Casino Royale and Representation

In Casino Royale we see a duality in how Bond is represented. In some sense this re-
imaged, re-packaged Bond for the noughties is more faithful to the character created by
Ian Fleming in the 1950s: he is very much a man of action - brutal, thuggish and violent.
Before the opening credits Bond has killed two people, both at close quarters – the first
after a vicious struggle in a lavatory which makes the violence baser and as unglamorous
as can be. The second is at close point as he shoots a double-agent extremely matter-of-
factly and uses a throw-away line “I know” which characterises the sarcastic, dark-
humour we associate with Bond. In the first third of the film Bond kills at close quarters
once more with a knife. In fact, throughout the film there are very few of the gadgets
and gimmicks that we would expect to find as part of the conventions of a James Bond
film. In fact Q does not appear in the film. Bond is represented as an athletic man with a
physical presence throughout (the long chase sequence involving cranes and an attack
on an embassy shows this). He is also a cynical, violent man of action who has to make
quick decisions however rashly because it is the nature of the job. These aspects of
Bond are something Ian Fleming would recognise in the modern version.

However, there is a new aspect to this Bond. This Bond is a more sensitive archetype
and follows in the reimaging of the spy genre following such other characters as Jason
Bourne and Jack Bauer (two other protagonists who have their own personal demons and
pasts); both Bourne and Bauer are represented as vulnerable, flawed men yet brave,
tough and heroic. Both also lose people they love which acts as a main reason to seek
revenge – the motivation for how the characters behave for large parts of the film trilogy
or TV series respectively.

Bond still follows many of the tough-guy, macho conventions. He is super-tough, taking
part in the set-piece action sequences without incurring hardly a scratch. He is super
competent in armed or unarmed combat. He is desirable to women whether it is the
receptionist at the exclusive club in the Bahamas or seducing the wife of a criminal in
less than an hour.

However there is a change in the way Bond is represented. In the novel Casino Royale,
Bond beds Vesper Lynd out of selfish desires, in the film he does so out of love. We see
references to the “new Bond “in the scene when he comes out of the sea wearing tight
swimming trunks. This references the famous (iconic) scene in the Bond film Doctor No
when Ursula Andress came out of the sea wearing a skimpy swimming costume. In this
homage roles are reversed – Craig/Bond is the sexualised object of desire for a female
audience and secondary gay audience. Following the uses and gratifications model he is
someone a male audience may wish to aspire to: how to interact with women, how to
look cool, and/or imagine travelling to exotic locations - diversion. Also the choice of
Daniel Craig adds to the sense of Bond being sexualised for female consumption as he
was dubbed the “blond Bond” when it became known that he has been chosen for the
part.

Bond meets his equal with Vesper Lynd who is beautiful and intelligent and has a
sardonic sense of humour which she uses to criticise and tease Bond. Lynd has to be
represented as an extremely special person to be able to capture the heart of such a
player as James Bond. She is classy (wearing beautiful, expensive designer clothing) and
intelligent (has a specialised, highly responsible job). She is seen as a positive force in
his life. She can change him for the better – choosing the correct evening wear for him.
They spar and flirt in their opening exchanges. She is also compatible in the sense that
both she and Bond have a high sexual appetite.

However, she has a vulnerable side - Bond gives her protection and comfort in the
shower scene following a vicious attack. The way he comforts her – the water
symbolising cleansing of past guilt and also deep sadness adds to the impression of Bond
becoming transformed by Lynd. Bond is represented as a sympathetic character that is
capable of empathy. Lynd’s distress at experiencing violent death at first hand leads
Bond to recall his own lost "innocence". Bond comforts and places a protective arm
around her. Notice the image of water having a cleansing and redeeming quality is
repeated near the end of the film at its denouement. The shower scene foreshadows
Lynd’s death. It is an image of tenderness and coming-together that contrasts later with
the sense of brutality and finality.

Yet Bond owes her his life on two occasions in the film but is unable to save her life at
the end. This is counter to the audience’s expectations in a typical Hollywood action
block-buster movie. In other Bond films the death of a woman has been the cause for
anger or to gain a modest revenge but in this film the death of Vesper Lynd shakes Bond
to the core as is seen in the heavy-handed visual metaphor of the foundation of the
house in Venice collapsing. Lynd is seen as a victim: a captive to fate, a prisoner to
fortune – the cage and her death by drowning (suffocation) are used effectively here to
express this sense of doom and execution. She sacrifices her life so that he may live –
this has religious connotations – vesper is after all a religious word – and again the roles
are reversed a woman assumes the Christ role. The word vesper also connotes an object
of worship – Bond worships her and is genuinely in love. The audience have to be
convinced that Bond’s love is genuine to make her death even more tragic – the fact that
he resigns from the Secret Service signals this to the audience.

Bond does not bed any other woman in the film. The narrative concentrates purely on
the love interest angle - Bond and Lynd – to have other “Bond girls” in this film would
have been a distraction. He seduces the wife of a criminal in the call of duty but this is
not consummated. Note that both sexual and romantic encounters with Bond end in the
death of the female. This could signal the dangerous life of a spy and Bond’s almost
toxic nature. That any intimacy with such a man as Bond will cause heartache and
death.

In Lynds’ case there is almost a morality at play. The audience expect her to live and the
“hero” to rescue her following the conventional narrative for such a story. However the
audience also have the expectation that she can’t be allowed to get away with betraying
James Bond, especially in affairs of the heart. A price has to be paid, a penalty extracted
for her conduct. In this way her death seems inevitable. From a narrative and
commercial point of view the death is necessary because:
 • It provides Bond with motivation to seek revenge and to become more cynical of
people especially women – the original Bond could be described as a misogynist
• It clears the way for Bond to encounter new women in sequels.

Bond’s masculinity is also challenged in his relationship with M. He takes orders from a
female boss. Although he sometimes ignores her orders; M knows he will do this and
factors this into her decision-making. She is thus one-step ahead of Bond and his
intellectual superior. The nature of their relationship is interesting. At times it has a
mother-son quality. At other times it is school mistress –naughty schoolboy relationship.

Bond is represented as a more sensitive, caring character but only to an extent. He is

never emasculated to be purely feminine or to be “in touch” with his female side. The
scene involving the chair and the rope literally shows that Bond has balls and is super-
tough, resilient to the threat of taking away his manhood. Therefore Bond is a new man
and sensitive but only to an extent. He must still be tough, capable and someone to
admire and invest our time in during the course of the film. A cynical view might be that
the sensitive Bond is built up with its love interest only in order for the “pay-off”: Lynd’s
death and his sense of loss to be fully heightened. It is interesting to note that in
Quantum of Solace, many of the sensitive traits have gone and Bond is back to his
rugged violent self bedding one female (who dies later on in the film) and with the
suggestion (expectation) of bedding the female protagonist at the film’s end.

Other points to link with writing on representation:

Steve in Eden Lake. How is he represented in terms of masculinity. How is his femininity
represented?

Felix Lighter the CIA agent is played by a black actor which shows the franchise is
modernising. Reference to “brothers at Langley” has two meanings.

A powerful woman like M is also shown as cold and solitary. It is clear from the mise en
scene of her apartment in the film that she lives alone. In a patriarchal society is this the
price women must pay for such power? It is suggesting that to be a powerful woman you
must lose the feminine side for a masculine side. Link to similar characters such as
Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 and Queen Elizabeth in the film Elizabeth.

TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY 1991

Sarah Connor featured in the original Terminator movie and

is the main female protagonist in its sequel. In the first
movie she was represented as fun-loving, carefree, rather
naive young women. Her experiences in losing her lover and
father to her son at the end of the film change her. In
Terminator 2 the character is strongly in contrast with her
younger-self. Sarah Connor is played by the same actor
Linda Hamilton.
The film depicts a dystopian view of the future where machines will attempt to wipe-out
the entire human race. Technology is represented as something that is to be feared and
distrusted.

When Sarah Connor is introduced into the movie, she is doing chin-ups and the camera
was focusing on her muscles. She had a very deep voice, sweating all over with messy
hair, Sarah doesn’t care about her appearance, not very feminine more man like. Sweat
is not a feature we usually associate with female protagonists if they are to appear
attractive to an audience and reminds us of the phrase that men sweat while women
perspire!

She is a victim of institutionalised violence in which men are the main agents. She is
sexually and physically abused by the male members of staff and is “mentally and
emotionally” abused by the psychiatrist who will never let her leave the confines of the
asylum. We at once sympathise with her and admire her sense of defiance and
determination to escape from the mental institute. Another reason for sympathising with
her is the audience's prior knowledge that she is correct about the imminent end of
humanity while the entire world is wrong. This sense of dramatic irony strengthens the
audience’s wish for her to be vindicated (proved to be correct) and for others to realise
their folly. From a narrative perspective (point) it is really the story of Cassandra from
Homer’s Iliad (Greek legends) who had the power of prophesy (she predicted the
destruction of Troy) but nobody would believe her. She is also shrewd and calculating:
saying the things she believes the psychiatrist would like her to say in order to gain
contact with her son. When this fails she resorts to violence which is brutal and
shocking: attacking the male with his own pen - a phallic symbol representing again her
masculine traits. The array of large phallic looking weaponry she wields again adds to
her masculine persona. She has to be both mother and father to John.

Her intelligence and independence is shown when she plans and succeeds in escaping
from the institute. Her toughness is also shown by the fact that she can take extreme
measures of pain, for example when they orderlies are injecting her; she isn’t
complaining or squeamish.

Sarah Conner is not shown as an overtly sexual object although her masculine and tough
attitude may be attractive qualities to many members of the audience particularly men
who like dominant females and some lesbians who equally like dominant and “butch”
sexual partners in the same way as Xena Warrior princess courted a large lesbian fan-
base. She is dressed in the sexless uniform of the mental hospital and later she is
dressed in combat fatigues. At no point is she dressed in feminine clothing. However,
her combat clothing will be considered sexy by some.

Her mission to protect her son and save the world from coming to an end has led to
selfless devotion at the expense of herself. She has no partner and we are told that she
has had a string of boyfriends that she has used in order to learn the art of combat and
not let anything get in her way. Again this lack of emotional attachment to a partner is
more of a male trait and something we would find in a “player”. However in the
extended version of the movie an important scene is included in which her dead lover
and John's father Kyle Reece appears to her in a daydream. For a moment we see the
vulnerable, loving Sarah of the first film. When he walks away down the corridor she
chases after him pleading for him not to leave her. This scene is critical as it shown
Sarah’s utter devotion to John’s father and re-enforces attitudes that females are fiercely
loyal and devoted to the people they love and never stop loving them. This counters the
idea of Sarah being merely a player and the audience will recognise that Sarah has
formed relationships with other men out of necessity and a s a means of protecting John.
Also it shows that this masculine persona is a shield and a mask she has had to use in
order to survive.

On the other hand a bad representation of women could be that Sarah is not an ideal
mother. She has been an absent mother and John is in foster care. He is resentful and
has become a tearaway resorting to theft and showing little respect for authority figures
like his foster mother and father. The fact that he believes Sarah to be insane also adds
to the dramatic irony in the story-telling. This can also be compared to the character of
Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise. Ripley too has been an absent mother. She has left
her daughter on Earth in order to work in the furthest reaches of space. In Aliens (also
directed by James Cameron) she returns to Earth after being in suspended animation for
over fifty years to find that her daughter has died of old age. She is racked with a deep
sense of loss and guilt at neglecting her child. There is a connotation that women are
forced to make huge personal sacrifices with those they love if they are to work on the
same footing as men.

Furthermore, Sarah smokes and swears in front of John which again would be frowned
upon as bad parenting and makes the audience see Sarah as a poor role-model for her
son. However in a sense Sarah movement away from the conventional rules of society –
her failure to conform and to instil this approach in John is a means of his very survival in
the world of the approaching holocaust. He must reject the conventional rules of society
– the rules which has led the world to the point of destruction if he is to become the
future leader of the resistance. Sarah therefore is the perfect mother by not bringing
him up in a conventional way.

In a way she is resentful of the loving stable family life Tarissa Dyson enjoys with her
husband Miles. Sarah uses a male term of insult to her when she calls her a “bitch”
again affirming a masculine side to her nature. Tarissa is everything that Sarah could
have been and represents a life that she once craved. She resents Tarissa because of
this. However, we also see that Sarah is compassionate: she cannot kill Miles Dyson
once she has seen his son. She realises with terrible irony that she would be depriving
his son of a father in the same way that John grew fatherless as a result of the
terminator. She too has shown all the characteristics of a terminator (a machine) up to
this point.

In story-telling terms this is a crucial scene as it shows that Sarah is not a emotionless
machine that is driven only to accomplish one mission at the expense of all else. She is
capable of compassion and this is what sets her apart from the terminators. A
comparison is made throughout the film between Sarah and The terminator played by
Arnold Schwarzenegger. She is resentful and jealous by the close bond between the
terminator and John as it assumes the mother role and also to extent that of a father.
She is tempted to destroy its chip when she has the opportunity to but does not at John’s
insistence but also because she realises that it is needed to protect John. By the end of
the film there is a grudging respect for the Terminator, even compassion.

In terms of representation Sarah Connor is a female counterpart of male action figures

such as Sylvester Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris. However she pays a
terrible price for this in terms of domestic happiness and emotional stability. Again,
there is a connotation that in order for a female to succeed in a male controlled world
you also have to act like a man.
Further points to note:

The representation of a dystopian future in the film.

Similarities with Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise.

Comparison with M in Casino Royale.

Compare the role of Sarah Connor with more recent films such as the X-Men franchise
where the female characters are as powerful as their male counterparts. However the
female characters are mostly single and are not parents.