From Russia with Love

Having been born in the late seventies and raised by a highly-educated woman who worked outside the home for a large share of my adolescence, I grew up with certain beliefs about women and their role in society. In their essence, these beliefs are that women can do whatever they want to, including being strong and intelligent, and that real women do not spend their time running around, fawning over men and begging them for sex. Perhaps these beliefs are why Vesper Lynd, as portrayed in the 2006 film Casino Royale, is by a very long ways—perhaps several hundred miles—my favorite Bond Girl Woman.

When I read Casino Royale, the 1953 novel, I was a bit offended by Lynd and her weepy silliness. Of course, that book was written before women began achieving full legal and social equality with men. Still, some of the attitudes about women that Fleming's book expressed surprised and irritated me. Did people in such a recent decade as the Fifties truly believe women were weak and couldn't stop crying? I am sure many did, but even then, many must not have, for there is no other way to explain where we are today when it comes to women's rights and, on a less political level, how women are portrayed in films.

A former work colleague of mine told me that From Russia with Love is his favorite Bond movie, and I read on IMDb.com (which obviously could have it wrong) that it's also Daniel Craig's favorite Bond movie. I wonder whether any woman would take such a liking to such a movie. 

I can, however understand the preferences of my former co-worker and Craig, at least on an intellectual level. The movie is full of double-crosses, mixed signals, mistaken identities and, to cap it all off, a plot that centers on a code-deciphering machine called a Lektor. We the audience learn from the very beginning to be on guard against duplicity. (I think this early-introduction to the movie's theme is a significant improvement over the first Bond film, and is a lesson to be learned by all aspiring filmmakers and writers.)

Now, an attentive reader might argue that the 2006 Vesper Lynd and the 1963 Tatiana Romanova have, in fact, a great deal in common. They're both double agents, may or may not actually be interested in sleeping with James Bond, are young and beautiful, and play key roles in their respective plots. With that attentive reader I would not disagree, but I would say that I am both thrilled and relieved that in the forty-three years between the portrayals of the two women, the Bond series' reflection of women's role in society has begun to approach my own beliefs.

Of course, the Bond movies are fantasy movies for men. Their prime audience has never been Gen X women who grew up with feminist mothers. Still, I'm glad to see the Bond producers have grown up along with all the rest of us.