Skyfall, the fiftieth anniversary installment in the James Bond franchise, opened across the United States last month. Its success in Europe was a harbinger for record-breaking box office receipts on both sides of the Atlantic. Much has already been written about the film, which some predict may take home several Oscars—possibly even earning a Best Picture nod from the Academy. Few words, however, have been written about the Bond Girls. Or, in the case of Skyfall, the Bond Dame.
In my analysis of James Bond and feminism, I observe three distinct periods that describe the Bond Girl archetype as it evolved over the past fifty years: the Golden Era of the Bond Girl, which concluded with Moonraker in 1979; the Post-Feminist Bond Woman Era, which spanned the films beginning with For Your Eyes Only in 1981 and ending with The World Is Not Enough in 1999; and the Revisionist Bond Girl Era, ushered in with Die Another Day ten years ago. Skyfall fits neatly within the continuum, imbuing nostalgia for an era we have left behind while marching forward. The nostalgia is offered by Eve and Severine, who provide the appetizer. Eve is a field agent-turned secretary—perhaps a step backward in career advancement—who ultimately exercises choice and full autonomy over her career. Severine is, in essence, a throwback to Andrea Anders from The Man With the Golden Gun, an object of desire whose function is to bring Bond to the villain and who cannot serve two masters.
The forward-looking, main course is ultimately M, the true "Bond Girl" in Skyfall. The gravitas with which Skyfall presents its protagonist—how she reacts to monumental change, instability, uncertainty, and threats against both her livelihood and her life—is its true strength. An attack upon British Intelligence is, ultimately, a personal attack against M, and she considers it as such. Bond is the dutiful, irreverent-yet-obsequious blunt instrument that M wields in the field against the perdition lurking in the shadows. The lighthearted flirtation and tit-for-tat banter between Bond and Eve, as well as the chemistry between Bond and Severine, offer brief moments of levity in a film that otherwise awakens depth and complexity heretofore unseen in a Bondian female. It is, as Bond once quipped in Goldfinger, "positively shocking" and wonderfully executed by Dame Judi Dench.
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| Dame Judy Dench as "M" in Skyfall |
That the Skyfall Bond Girl is a Bond Dame removes sexual aesthetics from the equation, permitting the lens to focus entirely upon the character's substance: M is nothing short of professional; dispassionate under pressure, whether responding to rapid gun fire or rapid fire from the Ministry's inquisition; and intent on completing her job on her terms. She is unapologetic for the ramifications of her decisions, even as those decisions threaten her demise. Having shattered the glass ceiling, this M expects her male subordinates to pick up the shards and carry on.
Eve and Severine are Bondian feminism, fitting easily within the framework of the franchise's successful formula. The M we see in Skyfall, however, embodies true feminism. A Revisionist Bond Girl Era indeed.
