness.