This may be the author’s version of a work that was submitted/accepted for publication in the following source: Nitins, Tanya & Delamoir, Jeannette (2007) Looking, just looking: James Bond and the objectification and commodifi- cation of the human form. In Knight, B, Delamoir, J, & Walker-Gibbs, B (Eds.) Research into 21st century communities. Post Pressed, Australia, pp. 219-229. This file was downloaded from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/60273/ c Copyright 2007 Post Pressed This work is covered by copyright. Unless the document is being made available under a Creative Commons Licence, you must assume that re-use is limited to personal use and that permission from the copyright owner must be obtained for all other uses. If the docu- ment is available under a Creative Commons License (or other specified license) then refer to the Licence for details of permitted re-use. It is a condition of access that users recog- nise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. If you believe that this work infringes copyright please provide details by email to [email protected] Notice: Please note that this document may not be the Version of Record (i.e. published version) of the work. Author manuscript versions (as Sub- mitted for peer review or as Accepted for publication after peer review) can be identified by an absence of publisher branding and/or typeset appear- ance. If there is any doubt, please refer to the published source. http:// www.postpressed.com.au/ book/ research-into-21/ 1 Looking, Just Looking James Bond and the objectification and commodification of the human form The recent cinematic success of Casino Royale (Wilson, Broccoli & Campbell, 2006), the twenty- first Bond film in the official EON Production series, provides an opportunity to examine the character of James Bond in relation to his role in the objectification and commodification of the human body in cinema. In fact, the James Bond films have long been considered synonymous with the sexualisation of the female form. From the first moment Ursula Andress walked out of the ocean wearing “that” white bikini in Dr No (Saltzman, Broccoli & Young, 1962), the series established the voyeuristic manner in which these women were to be “seen”, not only by the character of James Bond but by the audience as well. Some theorists have argued against this position on the basis that it reduces the act of spectatorship to one of virtual stasis, involving “a uniformity of viewer response and meaning production” (Austin, 2002, p. 12). Instead, they contend that readings are contingent on the individual with each a result of various “social and intertextual agencies within mass culture, seeking to structure reception beyond textual boundaries” (Klinger, 1989, p.4). Paradoxically however, these very same “social and intertextual agencies” can also act to restrict the range of these perceptions. While at first glance the James Bond films appear to exemplify the position that equates the camera with the “male gaze”, a closer examination reveals a more complex situation. After all, in Casino Royale it was James Bond himself and not his female co-star who emerged from the sea, tantalising in his wet semi-nakedness. In many ways, the producers have often placed as much emphasis on Bond’s sexual appeal as they have on the “Bond girls”. This “fluidity” of desire means that it no longer is, if it ever was, a simple case of “women want him and men want to be him”, but rather that “Bond is himself a sex object for men and women who like men” (Faust, 1996, p. 30). This paper will test various theories related to the concept of the “male gaze” and its association with the sexualisation of the female form. It will then compare these to theories that connect the “female gaze” with the process of commodification. The paper will also consider how the male body in cinema—represented in this case by James Bond—presents a site of contention where desire is both flaunted and commodified, and yet strongly repressed through various forms of “feminisation” and suppressed homoerotic violence. In this way, the James Bond films demonstrate how the “social and intertextual” agency of consumer culture overrides individual interpretations of gender in the creation of desire in spectators. 2 “Jiggle Vision” Although there have been numerous shifts in the sexual politics governing the films, it is still reasonable to say that from the series beginning, the women surrounding the James Bond character have most often been defined by their sexuality. Ursula Andress’ Honey Rider spent most of the film clad in little more than a skimpy bikini, clinging to Bond’s side. This sparked a long tradition of female “eye candy” with such sexually suggestive names as Pussy Galore, Plenty O’Toole, and Holly Goodhead, whose cinematic appearances were often supported by an obligatory Playboy photo-shoot (Chapman, 1999). However, by the time the series reached “the mid 1980s… audiences were fed up with Bond girls whose only real function was to look sexy and helpless” (Sunday Times, 22 August 1999, p. 67). This led to a number of changes made to the series not only in an attempt to alleviate growing feminist criticisms, but also to ensure that the films had a more modern, “twenty-first century” feel to them (Boshoff, 1998). These changes have seen Bond’s female counterparts taking a step away from the bedroom (although they inevitably end up there) to play a more productive role in the story’s plot. As Michael Apted, director of The World is Not Enough (Wilson, Broccoli & Apted, 1999), stated: “We want to bring Bond into the twenty-first century with a different attitude to women and different women in the film. That is my agenda” (Sunday Times, 22 August 1999, p. 67). One of the biggest changes came in GoldenEye (Wilson, Broccoli & Campbell, 1995) when for the first time a woman was cast in the role of Bond’s superior, “M”. In one pivotal scene, the formidable Dame Judi Dench directly challenges Bond, calling him a “misogynist dinosaur” left over from the Cold War. In doing so, the film managed to reduce the weight of feminist criticisms “by voicing them itself through the agency of a female authority figure” (Chapman, 1999, p. 257). Yet many of these alterations have proved to be only “skin” deep (Boshoff, 1998). Despite women’s increased relevance to the film’s plot and the creation of strong, independent personalities, the films still emphasise women’s physical appearances. Defending his decision to have his female nuclear scientist wear a skimpy singlet and tiny shorts in The World is Not Enough, Michael Apted protested that there was no reason why an intelligent woman could not be attractive as well. He lost the moral high ground somewhat when he continued on to say: “I would have been shit on from a great height if I had not delivered jiggle-vision” (Brown & Giles, 1999, p. 91). Famke Jansenn, who played the villainess Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye, held no illusions as to her role in the film: “This is not anybody’s bimbo, I try to bring my intelligence to 3 the part. But women are always going to be objects of desire” (“Bimbos Out, Heroines In in ‘Correct’ Bond Thriller”, 1995, Bendigo Advertiser, 28 January, p. 22). Desire is an essential component of cinema. According to psychoanalytic film theory, the underlying appeal of movies is its voyeuristic nature—a pleasure derived from “watching someone without being seen oneself” (Smelik, 1998, p. 16). Many feminist film theorists maintain that this notion of desire in cinema is intrinsically connected to the “male gaze” (Mulvey, 1989; Stacey, 1994; Smelik, 1998). In 1975, Laura Mulvey’s controversial essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” galvanised the field of feminist film theory by being one of the first to locate two fundamental aspects of “visual pleasure”—looking and spectacle—in relation to the roles played by men and women, respectively, in cinema. As Mulvey (1989, p. 19) stated: “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female”. In 1993 Yvonne Tasker may have detailed the evolution and development of the action heroine in Hollywood cinema, but she also argued that traditionally the woman’s role in Hollywood action films has primarily been to act as the hero’s love interest and reinforce his heterosexuality: “She both offers a point of differentiation from the hero and deflects attention from the homoeroticism surrounding male buddy relationships” (p. 16). The James Bond films initially seem to support the thory that “male characters direct their gaze towards female characters” throughout the course of the narrative (Smelik, 1998, p. 10). After all, there are numerous instances in the series where James Bond watches a woman admiringly before making his presence known to her. This “gaze” is established by the camera through a series of shots focusing on the woman’s physical attributes. In Dr No, Bond hides behind a sand dune and watches as Honey Rider strolls out of the sea in her clingy bikini. The camera reveals his desire through a series of slow pans up the length of her body. In this way, the “spectator in the theatre is automatically and often unconsciously made to identify with the male look, because the camera films from the optical, as well as libidinal, point of view of the male character” (Smelik, 1998, p. 10). The manner in which Bond reveals his presence to the object of his gaze often jokingly refers to this process of looking, as can be seen in this following dialogue from Dr No: Honey Rider: What are you doing here? Are you looking for sea shells? James Bond: No, I’m just looking.