For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond

GoldenEye (Martin Campbell 1995) stands as a significant film in the Eon Bond franchise for being the first film since Dr. No (Terence Young 1962) to introduce new actors in the roles of both James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) and his boss, M (Judi Dench). It also marks the first time that M is presented as a new character, a female superior who challenges the perceptions of Bond (and, by extension, the audience) regarding women. In GoldenEye, M is set up as a strong female character within the traditionally stereotypical and limited gender framework of the Bond film. M is neither Bond Girl nor Bad Girl. She establishes her own complex female identity, defying attempts by Bond, other characters, and the audience to categorize and define her.

As Dench is the only actor to survive the 2006 franchise reboot, Casino Royale (Martin Campbell), her character makes an interesting subject for an examination of the changing attitudes towards women, particularly women in authority, in the series. Despite the presence of Dench’s M in the first three Craig era films, there is a noticeable change in her characterization and her relationship to the younger, less experienced, and more petulant Bond. In Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster 2008), and Skyfall (Sam Mendes 2012) M’s initial strength, which I argue comes by defying attempts to categorize her, disappears and is replaced with uncertainty about herself and her abilities. This chapter will examine the shift in the representation of Dench’s M from an unusually complex female character in the Brosnan era to a domesticated, neutered mother-figure in the Craig era. By exploring how the Brosnan films initially draw M as one who challenges the limited gender identities of the Bond world and how that characterization is undone by “domesticating” her in the Craig films, I will show how M’s relationship to Bond shifts from employer to mother. Although it is Silva, the main villain of Skyfall, who takes great delight in calling M, “Mummy,” the previous two films lay the groundwork for this change. The plot of Skyfall and Bond himself conspire to label M “mother” by altering the nature of her relationship to Bond and reinforcing her association with domestic spaces. In creating this identifiable label for her, one not traditionally associated with the Bond franchise, M is reduced to “understandable” and simple. She is subject to a similar violent backlash experienced by Tracy Draco/di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Peter Hunt 1969) when she becomes Mrs. Bond. Within the limited gender perspective of the Bond world, mothers (like wives) are unnecessary and undesirable, and so her exit is foreshadowed and required.

LIMITED OPTIONS? ROLES FOR WOMEN IN THE BOND FILMS

There has been an oversimplification in critical literature considering the role of women in the Bond films. Through this limited perspective, female characters in the franchise are viewed primarily as sexualized objects upon whom Bond, the strong sexual adventurer, preys. In their detailed quantitative content analysis of female characters in Bond films, Kimberley A. Neuendorf et al. coded 195 female characters from 20 Bond films (from Dr. No to Die Another Day [Lee Tamahori 2002]) to determine such things as importance to narrative, age, ethnicity, hair length and color, body type, and sexual contact with Bond: “One of the most striking findings of this content analysis resides in the fact that despite societal progression of feminist ideology, the women of Bond continue to be portrayed in a rather limited and sex-stereotyped manner” (758). After the first 40 years of cinematic Bond, the majority of female characters—whether good, bad, good-then-bad, or bad-then-good—are still young, attractive, and sexually desirable.

Despite the admittedly limited roles for females in the Bond films, considerable interest remains in these characters. Scholars such as Christine Bold, Tony W. Garland, and Lisa Funnell have broadened the understanding of women and the more nuanced role of gender in Bond films. Bold’s against the grain reading of Fleming’s narratives sees women as “the enabling mechanism” (171) for Bond and the British Secret Service. While early filmic Bond Girls such as Honey Ryder (1962), Pussy Galore (1964), Kissy Suzuki (1967), and Tiffany Case (1971) are presented as sexualized objects of desire, they also provide Bond with assistance that aids in the success of his missions. Garland and Funnell have each explored the nuances of those sexually desirable female characters who seek to harm or kill Bond, what Garland labels the Bond girl villain (179) and Funnell differentiates as a separate category, the “Bad” Girl (“Negotiating” 199). Yet there remains a desire to describe/categorize all women in the series as Bond Girls, which leads us to overlook the variety of female characters such as Bond Girls, Bond Girl Villains (or Bad Girls), secondary female roles, Miss Moneypenny, and M.

THE NEW HEAD OF MI6: M’S INTRODUCTION

The prologue sequence of GoldenEye (1995), in which Bond (Pierce Brosnan) believes colleague Alec Trevelyan dies, takes place nine years before the main narrative. This gap makes it hard to situate these events in terms of continuity within the Bond franchise. GoldenEye was released six years after Timothy Dalton’s final outing as Bond in Licence to Kill (John Glen 1989). The idea of lost time is interesting in that it allows the film to address the “changing world” and values. The nine year gap also serves to distance the new M from the failed mission. The introduction of Dench as M, which occurs more than a third of the way through the film, highlights societal changes in terms of women’s roles in positions of leadership, particularly the espionage community, and provides a unique female character within the Bond canon who can voice criticism of the male dominated world of the Bond films while allowing Bond to continue his womanizing ways. Dench’s M is presented as a complex character, a strong and independent older woman who resists the charms of Bond, unlike Moneypenny, and refuses to be placed into categories by Bond or anyone else.

In her first scene, in the situation room with Bond and MI6 Chief of Staff Bill Tanner, Dench portrays M as staid, self-restrained, and authoritative. Before her appearance, Tanner refers to M as “the Evil Queen of Numbers” and states that she will not trust Bond’s instinct over solid evidence. Bond’s cough alerts Tanner to M’s presence right behind him and certainly within earshot. Tanner’s face shows his awareness of his blunder and he steps aside to reveal Dench. Immediately M carries herself as stoic and unemotional, contrasting her with the two other women Bond has had contact with at this point: his panicked driving evaluator and the sexually lethal Xenia Onatopp. Tanner’s comment, which is never mentioned again, is a rather juvenile and sexist attempt to categorize M as a stereotypical “Wicked Queen,” a female figure of fright from fairy tales or an unreasonable adversary/authority figure to be feared. The comment attempts to dismiss M as a creditable superior and instead turns her into a figure of parody for the men of MI6 who are not used to a woman in charge. M faces similarly sexist comments from men in the military and espionage community. In Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode 1997), when Admiral Roebuck argues against M’s recommendation for an investigation and for a strong naval response, he tells M, “With all due respect, M, sometimes I don’t think you have the balls for this job.” M’s response subverts the implications of her lacking the male-ness necessary for her profession with her retort, “Perhaps. But the advantage is I don’t have to think with them all the time.” In Die Another Day, American CIA agent Damian Falco tells M that she needs to “get [her] house in order,” a colloquial expression implying she is a failed homemaker.

In GoldenEye, M’s response to Tanner’s comment establishes her understated authority by its coolness and anticipates the other feminine/domestic label that could be applied to her—that of mother: “If I want sarcasm, I’ll talk to my children.” In other words, M has children of her own and will not act as a surrogate mother for a bunch of immature schoolboys in the workplace. Stephen B. Tippins Jr. argues that the relationship between Bond and the male M suggests a paternal one:

And if you read carefully between the lines—or listen closely to the give-and-take on screen—you’ll notice that Bond’s relationship with his superior “M” always plays much more like the relationship between a headstrong adolescent and a stern, hard-of-praise father, as if […] Bond [strains] for fatherly guidance. (36)

In this introductory scene, M rejects the idea that her character will be fulfilling a maternal role for Bond or for anyone else in her professional capacity. Later, in The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted 1999), M again stresses her unwillingness to act “like a mother,” telling Bond that she repressed all of her maternal instincts to convince her friend, Sir Robert King, not to pay the ransom for his kidnapped daughter, Elektra King, for professional reasons: to draw the criminals out. M refuses to define her power by her reproductive abilities or what Welldon calls “the power of the womb” (40). Neither does she attempt to falsely enact what Funnell describes in Warrior Women as “maternal masculinity”—muscular action woman who “temporarily employs physical force to protect her children” and who is “frequently (mis) interpreted by audience and critics as enacting masculinity” (166). M shows no discernible characteristics of the “caring mother” or the muscular female hero.

The cultural significance of Dench’s role as M becomes much more apparent when considering research on the (under)representation of older women in popular film. In their 1997 study (published just two years after GoldenEye), Bazzini et al. discovered that in film “[80] percent of characters over the age of 35 were male, whereas only 20% were female” (541). These older women were typically “cast in a particularly negative light […] less friendly, less intelligent, less good, possessing less wealth, and being less attractive” (ibid. 541). According to Lauzen and Dozier, in terms of positions of power and authority, “male characters are more likely than female characters to be employed and hold” such positions, and “female characters were more likely to be found in relatively powerless household occupations” (439). Tara Brabazon described Moneypenny, who had, until Skyfall, functioned solely as M’s assistant, where “she can view power, but wields little” (490) in similar terms. Played by Lois Maxwell in 14 films (1962-85), Moneypenny shifts from Bond’s partner in an innocuous flirtation to an “Old Maid” caricature—a woman sexually past her prime, “ragged, over-painted and old” (Brabazon 493).

From her first scene in GoldenEye M establishes that she is in control. Even the framing during the cross-cut dialogue between Bond, Tanner, and M places her in the position of authority (Bond and Tanner are framed together; M is in a close up). She allows Tanner to do his job and continue briefing Bond, but feels comfortable interrupting when she has something to add, showing herself to be intelligent and well briefed. Similarly, her clothing is reserved and practical, but authoritative. She wears what will be her standard costume throughout the Brosnan films: a solid color (usually dark blue) pant suit set with her collarless jacket buttoned to the neck. She does not attempt to look overtly masculine, especially when compared to the various uniformed men that surround her with medals and distinctions, artefacts that function as outward signs of military success. M lacks the naval credentials of her predecessor. She does not look, or act, feminine, as defined by the Bond films, with form-fitting dresses or showy jewelry. As Welldon notes, “[s]uch is the bitter power of that the feminine body and femininity have been assigned as opposed to the lack of power of accorded to [the female] intellect” (24). M’s power, however, derives from her intellect and cold reason.