hey, sexism! what a nice new suit you're wearing.

[hoosierbitch]

DIE JAMES BOND DIE. 

My dad and I like to see action movies together. It's how we bond! And I think I've been spoiled for action movies lately (Avengers, Bourne Legacy, even Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol--and a lot of Buffy...), because I didn't expect Bond movie to be as bad as it was. 

Guys. It was so bad. 

There were four female characters. Three slept with James Bond. Two ended up dead. One never had a name. 

All the bad guys, except for the main one, were white. All the bad guys were male. All the background MI6 employees that I saw were male, and I think mostly white. The bad guy, of course, was also vaguely queer. 

Then the one main woman of color, who kicked more ass than James Bond in the first fight scene, ends the movie choosing to be a secretary because of a piece of advice that Bond gave her. Field work isn't for everyone. (Only white men, stupid.)

THE WORST PART: There's a woman who Bond is seducing at a bar. He grabs her wrist, and from a tattoo there, deduces that she was a sex slave since she was 12 or 13, and got out of it because she fell in love with a man. She leaves and tell Bond to meet her at her boat in an hour (if he survives...). 

Spoiler: he survives. And goes to her boat. Where she is showering. And he gets naked, goes into the shower, grabs her from behind, and then they fuck in the shower. 

Because in this screenwriter's head, that's a good idea. 

She should have shot him. A lot. 

At the end (SPOILER!) Judi Dench dies. In my brain, to keep from rage-black-out-ing, I figured out that it must have been a Life Model Decoy, and somewhere in Wales M and Coulson are drinking tea and planning world domination.

The end. 
 

Comments

[yvonne]

well isn't it lovely. and I was just thinking of watching it, 'cause my friend said it was SO AWESOME.

[hoosierbitch]

I know that I'm hypersensitive to sexism in film, but this one wasn't, like, borderline, it was AWFUL. And I think the movie was plain ol' crap anyway. (At one point, Bond actually unironically says: "There's a storm coming." REALLY, SCREENWRITERS? REALLY?)

[kellifer-fic.livejournal.com]

I just... I never liked the Bond movies and I don't think I ever will. They never read grown up to me, just kind of male fantasy which is fine I suppose but I'm definitely not the right target market for it... and I get so BORED because the plots are all cut and paste.

The Bourne movie, or ALL the Bourne movies, they managed to be in the same kind of category and not read as pure male fantasy that ignores the needs or even brains of the female audience. You can have the action without ignoring half your audience. It obviously can be done. :)

[hoosierbitch.livejournal.com]

I mean, I only watched one of the old movies (Brosnan) and didn't love it. But I didn't hate it as much as I hated the new one. It's not my quite style of action movie (and I do LOVE action movies!), but I'd have been okay with the style if it wasn't for the misogyny.

I need to rewatch Bourne. They do it so right. Is that a carryover from the books? I've never read them.

It pisses me off because, like, I want to be their target audience. I like mostly-naked people and also explosions! I will pay to see those movies! But I want to watch movies that want me to be in the audience.

[kellifer-fic.livejournal.com]

i tried reading the Bourne Identity and I wouldn't recommend it, purely because it's fairly old now and probably has the same problem the Bond movies do - there is a level of old school "accepted" misogyny that was the style at the time with the spy/action genre books.

[hoosierbitch.livejournal.com]

I love your icon.

And shall avoid the Bourne books. :-) It's not like my to-read pile isn't big enough already... *sigh*

[kellifer-fic.livejournal.com]

Hee - I wish I had Iron Man and Captain America one - I might have to invest in little shirts for my nephews for Xmas! :D

The later books might be better, but the first ones kind of are set around the Cold War era if I remember (it's been years since I had a go at reading any!) but the movie was definitely a departure from the original book.

[monkeyonthelam.livejournal.com]

Avengers, Bourne Legacy, MI: Ghost Protocol. I sense a common Jeremy Renner theme. I had never seen any of the mission impossible movies before but I watched the last one for Renner. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I probably won't go back to watch the Renner-less ones though.

I was never interested in the Bond movies for one of the reasons you stated. It looks like pure male fantasy.

[hoosierbitch.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

What can I say? I have a type...

I like the prior MI movies just fine, but the fourth one's in a class of its own.

Yeah. Avoid the Bond. *sigh*

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I didn't like ANY of the female characters as they were written in this movie.

First, M's ineptitude as a leader lost them the disc. Then, she gets the heads up that terrorists are about to storm the court where her hearing is held and does she warn the security? No! How many people who kicked it there could've been still alive if she evacuated the building as she was asked?

Then Moneypenny. I don't blame her for shooting Bond, she warned M that she didn't have a clean shot. That I didn't mind. What I did mind was her attitude afterwards. "I guess I should say sorry, huh? HAHA, funny thing." Like WHAT? And "I'm on desk duty because obviously killing the best agent the agency had is bad, HAHA." WHAT?! I could've taken their joking if there was one hearfelt apology. But everything was a joke to her - I can take that in movies like Bad Boys, not in something I should be taking more or less seriously.

And Serine? Serene? Celine? Sorry, I can't remember her name. She had the personality of a wet dishrag.

No matter how bad Quantum of Solace was, Fields had spunk and Camille was strong despite her traumas and fears. Vesper in Casino Royale too. And I missed the M from the previous movies, the M who trusted Bond to do his job and who went toe to toe with the CIA without making godawful decisions.

By the end of the movie, I wanted to shake the writers and yell at them that this is not how you write female characters. When I mentioned it to a friend who loved the movie, I was told I obviously didn't get it. Well, I guess I did not.

[hoosierbitch.livejournal.com]

I couldn't believe what they did to M. She didn't do a single thing right the entire fucking movie. Literal dead weight. And she could have so easily been fucking amazing.

The whole Moneypenny thing was just a clusterfuck. (Hey, BTW, do you know WHERE on his body she shot him? Because terrorist guy shot him in the shoulder, but where did she hit him to knock him off the train? I was confused.)

I had better memories of the last two, but now they are all tainted. ARGH.

Yup. By the end I really wanted Bond to die.

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Hm, I thought she shot him in the chest too? I might be mistaken, though.

[ivorysilk]

I didn't care for it either, but just because it seemed uninteresting in parts and wasteful in others. I already posted a mini-rant about how I liked the villain more than most of the good guys. Ah, well; I've never been much of a fan of the Bond franchise, although well done a this movie was, I think I liked it less than others. I still like the Brosnan Bond movie best--although he seemed faintly embarrassed throughout.

[hoosierbitch.livejournal.com]

Yeah--on top of the shittiness of the movie's politics, it also just wasn't a very good movie. BLARGH.

NOW GO WRITE ME THINGS.

[orphica.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie, and despite my love for Bond films, told my boyfriend, "Today I learned women can't drive or shoot guns."

The shower scene just had no room for consent and that bothered me.

The woman becoming Moneypenny, I didn't mind her retiring from field work, because she did have a bad experience, but I was like, Secretary?! I think it's supposed to be ok because she turned out to be Moneypenny, but it seemed like a big demotion to me, until they show her kicking some serious intellectual as as M's assistant.