Live and Let Evolve The James Bond Titles EDWARD BIDDULPH 1 In recent years, the unveiling of the title of a James Bond flm has garnered a great deal of interest among journalists and James Bond fans alike. Before the ti- tle of the 25th flm, No Time To Die, was announced y Eon "the #roduction com- #any responsible for #roducing the Bond flms$, media outlets joined in with the speculation about #otential titles. An o#inion #iece in The Times y Ben Macin- tyre "2'()$, for example, considered the merits of the remaining unused titles y Ian +leming, while Empire Magazine announced that the working title of the flm was Shatterhand ",ravis 2'(-$. &edia interest in the titles, however, continues long afer the fren/ied coverage of the flm #roduction has died down and the flm0s cinematic run comes to an end, with the titles ty#ically re-emerging as, or inspiring, newspaper headlines. +or instance, in March 2'(), Metro s#lashed the following headline on its front #age in response to the #oisoning of Sergei Skri- #al in Salisbury2 3+rom 4ussia…6ith 7ate8 "4adnedge 2'()$. 4emarkably, the headline came 55 years afer From Russia With Love "(-9:$ was released and 9( years afer the book from which the flm derived was #ublished "(-5;$, attesting to the traction that the title has in #opular culture. ( I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for the helpful suggestions and advice. %ny errors that remain are, of course, entirely my responsi ility. Edward Biddulph is 0n independen+ rese0r1her 0n, +he 0u+hor o3 se4er0l p0pers 0n, boo5 120pters on 60mes Bon,& He is 0lso +2e 0u+hor o3 Licence to Cook7 0 60mes Bond 1oo5boo5& Volume 4 · Issue 1 · Spring 2021 ISSN 2 14!21"# DOI% 10&24#""'(bs&*" Dis+ribu+ed under -- B. 4&0 U/ It is not only newspapers that have turned to the titles of the James Bond books and flms for inspiration. %uthors have ada#ted the Bond titles for their own books; company directors have imbued their businesses with Bondian e*- citement y naming them afer the ooks and flms; and television #rogrammes, too = children0s cartoons and mystery dramas among them = have given their episodes Bond-in>uenced titles. !vidently the titles have a life eyond the medium of the books and flms. 6hile Bond titles are a conspicuous example of James Bond0s currency in contemporary culture, the #henomenon is y no means restricted to them; other #hrases deriving from the ooks and flms, such as 3shaken, not stirred8, 3Bond, James Bond8, and 3Bond girls8, have also seen wider e*#ression. ,his article will consider the use of Bond titles, and to a lesser extent other Bond-related #hrases, in the media, in books, in usiness, and in television, analysing and comparing the #attern of use to answer several ?uestions: why have the titles been used@ 7ow have they been adapted@ 6hich titles are selected most ofen and why@ Aoes the use of the titles vary depending on medium? ,hat such ?uestions evoke the language = selection, adaptation, variation = of iologi- cal evolution is deliberate, as the #rinci#les of evolution ofer a robust model to e*#lain the mechanism of cultural selection and change. %.er all, what makes the uilding-blocks of biology "genes$ successful in the natural environment "Aawkins 2''9, (;$ = fecundity "they replicate ofen$< fdelity "they replicate accu- rately$< and longevity "they survive over multi#le generations$ = is similar to what makes the building-blocks of culture successful in what might be termed the 3cultural environment8. %dditionally, the #reconditions of evolution in nature are ap#licable to evolution in culture "Aennett (--5, :C:< Doyne 2'(', (2< &esoudi 2'((, 2;-3C$. ,here is variation "multi#le versions of cultural entities$< competition or diBerential ftness "cultural entities that are better suited, or adapted, than others to their environments being #referentially selected = think of the classic competition etween videota#e formats in the (-;'s and (-)'s, with E71 winning over Betamax$< and inheritance "transmission of ideas, for e*- ample, through learning from #arents and teachers or through #eer grou#s, in- ternet 3in>uencers8, or television$. Let us examine the term 3Bond girl8. It emerged as journalistic shorthand = used ty#ically in headlines = and in cultural studies in the mid-1-9's "Snelling (-95, ('5< Amis (-95$ to describes James Bond0s companions in both the books and the nascent flm series, and has remained in use ever since "Biddul#h 2'(;$. It fulfls the three criteria of genetic success, being replicated ofen "for example in the #ress, es#ecially when a Bond flm is being released$, as well as accurately 2 In+ern0+ion0l 6ourn0l o3 60mes Bon, Studies · Volume 4 · Issue 1 · Spring 2021 "in form as well as meaning$ and over a long #eriod of time "some 55 years at the time of writing). ,here has been both variation and competition, but alternatives, such as 3James Bond0s girlfriend8, in use in newspaper articles of the (-;'s, and the more modern 3Bond woman8, which has emerged more recently "ibid.$, have not fulflled these criteria, consequently failing to become as well established in the cultural environment and lowering their chances of being inherited. In other words, they have either not caught on "3Bond woman8$ or are now virtually cul- turally extinct "3James Bond0s girlfriend8$. 6hat is more, like biological evolu- tion, these results have hap#ened gradually, almost imperce#tibly, and in an undirected way. Guite how the building-blocks of culture are defned, and at what scale, is subject to much debate. 4ichard Aawkins, one of the earliest #roponents of the culture-biology analogy, #roposed the concept of 3memes8, or #ieces of informa- tionHideas that come together to be e*#ressed as objects, #aintings, or other vehi- cles. &emes act as units of cultural selection analogous to the gene and are su - ject to selection #ressures "Aawkins 2''9, ()--2'($. 1uch cultural information is transmitted through communication or other media, and spreads y being copied or imitated. 6hile the concept has not been universally accepted,2 we can recognise that distinct elements of culture that may be #art of larger entities have a certain amount of independence and are themselves subject to selection, variation, replication, and so on. +or example, the concept of the Bond villain survives outside the flm series, with elements "or memes$ that contribute to the concept = #hysical >aws and other markers of diBerence "such as ethnicity$< the technologically advanced lair< the white cat< the over-elaborate schemes = being ap#ro#riated or replicated without reference to Bond in, for instance, non-Bond flms, television #rogrammes, and advertising. Indeed, some of these elements were themselves inherited y the Bond books and flms, having earlier origins, for example in classic literature such as 1ap#er0s Bulldog Arummond series "(-2'-1-:;$ and earlier still in Jules Eerne0s (-'C novel, Master of the World. Many other elements of the Bond universe have been similarly ap#ropri- ated, not least Bond titles, on which the remaining discussion will largely focus. &y research ?uestions can now be recast in more suitable terms2 6hat gives cer- tain Bond titles a greater selective advantage than others? 6hat selection #res- sures are the use and variation of titles res#onding to? 6hy are some Bond titles 2 Ben Dullen "2'''$ has argued that culture acts more like viruses than genes< although, ironically, the term “meme8 has demonstrated evolutionary success and cultural ft- ness y adapting and coming to mean an image or text, usually humorous, that is spread with variation via the internet. E. Bi,,ulp2 · Li4e 0n, Le+ E4ol4e: 82e 60mes Bon, 8i+les 9 more successful than others? Are Bond titles evolving? % word may be said of the means of analysis. In assembling examples of Bond titles being used in non- Bond-related contexts, I have built u# reasonably large datasets that are amenable to statistical and multivariate analytical methods routinely ap#lied to social sciences, such as archaeology "Shennan (--;$. Ine such techni?ue is corre- spondence analysis, using the J%1, #rogram "7ammer, 7ar#er, and 4yan 2''($. ,his multivariate techni?ue allows comparison between datasets of varying si/e and composition, drawing out similarities and diBerences that might otherwise be masked "Shennan (--;, :')-3C($. ,he end-product of analysis is the scatter- gram. Aatasets that are similar in terms of their com#osition should be clustered. ,he #oint at which the axes intersect represents the average #rofle across the dataset. “NEVER ON THE FIRM ! TIME"# $OM%&N' N&ME! Based in the city of Ixford, KL, 3Shaken M 1tirred8 is a mobile bar and cocktail company specialising in #roviding fully stafed and stocked cocktail ars for functions and events. It #rovides ice, glass hire, and bar e?ui#ment, and at one #oint even had on its staf a Aaniel-Craig-as-James-Bond lookalike, who was available to don the dinner suit and arrive at events in style in an Aston &artin< although at the time of writing, this last service ap#ears to have been discontin- ued. It seems inevitable that a cocktails company would look to the world of James Bond for a memorable usiness name. ,hough the #hrase 3shaken, not stirred8 was introduced in the (-5) novel Dr. No – 3I would like a medium Eodka Martini = with a slice of lemon #eel. 1haken, and not stirred, #lease8 "+leming (-;;, (2)$ = it was the flm series, beginning with the flm of Dr. No "(-92< dir. ,er- ence Noung$, that elevated it into a catch#hrase and gave it wider currency. I note that among the #hrase0s more recent e*#ressions is the title of a collection of es- says which examines cocktail culture: The Sha en and the Stirred "Schneider and Iwens 2'2'$.