Popular geopolitics and audience

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

dispositions: James Bond and the

Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Klaus Dodds
This paper is concerned with the further theoretical development of popular
geopolitics with explicit reference to audience dispositions and reception more
generally. Using the James Bond film series, and in particular Die Another Day (2002)
and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), it is contended that political geographers
need to better understand how audiences and film fans in particular interpret the
popular geopolitics of film. One of the striking features of fans who comment about
their interest in James Bond on the IMDb is the degree to which these films invite
detailed and devoted readings of plotlines, character development, links to
contemporary geopolitics and what might be called ‘Bond trivia’. The paper concludes
with a call for further investigation into the way in which film is consumed by fans
and non-fans alike, alongside inter alia a more detailed appreciation of the role of
on-line discussion fora such as the IMDb.

key words popular geopolitics audience dispositions fandom James Bond and the
IMDb

Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX
email: k.dodds@rhul.ac.uk

revised manuscript received 30 January 2006

In the period between the September 11th attacks

Introduction
A colossal piece of production engineering, the 20th
Bond film, as usual anticipates reality. George W. Bush
has pinpointed North Korea as a threat to world peace.
But in his new adventure, James Bond, fingers it even
earlier as the place where evil resides. (Walker 2002)
Just 14 months after 9/11. Big-bang action movies seem
a tad redundant, perhaps even borderline tasteless . . .
The horrific events of September 2001 may be as bad as
most of us can imagine, but here the bid screen fantasy
is potentially even more catastrophic. North Korea, not
exactly out of the headlines right now, is here very
much as the rogue state. (Mcillheney 2003, 132–3)
These stories were conceived and initially filmed in the
Cold War so the subtext of East versus West always
dwelt within them. The modern films, by comparison,
seem a little contrived but on this thoroughly impressive
evidence that’s no bar to a thrilling, confident and
supremely entertaining ride. (Brett 2003, 67)
and the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the 20th
James Bond film, Die Another Day (2002), was
released in cinemas around the world. Box office
receipts totalled US$160 million in the United
States and US$424 million worldwide. This compared
well not only to the last Bond film, The World is Not
Enough (1999), which accumulated US$352 million
worldwide box office receipts but also to other
spy/espionage films released in the same year,
such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) and
xXx (2002).1 The timing appeared opportune in the
sense that the storyline seemed to reflect prevailing
geopolitical anxieties in the United States and its
‘War on Terror’ partners. In the film itself, Bond is
instructed to track down a North Korean operative
who is suspected of trading in West African
‘conflict diamonds’. Captured by North Korean
forces, Bond is tortured and eventually released to
the British authorities, who remain convinced that

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Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions
2
he has compromised the mission. On his re-
activation, Bond investigates and eventually
confronts a businessman, Gustav Graves, who is
planning the destruction of the Western world by
developing a powerful satellite-based weapon
system called Icarus. Unbeknown to Bond, Graves
is actually a North Korean ‘evil genius’, who has
undergone gene therapy in order to disguise his
appearance. With the help of a US agent, Jinx
(played by the African-American actress Halle
Berry), Bond destroys Graves’ base in Iceland and
ultimately prevents him from using his deadly
satellite against American forces in South Korea.
His plan to reunify the two Koreas and to ‘squash
Japan like a bug’ is foiled.
Trade press reviewers and film journalists were,
in some cases, swift to point to the connections
with real-life geopolitical events, including the
decision by President George W. Bush to declare
North Korea part of an ‘axis of evil’ in January
2002.3 As Nicholas Barber noted in the Independent
on Sunday, ‘Bond is in Korea on an assassination
mission, and the tone is of the gritty espionage
thriller with an awareness of global politics’ (Barber
2002). In a report in The Times, the director, Lee
Tamahori, of Die Another Day, was quoted as not-
ing that minor changes had been made to the script
after 9/11, but no details were offered regarding
the actual changes (Alberge 2002). Others, while
recognizing the post-September 11th and ‘axis of
evil’ context, pointed to older geopolitical and cul-
tural moments. For example, Sukhdev Sandu in the
Daily Telegraph noted that
The new film, the twentieth in the series, has been
touted as very modern, its North Korean backdrop
supposedly representing a break from the Cold War
settings of old. Actually, Die Another Day is pre-Cold
War, harking back to Sax Rohmer’s insidious Oriental,
Fu Manchu who, like enemy boss Colonel Moon, in this
film . . . used his elite western education [Harvard and
Oxford to, as the film character suggests, ‘major[ed] in
western hypocrisy’] better to maim the European
infidel. (Sandu 2002)
But this kind of broader canvas with regard to
Western literary and filmic representations of evil
and danger was very much a minority element in the
professional evaluations of Die Another Day (2002),
which overwhelmingly reflected on the so-called
‘Bond formula’ of fast cars, glamorous Bond women
and ‘exotic locations’. The widespread deployment
of computer graphics is also much commented upon,
especially in relation to Bond’s stunts.
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The premiere of Die Another Day also coincided
with the 40th anniversary of the James Bond film
series, following the release of Dr No in 1962.4 This
prompted journalists in Britain and North America
to note how the figure of James Bond/007 was being
used to make sense of contemporary political
events (Dodds 2005; Sandbrook 2005). Osama Bin
Laden and the Al-Qaeda network were compared
to Blofeld and the criminal network SPECTRE, which
featured in the 1960s films such as Dr No (1962),
From Russia with Love (1963) and You Only Live
Twice (1967). Attention was drawn to the fact that
the figure of the ‘evil genius’ and the trans-boundary
network of terror and crime in the Bond films bore
an uncanny similarity to the activities of Bin Laden
in Sudan and later Afghanistan/Pakistan. Both Bin
Laden and to a lesser extent the fictional creation
Blofeld were shown to be ‘invisible masters’ intent
on causing great damage to the West. As one jour-
nalist noted:
Think James Bond. Or more specifically, think SPECTRE
– the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism,
Revenge and Extortion. In the James Bond books and
movies, SPECTRE always seems just a little silly: really
rich people messing with Britain, America and Russia
just to get their jollies. But, that’s what Bin Laden is.5
In a further twist, it was reported that British
service personnel used James Bond characters such
as Goldfinger and Blofeld to label their Iraq-based
military operations in March–April 2003 (Watt
2005, 238). Whether that was any better than other
operational monikers such as Ali Baba is a moot
point (Gregory 2005, 368).
These kinds of trade press and journalistic inter-
pretations of the James Bond series (and in particu-
lar Die Another Day) remain an important resource
for making sense of how the adventures of this
British secret agent are understood by academics,
journalists and viewers. They also co-exist with a
long-standing academic interest in what might be
called ‘James Bond studies’ (for example, Amis
1965; Bennett 1982; Bennett and Wollacott 1987;
Black 2001 2004; Chapman 1999; Comentale et al.
2005; Denning 1987; Dodds 2003 2005; Halloran
2005; Lindner 2003; Willman 2005). Created by Ian
Fleming in the 1950s, Britain’s most famous spy
(007) has been saving the world for over 50 years
(if you start from the release of Casino Royale as
a novel in 1953) from a mixture of evil geniuses,
femme fatales, moles, intelligence leaks, double
agents, trans-boundary criminal and terror networks
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and corrupt states and their representatives (see
Andrew 1985; Ponting 1990; Deacon 1991; Dorrill
1998; Bamford 2001; Hepburn 2005 more gener-
ally). The Anglo-American special relationship
regarding intelligence gathering has featured
strongly especially on celluloid (from Dr No 1962
to Die Another Day 2002). As epitomized by the
personal relationship with the Central Intelligence
Agency’s (CIA) Felix Leiter and more recently the
National Security Agency’s (NSA) Jinx in Die
Another Day (2002), Bond works closely and suc-
cessfully with his American counterparts. Un-
surprisingly, therefore, there has been a great deal
of interest in charting the ebb and flow of a film
series that for many viewers and professional
critics has addressed the changing geopolitics of
the Cold War and the post-Cold War era (Black
2001 2004; Chapman 1999 2005).6
James Bond films remain intensely popular judg-
ing by the purchasing of memorabilia and inter-
actions with fan-based Internet sites (http:// www.
jamesbond.com) and United Artists/Eon Produc-
tions authorized books (Pfeiffer and Worrall 1998;
Cork and Scivally 2002). Tony Bennett’s important
intervention in the journal Screen (1982) helped to
trigger a new generation of scholars to explore how
James Bond has been viewed and understood by
different audience segments (Bennett 1982). This
intervention was followed up by a book-length
study with a colleague James Wollacott (Bennett
and Wollacott 1987). In essence, their work demon-
strated that Bond was, inter alia, an institutional-
ized ritual on British television – as manifested in
the 1970s and 1980s by the showing of Bond films
directly after the Queen’s Christmas Day message
at 3.15 pm. Moreover, attention was drawn to how the
James Bond films were shaping the terms of their
reception, but not exclusively so. Audience mem-
bers were perfectly capable of creating their own
meanings depending on particular context(s), such
as the state of the Cold War, feminism and the influ-
ence of Margaret Thatcher and neo-liberal ideology.
This paper seeks to achieve two principle objec-
tives. First, it contends that the future development
of popular geopolitics depends on an engagement
with the extensive literature surrounding audience
research and reception studies (for example, the
innovative work of Jenkins 1992). It does not pro-
pose that popular geopolitics should engage with
alternative literatures such as the spectatorship,
which have a rather different interest (and associ-
ated methodologies) in the literary interpretation
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Klaus Dodds
of film. Second, and as part of that engagement
with the audience, it investigates the role and sig-
nificance of fandom. One of the striking features of
the James Bond film series is that it has encouraged
an extraordinary number of fans to engage in
detailed analyses of the varied plots and characters.
Those forms of behaviour deserve attention
because they indicate that Bond films may be
important precisely because of the extent to which
they can command such devoted attention rather
than whether viewers are necessarily reflexive about
the geopolitical knowledge being put to work in a
particular film. While this paper is attentive to
geopolitical themes such as the role of Britain as a
world power, the asymmetrical nature of Anglo-
American relations and the significance of ‘geo-
graphical contexts’ in allowing the so-called ‘Bond
formula’ to be re-produced (successfully in a com-
mercial sense) over a 40-year period, it does not
wish this list to be seen as in any way exhaustive.
For one thing, acknowledgement would need to be
made as to how these themes have themselves fluc-
tuated in the texts of the James Bond films and the
manner in which audiences engage with those
aforementioned geopolitical themes.
This paper argues for a more complex and
nuanced theorization of the relationship between
textual representations of global geopolitics and
varied audiences and reception. As such we, that is
those interested in popular geopolitics, need to
better understand how audiences read films with a
variety of ‘dispositions’ and emotional investments
and James Bond fandom is only one such example
of an audience segment. The initial section of the
paper considers aspects of popular geopolitics and
reviews some of the major themes that have
emerged after a decade or so of critical engage-
ment. One lacuna in this literature revolves around
audience reaction and/or film consumption. While
there is clearly a large literature on audience studies,
Internet and non-Internet based communities along-
side fandom more generally, this paper explores
the potential of using on-line message-boarding for
further research into James Bond fandom (see
Lewis 1992; Baym 2000; Miller and Slater 2000;
Castells 2002; Burton 2005). Thereafter, we consider
the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com)
as a specific pathway into exploring how fans and
movie watchers make sense and engage with the
James Bond corpus. As such this allows us to tease
out further the type of interaction that takes place,
the type of fans that engage with the message
Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions
boards and the kinds of issues such as the link to
real-world geopolitics contemplated. Finally, the
paper considers the ways in which the popular
geopolitical literature might further engage with the
growing phenomenon of on-line fan-based inter-
action as part of a more pro-active engagement
with audiences (see, for example, Baym 2000). This
paper remains a modest starting point in this direc-
tion and seeks to inform not only popular geopoli-
tics (for example, Sharp 2000; Crampton and Power
2005; O Tuathail 2005), but also the equivalent liter-
ature in the discipline of International Relations (for
instance, Gregg 1998; Weber 2001; Shapiro 2005).
Popular geopolitics and audiences:
the potential for research into On Line
Fandom communities
In their recent editorial for the journal Geopolitics,
Power and Crampton remind readers that Holly-
wood movies provide ‘a language and imagery’ as
well as ‘reference points and ways of en-framing
popular understandings of the radically changing
geopolitical world [in this case post September
11th]’ (Power and Crampton 2005, 193; and more
generally the work on popular geographies see
Driver 2001; Clout 2005). As with the essays that
follow in the special issue dedicated to cinema and
popular geopolitics, a great deal of interest is now
being paid to exploring how and with what
consequences movies such as The Siege (1998) and/
or Rules of Engagement (2000) contribute to popular
representations of global politics. Films have clearly
been identified by the current Bush administration
as an important element, not only in morale build-
ing, but also as a contributor to a particular narrative
of the United States’ role in the aftermath of
September 11th and the onset of the ‘War on
Terror’. Post-2001 releases such as Behind Enemy
Lines (2003) and Black Hawk Down (2001) have
been widely interpreted as largely self-serving
portrayals of American military experiences during
the 1990s in Bosnia and Somalia, respectively.
Moreover, film studies scholars and other
academic commentators argue that these films
provide simple narrative structures, which identify
the United States and US service personnel as
sources of goodness and moral courage (see, for
example, Davies and Wells 2002, 4).
The movie theatre (and its film listings) has long
been conceived as a significant site for the produc-
tion, circulation and contestation of geopolitical
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119
meanings and framing (Power and Crampton 2005,
195; but see also Jancovich and Faire 2003). The
largely silent and darkened space of the theatre
provided an opportunity for conveying messages
about the world, which few governments could
resist, particularly during war and/or crises. Soviet
cinema, under the cultural leadership of Stalin,
frequently used film to portray the struggles and
eventual triumph of the Soviet Union and the 1917
Revolution. Likewise, Hollywood has collaborated
closely with the Pentagon and other agencies such
as the Central Intelligence Agency for the purpose
of producing films thought to be anti-communist
and/or supportive of American visions of Cold
War life (see Richards 1997; Shaw 2001; Caute 2003;
Shapiro 2005). British cinema audiences relied on war-
time bulletins produced by Pathe News for stories
within and beyond the UK. The British govern-
ment, alongside its Allied counterparts, devoted a
great deal of resources to ensuring that the ‘home
front’ received morale-boosting stories from the
‘war front’. Films played their part during the Second
World War, and even in the aftermath as, Jeffrey
Richards noted, record numbers of people flocked
to see films devoted to the war effort, such as Dam
Busters (1955).
The way in which geopolitical representations of
the world are made intelligible and meaningful in
an everyday setting remains to be fully specified.
While a great deal of attention has been given to
how they get produced, exchanged and consumed
within popular geopolitical cultures, less attention
has been given to audiences and consumption
more generally (O Tuathail and Agnew 1992; Sharp
1993; Dodds 1996; O Tuathail 1996). Joanne Sharp’s
important intervention with regard to the Readers’
Digest and Cold War America illustrated how this
particular journal frequently contributed to a par-
ticular view of the United States as threatened by
the ideological forces of communism and the geo-
political expansionism of the Soviet Union (Sharp
2000). But this important intervention was predom-
inantly a textual study, which had less to offer on
how particular audiences consumed those news
stories beyond the assumed mode of reading by
the publishers of the Reader’s Digest.
Contrary to some of the earliest critical geopolitical
assertions about film and popular geographical
identities, the audience (with all its complexities)
needs to be better understood (O Tuathail 1996,
157– 8; but see, for example, McFarlane and Hay
2003). Joanne Sharp’s research into post-Cold War
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American movies, for example, implicitly works
with a sense of particular subject positions being
generated by the film narratives (Sharp 1998). Her
concern was for film scripts and the links to the
gendered politics of identity (as expressed in films
such as Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games) as
opposed to reception and/or audience reaction(s).
There are few references to trade press reviewers,
fan sites and/or audience surveys apart from the
Baseline Movie Picture Guide Review. While Holly-
wood producers are ultimately producing films in
order to generate box office revenues (and to enter-
tain), audiences can and do elicit expected and
unexpected reactions. It is important to recognize
that not only are films capable of being understood
in radically different ways but also that different
audiences exist in the first place. For example, the
trade press reviewers and journalists from maga-
zines such as Empire and Sight and Sound are one
such diverse segment and their engagement with
films will vary considerably from cinematic audi-
ences more generally who have paid to watch the
film and are not engaged directly with the marketing
and publicity-seeking endeavours of film pro-
ducers. United Artists and Eon Productions devote
considerable resources to ensuring that trade press
reviewers are showered with pre-release publicity
and also enable journalists and fans alike to watch
‘teasers’ and ‘trailers’ (usually via websites such as
http://www.JamesBond.com) prior to the official
release of the Bond film.
Reception theory and audience research can help
us to ask basic questions about how we make sense
of films and what they mean in the lives of viewers.
Janet Staiger, for example, has commented upon
the ways in which viewers are ‘perverse’ in the
sense that they ‘use’ films in their own way
(Staiger 2000). Rather than assume that the film
itself fixes some sense of attributed meaning,
reception theorists have sought to investigate how
viewers bring to bear a range of meanings to films.
The role of particular interpretative strategies is
therefore critical because it helps to better under-
stand what films mean to viewers and the types
of emotional investment that they bring to bear to
a long-running series such as the James Bond
movies. A reception study seeks empirical evidence
about the above and thus much debate has ensued
over how to investigate those acts of interpretation.
Focus group research, audience surveys, inter-
views and printed materials such as trade press
commentaries and publicity materials associated
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with films have been incorporated into this
research agenda (Bennett and Wollacott 1987).
This concern for the audience is therefore different
to other aspects of film theory such as spectator-
ship. Both are concerned with audiences, but the
question then becomes how does one gain access to
how viewers understand films. In contrast to the
literature associated with film spectatorship, audi-
ence research seeks empirical evidence as to how
viewers make sense of a film in a culturally and
historically specific context (for example, Bennett
1982; Staiger 2000). It does not postulate particular
‘subject positions’, rather it seeks understanding of
shared patterns of interpretation and meaning. The
point of this research endeavour is to develop a
better understanding of, for instance, how viewers
of James Bond films generate meanings, interpreta-
tions, evaluations and interpretative strategies. As
the IMDb study presented here suggests, fans do
converge around particular shared interests in plot
development, links to real-world global politics
and characters even if they also disagree over their
significance and relevance.
It is vital to acknowledge that there are different
types of audiences with corresponding levels of
potential viewing investment. Fans, as Lisa Lewis
noted, ‘are, in fact, the most visible and identifiable
of audiences’ and as such deserve to be studied
more thoroughly, not least because ‘we are all fans
of something’ (Lewis 1992, 1). A range of dis-
ciplines, including media studies, anthropology
and human geography, has addressed Lewis’ clarion
call (one amongst several) (for example, Fiske 1992;
Barker and Brooks 1998; Baym 2000; Jackson et al.
2001). In the context of the long-running James
Bond series, fans are an essential element of the
eventual box office receipts. They not only cele-
brate the subject of the fandom (James Bond and
his exploits) but also purchase and promote that
which they admire. This might include, for example,
DVD and video sales of the James Bond series as well
as purchase/consumption of specialist merchandise.
One important feature of the series has been the role
of corporate advertisers such as British Airways,
Finlandia Vodka and Aston Martin/BMW in
branding James Bond: US$120 million was gener-
ated by United Artists for product placement in Die
Another Day (2002) alone.
One of the most significant developments
regarding how viewers (and fans) consume film
and other offerings such as the cult television
programme the X-files is on-line interaction and
Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions
message boards. A number of researchers have
contended that virtual interactions have not only
consolidated interest in fandom but also provided
opportunities for different types of fans to interact
with one another. Rhiannon Bury’s research, for
example, into the on-line behaviour of female fans of
the X-files suggests that this interactive community
was created in part because some of the parti-
cipants were offended by the on-line behaviour
and commentary of male fans (Bury 2003a 2003b).
As part of her research project, she created and
participated in an on-line community of 19 female
fans of the X-files. One of the findings to emerge
from this research is that the female participants
took a great interest not only in character develop-
ment and plotlines, but did not, contrary to many
academic readings of the X-files, comment at any
length (with one exception) about the paranormal
and conspiracy theories.
In conjunction with the research by scholars such
as Jenkins (1992) and even the literature produced
by those interested in sub-cultures, talking about
film and television is a popular on-line activity
(Kahn and Kellner 2003; Muggleton and Weinzierl
2003). In many cases, fans use message boards to
comment and expose inconsistencies in the plot-
line, resolve gaps, explore details and develop areas
that they consider to be poorly expressed thus far.
While there has been some analysis given over to
the different on-line behaviour of male and female
fans, researchers such as Bury have cautioned against
thinking that some contributors are inherently
more interested in plotlines (male) as opposed to
character development (female). Instead, attention
is drawn towards the ‘performative’ nature of on-
line interaction and the ever-present possibility of
‘disguising’ certain characteristics of contributors –
their gender, age and/or ethnicity.
Whatever the particular email domain created,
there is also fairly widespread agreement that most
contributors engage in a polite manner on-line and
accept particular conventions associated with mes-
sage boards and thread development (Bury 2003b).
According to Kahn and Kellner (2003), such con-
ventions contribute to an on-line culture that
allows for an immediate and democratic dissemi-
nation of information about particular television
programmes/films or media culture more gener-
ally. And perhaps, therefore, such on-line commu-
nities need to be understood within a broader
media cultural context in which the phenomenon
of Internet activism is another element of this
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121
potential for communication and interaction
(Kellner 2003; Kahn and Kellner 2004). While on-
line fan-based activism is quite distinct from on-line
political activism of anti-globalization movements,
it does point to the growth of virtual communities
that monitor, critique and engage with popular
culture and global capitalism. The movie industry
as epitomized by Hollywood is inculcated within
these circuits of production and consumption.
These kinds of developments have immense
significance for the development of a popular
geopolitics. Comparatively little attention, as out-
lined above, has been given to audiences and collec-
tive interpretative practices. By and large, a great deal
more attention has been devoted to developing
analyses of particular films and their connections
to expressions of national identity, geopolitical
storylines and/or global geopolitical developments
(O Tuathail 1996 2005; Sharp 1998 2000). Part of the
problem is methodological: research into fan cul-
tures/audience studies can be time consuming, not
least because it can (as film studies scholars and
others have demonstrated) involve substantial
ethnographic research with viewers in their homes
or elsewhere. But one of the advantages of explor-
ing on-line fan communities is that a great deal of
the academic labour is carried out on-line and is
potentially less intrusive. This does not imply that
there are not ethical, geographical and methodo-
logical problems to be acknowledged. For one
thing, it is imperative that agreement is sought by
participants to reproduce any items from message
boards, and scholars such as Bury (2003b) have also
used extracts from on-line interaction that remove
any trace of the contributor’s on-line identity.
There are also very real geographical constraints
regarding research into on-line fandom communi-
ties. The existence of the ‘digital divide’ points to
one very obvious factor constraining any such
research. Access to digital technologies is still
heavily skewed in favour of Europe, East Asia and
North America, as opposed to Sub-Saharan Africa
(Castells 2002). Katz and Rice (2002) and Norris
(2001) have shown how access, social involvement
and interaction are deeply affected by global ine-
qualities in digital access: 266 million of the 378
million (estimated) global uers of the Internet are
to be found within North America and Europe.
Even within areas of high connectivity, research
suggests that younger people, men and the highly
educated and affluent are the heaviest Internet
users. The existing research devoted to on-line
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fandom would tend to mirror that general conclu-
sion (with the exception of gender) and point to the
fact that access and usage will also depend in part
on other time commitments, skill levels, as well as
technological access.
Within so-called Internet studies, there is a great
deal of debate as to whether one can carry out
meaningful research into audiences such as fan-
dom entirely on-line. Miller and Slater (2000), for
instance, in their ethnographic research on Trinida-
dians and the Internet, are explicit in their belief that
on-line research has to be connected to an off-line
existence and/or real-world locations (Miller and
Slater 2000, 1). As they note,
We find ourselves quite alienated from that earlier
generation of Internet writing that was concerned with
the Internet primarily through such notions as
‘cyberspace’ or ‘virtuality’ . . . These terms focused
on the way in which the new media seemed able to
constitute spaces or places apart from the rest of social
life (‘real life’ or offline life). (Miller and Slater 2000, 4)
Any research, therefore, into James Bond fans and
their on-line interest in the film series cannot claim
in any sense to be comprehensive.
The limited analysis presented here seeks to offer
an insight into an important social and technological
development, particularly in Europe and North
America. By concentrating on the IMDb, the paper
is inherently inattentive to non-users and hence
there are a large number of James Bond movie fans
that neither have access to appropriate digital tech-
nologies nor interest in on-line interaction. As we
will see with regard to the IMDb, most fans using
the Die Another Day (2002) message board have little
to no apparent interest in the original novels (much
to the disappointment perhaps of some academics
engaged in James Bond studies). While Die Another
Day was not a Fleming novel, the fans are nonethe-
less able and willing to make comparisons with
earlier films based on Fleming’s literary oeuvre.
For other on-line James Bond fans in particular, the
IMDb is only one of many possible on-line oppor-
tunities and even that does not acknowledge the
relationship between on-line and off-line social
spaces. As Hargittai has recently warned,
When looking at the behaviour of participants in an
online environment or exploring how web use
influences people’s actions beyond direct use of the
network, it is important to clearly state about whom
claims are being made and which segments of the
population are not part of certain inquiries and
discussions. (2004, 142)
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Klaus Dodds
In short, the material below provides an insight
into a vein of possibilities, one of which includes
developing a more nuanced understanding of how
in this case viewers (but also non-viewers) watch
and make sense of James Bond films such as Die
Another Day (2002).
James Bond ‘fans’ and the Internet Movie
Database (IMDb): dispositions and trivia
Attention has been concentrated on the latest film
Die Another Day (2002) rather than the on-line
interaction for all 20 James Bond films. Three fairly
basic reasons explain this strategy. First, the focus
on one film is simply motivated by manageability.
The James Bond film series has invited a great deal
of commentary and reflection via the IMDb, let
alone any other web-based portal. Second, this
particular Bond film generated much coverage
from trade press reviewers who were, as men-
tioned earlier, swift to note that the plot surrounding
Die Another Day (2002) bore an uncanny similarity
with real-life events regarding the United States
and its troublesome relationship with North Korea.
Third, it has been argued by some James Bond
scholars that Die Another Day (2002) signals a more
clear-cut recognition of the role of the United States
and an explicit displacement of the British-Imperial
axis, which had been a powerful feature in many
Bond films, especially in the 1960s (see, for
example, Black 2004). M’s American counterpart
(Falco) at one point threatens to deal with Bond
personally after news has leaked that Bond
‘cracked’ under North Korean torture and was
revealing ‘secrets’. The film also acknowledges,
albeit briefly, Britain’s changing world status via
references to the loss of Hong Kong (to China in
1997) and yet, paradoxically, a short reference to
another imperial territory, the Falklands as a secret
service ‘evaluation centre’ is included. It is also
axiomatic, as Bury and others have acknowledged,
that the decision to focus on the IMDb as opposed to
the Film-Philosophy forum is significant in the sense
of generating a particular expression of fandom.
The IMDb has become one of the most popular
forums for on-line interaction and the popularity of
each Bond film can be gauged by the number of
votes cast for each film in the United Artists/Eon
Productions series (see Table I).
With its genesis in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
the founder of IMDb, Col Needham, created a
database that sought to provide ‘useful and up to
Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions 123
Table I James Bond and IMDb users display fan-like qualities (Fiske 1989, 147). If
fans are discriminatory in the sense of where they
Film User rating Votes cast direct their fandom and if they also help to generate
an extraordinary volume of supplementary com-
Dr. No (1962) 7.2/10 11 610
From Russia with Love (1963) 7.3/10 10 093
ment and analysis of the object of their fandom,
Goldfinger (1964) 7.8/10 19 404 then the vast majority of IMDb users attached to
Thunderball (1965) 6.8/10 8 063 the Die Another Day (DAD) message board would
You Only Live Twice (1967) 6.8/10 8 086 appear to be ‘James Bond fans’. With ongoing
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) 6.7/10 7 061
technological changes in the last decade or so,
Diamonds are Forever (1971) 6.6/10 8 563
Live and Let Die (1973) 6.6/10 7 864 fan-based on-line interaction has flourished to the
The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) 6.4/10 7 246 extent of allowing fans to host their own message
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) 6.9/10 7 950 boards for a discussion on movies, television
Moonraker (1979) 5.9/10 9 127 programmes and/or particular actors.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) 6.7/10 7 906
Octopussy (1983) 6.4/10 9 136
When examining the message board for DAD, the
A View to a Kill (1985) 5.9/10 8 269 intention of the author was to tease out not only
The Living Daylights (1987) 6.4/10 7 321 the content of on-line interaction, but also identify
Licence to Kill (1989) 6.2/10 8 311 particular types of users in terms of tone and style
Goldeneye (1995) 6.8/10 22 555
of commentary. The reason for this two-fold
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) 6.4/10 19 041
The World is not Enough (1999) 6.3/10 23 740 approach was essentially related to a conviction
Die Another Day (2002) 6.4/10 21 601 that fans frequently adopted different dispositions
when engaging with issues of content from the
Source: http://www.imdb.com (accessed 4 April 2005) ‘enthusiastic rather than knowing’ to the ‘academic’
and/or the ‘knowing’ fan. Following on from the
work of Peter Jackson and his team on reading/
date movie information online across as many interpreting men’s magazines, this distinction
platforms as possible’.7 Throughout the 1990s, as matters with regards to understanding audiences
web-based capabilities improved, the IMDb was (Jackson et al. 2001). By identifying differences in
expanded to include new features such as votes tone and style, we actually begin to potentially
awarded to individual films (out of 10). In 1995, it understand somewhat better the diverse nature of
was formally launched and the Amazon.com comp- audiences.
any subsequently bought it in the late 1990s. The In the case of James Bond fans, the author identified
site has been further enhanced to allow for greater five generic types of on-line exchange and interaction:
on-line interaction as well as additional features
providing updates on movie releases and film gossip. IMDb On-Line Exchange and Interaction: Die
Provided you have access to the web and an email Another Day (2002) Message Board (Accessed
address, the IMDb is free to use and simple to 2 June 2005)
either construct a new thread within the James 1 Bond Trivia. Users quote a Bond line such as ‘Do
Bond film series message board and/or participate you expect me to talk?’ and other fans are
in existing discussions with fans. This perhaps expected to cite the movie source. In this case the
explains in part why so many people have partici- answer would be Goldfinger (1964). As is apparent
pated in on-line discussions regarding James Bond. therefore the message board for Die Another Day
Over 20 000 people, for instance, registered their (2002) functions as an opportunity for a wider
vote for Die Another Day (2002) and thousands of consideration of the Bond canon. This was by
messages have been exchanged on the message far the most popular form of interaction.
board for the aforementioned film. 2 Bond Characters. Users discuss their favourite
IMDb users are overwhelmingly friendly in mes- Bond villains, Bond girls and most importantly
sage tone and eager to demonstrate a ‘knowing’ who was the best actor ever to don the mantle
awareness of plotlines, story development and of Commander James Bond/007.
references to contemporary political and/or cultural 3 The James Bond Canon. Users nominate and vote
events. This, as John Fiske noted, is an important for their favourite James Bond films.
element of fandom and indeed this is the principle 4 Plotline Holes and Under-development. Users
reason why this section of the paper contends that expose and/or further develop plotlines from

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films, such as the role of gene therapy in Die
Another Day (2002).
5 Contemporary Geopolitics and Film. By far the
least significant item on the message board for
Die Another Day (2002) was the connections
between Bond and real-life geopolitics.
Taking each of these points in turn, it is apparent
that the popular geopolitics surrounding films
such as Die Another Day (2002) does not feature
strongly on the message boards of the IMDb.
Judging by the number of responses generated to a
particular message, the most popular form of
interaction involved Bond trivia, which fans of the
James Bond film series take great pride in display-
ing. One message from Larrr118, and posted on
15 January 2004, generated 894 responses by April
2005 following his/her question, ‘Alright, this is
how it goes. I’ll give a quote and you have to tell
me which Bond film it is from. Lets the games
begin!!!!!! “I’m afraid you have caught me with
more than my hands up”’.8 Fans quickly responded
to that question and then developed that particular
thread by asking similar questions about particular
lines from the James Bond series. Using the Die
Another Day (2002) message board for such activity
is perhaps unsurprising, given that there is a series
of Bond films and that many fans of Die Another
Day would have seen (probably many times over)
the others. As such, these sorts of questions allow
the fan to indulge in competitive behaviour and
to demonstrate (or even perform) their intimate
knowledge of the film narratives.
This might nonetheless be seen as indicative of
‘enthusiastic rather than knowing’ fans, but it can
also provoke debates about who is a Bond fan
and who is not. For example, following a thread
entitled ‘The definitive list of why this movie is the
worst Bond ever’, it became apparent that respond-
ents were overwhelmingly critical of the storyline
and the use of computer-enhanced images (espe-
cially with regard to the stunts). As one user noted:
Even in Connery’s time there were bad movies, From
Russia with Love. This is still IMHO Not the worst
Bond movie. There have been others. Living Daylights
was way worse than Die Another Day.
You just proved you have no discerning taste. From
Russia with Love was a bad movie? The Living
Daylights? Both worse than Die Another Day? You just
knocked two of the best films in the series and glorified
one of the worst. So you truly aren’t a Bond fan at all.
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Klaus Dodds
How can you forget the snowmobile chase scene in (is
believe) For Your Eyes Only.
Thing is, all the stunts done before DaD were actually
done in real life. So while you might not think it
possible, it actually happened. DaD decided to rely on
CGI to pull off stunts.
Also, when DaD came out on DVD all of the Video
stores I went to were completely sold out of the movie,
that has to tell you something.
Yeah it tells me that die-hard fans bought the disc to
complete their collections. It also tells me that good
press can work wonders. Brosnan wasn’t supposed to
return to the role according to rumors, so when he did
it made people want to see/get the film. It was also the
40th anniversary of the movies and 50th of the books,
so that boosted sales as well. It was also the first Bond
movie in 3 years, again a sales booster. None of this
makes the movie any better than it actually is. If you
were a true Bond fan, you would be pissed that they
slagged off and did all the stunts using CGI instead of
sticking with tradition and actually doing the stunts.
Among a number of things.9
The claim regarding ‘if you were a true fan’ is
significant and widely reproduced within fandom
– some fans are more fanatical and devoted in their
fandom than others. Interest in Bond characters
and plotlines also provide another forum for that
exposure of intimate recollection of detail and
provide opportunities for debate on subjects such
as the worst Bond villain and/or the best Bond actor
(and again corresponding levels of knowledge
and appreciation). Much of the exchange of views
and opinions is comparatively short, abbreviated and
often highly responsive in terms of the latest
posting. Frequently, fans simply offer seemingly
‘provocative statements’ and await responses from
others. One such example revolved around James
Bond’s identity as a secret service agent. As one
user remarked, ‘One thing that always got me
about all the Bond films, he is supposedly the
world’s best spy but all the villains know he is 007.
What’s with that?’10 Judging from the threads on
the Die Another Day (2002), exposing flaws in the
plotline (alongside Bond’s ‘secret’ identity and
mission) remains a particularly popular activity of
a certain type of fan.
Several further examples can be used here to
obtain a sense of the tone and style of those inter-
ventions. As one fan noted,
This is probably the biggest plot hole in all the Bond
movies . . . How does the Korean guy, turn British,
Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions
become a big shot in the diamond business, finish all
the genetherapy and become knighted in just 14
months. The geno-thing takes almost a year, becoming
a diamond king takes at least 20 years and I’m not
familiar with the big queen/knighting thing but I’m
positive it would take more than just a year being given
that kind of honor . . . ? Didn’t anyone notice this?11
Others did not share this concern, as another user
countered, ‘The whole movie was ridiculous, so
this plot hole really isn’t out of place with the rest
of this terrible movie’.12
Another contributor also questioned the logic
and intent of the double agent (Miranda Frost) in a
manner that might also be described as ‘knowing’:
I mean here she betrays her country for A FRIGGIN
NORTH KOREAN!. What, did she sympathise with the
loveable north Korean government? I noticed they had
studied together at some university but wtf.
And that stupid Graves (that north korean guy). He
tries to attack South Korea. Ok, fine, he’ll first get to
meet south korean and american forces. If they would
have some problems I bet China would attack North
Korea from the north. They are somewhat of allies but I
doubt North Korea has told China in advance of
attacking South Korea. China has more than one
million soldiers. They have nukes. So do India. And
America. Graves says they can shoot down all the
nukes. So then it is only for the other countries to fire
off their entire nuke arsenal. Wow, nobodys gonna be
able to live in north korea for over a thousand years.
North Korea would probably face:
* American army (USA) + nukes
* South Korean army
* Chinese army + nukes
* Maybe help from India + nukes
* Russian army + nukes
* Maybe some aide from Japan. (They would gladly get
rid off their crazy neighbour).
If North Korea had played it smart they would have
told China in advance so China would maybe just be
passive during the entire thing. But if they don’t tell
China anything they would probably feel betrayed and
invade them and split it up between China and USA/
South Korea. 13
This kind of exchange serves as a salutary warning
to those interested in popular geopolitics because
only a segment of fans (of the ‘knowing’ variety)
discussing the transformation of the villain (Gustav
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125
Graves) noted and/or commented upon contem-
porary political issues such as the UN ban on the
sale of so-called conflict diamonds from West
Africa and US foreign policy tensions with North
Korea and its weapons of mass destruction
programme and relationship with South Korea.
Eager to explore further this relationship
between Bond films and contemporary geopolitical
events, I created a thread entitled ‘James Bond in
the post 9/11 Era’. As part of an attempt to tease
out (in a rather ‘academic manner’) the way in
which the James Bond films are consumed by fans,
the following comment was composed:
I would be interested to learn the views of others about
how we make sense of the James Bond canon including
Die Another Day in the context of what we know about
the apparent failings of Anglo-American intelligence
gathering whether it be related to 9/11 and/or the
search for WMD in Iraq . . . My question is whether the
James Bond canon can still be used to stimulate
interesting questions about how issues like intelligence,
‘big picture’ geopolitics and the portrayal of places (e.g.
DMZ/Hong Kong/Falklands/Iceland) are handled.
I would also be eager to learn what people thought of
the decision to make Casino Royale as the next Bond
film. I suppose it gets around the potentially awkward
issue of how to situate Bond in a post 9/11 era and
there might be an additional worry regarding
alienating the North American market.14
Within two days, one fan (and this is someone who
is a regular participant within the IMDb James
Bond message boards) responded to my message.
S/he argued that my concern for the connections
between contemporary geopolitics and the James
Bond plotlines was quite literally misplaced:
There is a big difference between drawing on reality for
inspiration and outright basing a work on current real
world situations such as the war in Iraq, or current
nuclear troubles with N. Korea. For one, the war in Iraq
and troubles with Korea are very real and very centred
in this time (which as was said ages and dates the films
faster than if the plot is a little more vague). The plot in
TWiNE [The World is not Enough 1999], even if it was
garnered from the reading of some article, has very little
in common with reality as far as actual events go.15
This was a common response to my thread and
fans were quick to point to the need for the films
not ‘to date’ too quickly. While ‘knowing’ fans
often expect films (in this case the James Bond
series) to have long ‘afterlives’, there is clearly an
expectation that James Bond will be both
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contemporary and also ‘timeless’. In other words,
it was considered ideal if the film touched in the
lightest way possible on real-life events without
actually being clearly situated or inspired by
particular events such as September 11th attacks
and/or the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in
2003. As Tony Bennett recognized, the figure of
Bond is capable of being transmuted depending
on particular contexts including the geopolitical
(Bennett 1982).
What emerged from my brief exchange with
IMDb users was an important tension surrounding
the nature of the James Bond canon and the way in
which films are consumed in the first place. I sus-
pect that some fans and users would resist a more
serious academic reading. James Bond films are
meant to be enjoyed and, as one fan noted about
DAD,
I guess it helps to realize the Bond movies are in a
different universe, in which North Korea is a super-
power that can build a giant super killer satellite that’s
10 times the size of the International Space Station and
50 years ahead of NASA in technology, not a starving,
poverty-stricken 4-World country whose population
eats tree bark while their Beloved Leader Kim Jong Il
spends millions on Swiss Rolex watches.16
But what happens if you insist on a more ‘serious’
reading of DAD and other James Bond films? One
consequence of such a move would be to raise the
issue of how the James Bond series have used
specific contexts such as place (e.g. North Korea in
the case of DAD) and time (e.g. the post Cold War era
in the case of all the films produced from 1995
onwards) to play out seemingly ‘timeless’ Bond
themes involving adventure, stunts, fast cars,
gadgets and glamorous female assistants and/or
enemies.
Interestingly, the release of DAD in December
2002 actually generated real-life political contro-
versy. A BBC News report in December 2002
detailed how the North Korean government issued
an official complaint to the US government, declar-
ing that Die Another Day (2002) was ‘dirty and
cursed burlesque aimed to slander . . . and insult’.
The North Korean Secretariat of the Committee for
the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland fur-
thermore called for the film to be banned because it
was ‘insulting to the Korean nation’.17 One area of
particular concern was an early scene of the film
showing North Korean guards torturing Bond with
the aid of scorpions. At the same the Committee
complained that the film depicted North Korea as
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Klaus Dodds
both economically backward and intent on con-
quering South Korea. The report also recorded
that the film caused upset to some South Koreans
who objected to the role of the United States
(within the film and beyond) in determining the
fate of the Korean Peninsula. Unlike some of the
IMDb fans, official Korean sources insisted on tak-
ing Bond very seriously indeed and clearly inter-
preted those ‘specific contexts’ as more important
than seemingly ‘timeless’ Bond themes of cars,
adventure and female companions. But as Tony
Bennett noted, over 20 years ago, the meanings
attached to Bond by audiences have shifted with
the changing contours of the Cold War and others
phenomenon such as the ‘sexual revolution’ of the
1960s (Bennett 1982).
A raft of academics, trade press reviewers and
even governments more generally has granted a
real-life geopolitical legitimacy to films such as
Die Another Day (2002). But so did IMDb fans and
reviewers as well. As one reviewer noted on the
IMDb site,
Critics of President Bush cool it. The prez [sic] was
right in calling North Korea a member of the Axis of
Evil . . . are not interested in conquering only South
Korea or even Japan. They’re out to dominate the
world (a concept wholly beyond the imagination of the
United States). This is a job for 007 . . .18
Another reviewer for the IMDB also noted that ‘It’s
another Bond film that reflects the current state of
the world. In this case one of the villains is from the
rogue nation of North Korea’.19 While these kinds of
observations were not necessarily reflective of the
broader fan-based commentary via the DAD message
board, it points to the need to recognize the different
styles and tone of contributors.
Film viewers and IMDb users engage with films
in different ways and the ongoing exchanges over
Die Another Day (2002) highlight the eclectic man-
ner of these engagements. Moreover, it also means
that fans can shift between certain ‘readings’ of
James Bond films, from ‘realistic’ readings (which
emphasize plot difficulties, for example) to a kind
of ‘art mode’, which denies and/or resists contem-
porary geopolitical relevance. The James Bond film
series more generally offers a series of opportunities
for viewers and, in particular fans, to produce and
consume a variety of readings. This kind of posi-
tion would seem to echo the work of John Fiske
(and the intellectual corpus of Michel de Certeau)
when he claims that fans, amongst others, engage
Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions
in ways of using films not strictly prescribed by its
makers. This should not be seen as evidence of
some kind of cultural resistance, rather it makes
more sense to recognize these practices as indica-
tive of the way in which fans re-work their inter-
actions with films.20 Fans do disagree with one
another on all aspects of the James Bond films, but
as this analysis has shown there are nonetheless
certain topics (the five identified earlier in the
paper) and prevailing modes of interpretation.
While recent Bond films deliberately embed con-
temporary references to terrorism and so-called
‘rogue states’ such as Afghanistan, Syria and
Serbia, further research would be needed with both
viewers and (critically) non-viewers to understand
the way in which geopolitical knowledge works in
the context of these viewers. Even if fans may
engage in far more complex and possibly mutually
contradictory readings of James Bond, non-viewers
may also be as promising a place to start with
regard to exploring the often un-remarked nature
of the popular geopolitics of James Bond.
Conclusions
One of the key findings of this paper is to argue
that there is a great deal more that needs to be
done in terms of developing a nuanced under-
standing of popular geopolitics. Trade press reviews,
trailers, newspaper reports and fan magazines are
important source materials. Trade press reviews of
the James Bond series including Die Another Day
(2002) offer just one impression as to how films are
interpreted. While many academic and trade press
commentators were swift to draw parallels with
real-life geopolitical events such as US–North
Korean relationship, fans using the IMDb were
more likely to be swapping apparent Bond trivia.
The message boards of the IMDb offer an
important on-line space for that kind of interaction,
which rather than being dismissed as apparently
trivial should be seen as significant in its own
right. The James Bond film series has generated a
fan base that is only too willing and able to engage
in devoted attention to plot details and character
development. Perhaps this points to a different
kind of power than one that is focused on how
geopolitical knowledge is put to work in popular
contexts.
More broadly, the paper suggests that the popu-
lar geopolitics literature needs to think through in
more detail how new media cultures, fandom and
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127
audience research can feed through into a more
sophisticated understanding of how people
(whether fans or not) view and interpret films. This
might involve more detailed consideration of film
genre, consumption dynamics, and the varied
‘dispositions’ and ‘emotional investments’ that are
brought to bear when watching highly popular
films such as the James Bond series. The IMDb
offers a fascinating glimpse into how some viewers
and fans engage in an eclectic series of readings of
James Bond. Within film studies, research into film
fans (and associated fan magazines for example)
and the manner in which they construct different
endings and scenarios for specific films is instruc-
tive in the sense that it highlights the need for
popular geopolitics to engage with these significant
investigations (for instance, Barker and Brooks
1998).
For those interested in greater understanding of
geopolitical cultures (O Tuathail 2004), two final
points are worth stressing. Popular geopolitical
sources such as film contribute to the generation
and reproduction of a series of geographical imagi-
nations and traditions, which help to sustain par-
ticular national visions of states and territories. The
popular geopolitics of James Bond could be seen as
part of Britain’s repertoire of geopolitical traditions
– Britain as a global player allied with a special
relationship with the United States. One could
imagine a very different series of films, which
highlight how intelligence was used to imprison,
torture and ultimately kill colonial subjects in
Kenya and elsewhere in the post-1945 period
(Curtis 2004; Elkins 2004). The use of James Bond
characters to describe military operations in con-
temporary Iraq (given its colonial connections to
Britain) takes on added cultural significance in that
context. Second, the circulation of images of terror,
violence and global risk since September 11th
should make us ever more attentive to the manner
in which these depictions map out ‘pathogenic’
spaces and peoples. New monsters in the form of
‘Islamic terrorists’ appear necessary to secure the
West’s sense of humanity (Gregory 2004; Feldman
2005; Spence 2005). As a consequence of the search
for identifiable threats and enemies in the Middle
East and elsewhere, complex histories of interven-
tion, struggle and limited development are margin-
alized. The representations and stories associated
with the ‘War on Terror’ find resonance in a broader
visual culture and James Bond films are part of that
complex milieu.
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Acknowledgements
I owe thanks to the British Film Institute for access
to trade press reviews associated with Die Another
Day (2002) and to Bridget Robison for essential
research assistance. Phil Crang, Leslie Hepple, Peter
Jackson, Fraser MacDonald and Marcus Power
offered many helpful comments on an earlier draft
of this essay. The paper also benefited from the
remarks offered by the participants at the Inter-
national Geographical Commission workshop on
‘Geographies and the media’ at the Leibniz Institute
of Regional Geography, Leipzig, 23 –25 June 2005. I
also owe thanks to the referees and the editor of
Transactions for their immensely helpful comments
and suggestions. The award of the Philip Leverhulme
Prize (by the Leverhulme Trust) in 2005 is gratefully
acknowledged. The usual disclaimers apply.
Notes
1 All figures for box office receipts (i.e. movie ticket
sales) are to be found at: http://www.imdb.com/
boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide (accessed
20 June 2005). In terms of worldwide box office receipts,
the Austin Powers in Goldmember and xXx films took
US$289 million and US$267 million respectively.
2 The scenes featuring Bond being tortured by North
Korean security personnel were controversial and led
to an official protest from the North Korean govern-
ment. At least one film critic thought that Bond’s
appearance was reminiscent of the Church of Eng-
land minister, Terry Waite, who was captured and
imprisoned in the Lebanon for four years in the 1980s.
See A. Walker 2002 Licence to Thrill Evening Standard
20 November 51.
3 State of the Union Address delivered by President
George W. Bush on 29 January 2002. See http://www.
whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-
11.html (accessed 10 June 2005).
4 Die Another Day (2002) was replete with references to
the Bond film canon, such as a beach scene (Dr No,
1962), a parachute scene (The Spy who Loved Me, 1977)
and a scene with Q where old equipment was fea-
tured (e.g. Thunderball, 1965). See K. Newman 2003
Die Another Day Sight and Sound 13 (January) 41–2.
All the Bond films have been produced by Eon
Productions/United Artists with the exception of the
remake of Thunderball (1965) starring Sean Connery
in Never Say Never Again (1983).
5 Goldberg J 2002 James Bond was right National
Review Online http://www.nationalreview.com/
goldberg053102.asp (accessed 17 April 2005).
6 Unlike the intelligence and geopolitical ‘realities’ of
the post-1945 era, it is Bond/MI6 rather than his CIA/
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Klaus Dodds
NSA colleagues who decisively shapes that relation-
ship and little clues are offered within the films at
least as to the vastly different levels of resources
available to each party (Arkin 2005; Bamford 2001;
Keefe 2005a; Powers 2004). Perhaps as one anony-
mous verse found in British papers dealing with the
negotiation of the American Loan in 1945 once noted,
‘In Washington Lord Halifax once whispered to Lord
Keynes: “It’s true they have the money bags, but we
have all the brains”’ (cited in Hennessy 1990, 3). For
example, in the financial year 2003–4 the United
States intelligence agencies spent US$6 billion in
information classification alone and created 15 mil-
lion secrets in any particular year (Keefe 2005b, 41).
Over 206 countries and territories provide assistance
to the United States with regard to intelligence and
military matters. Britain and its remaining imperial
portfolio is perhaps one of the greatest assets to the
United States – Ascension, Diego Garcia and Britain
itself. Arguably this kind of intelligence-military
imbalance between Britain and the United States is
addressed tangentially in Die Another Day (2002),
when 007 is mocked by a North Korean adversary
that, ‘it’s pathetic that you British still believe you
have the right to police the world’. Later on, a
Chinese secret service counterpart reminds Bond that
‘Hong Kong is our turf now, Bond’.
7 ‘IMDb history’ http://www.imdb.com/helpdesk/
(accessed 25 April 2005).
8 IMDb Die Another Day Message Board posted 15 Jan-
uary 2004 ‘Name that Bond film’.
9 IMDb Die Another Day Message Board posted 17 June
2005 ‘The definitive list of why this movie is the
worst Bond ever’. Author’s emphasis.
10 IMDb Die Another Day Message Board posted 16
April 2005 ‘Bond is the best spy in the world?’
11 IMDb Die Another Day Message Board posted 7 May
2005 ‘Very big plot hole’. Author’s emphasis.
12 IMDb Die Another Day Message Board posted 8 May
2005 ‘Re: Very big plot hole’.
13 IMDB Die Another Day Message Board posted 16 May
2005 ‘How daft is Miranda Frost’.
14 IMDB Die Another Day Message Board posted 16 May
2005 ‘James Bond in the post 9/11 era?’
15 IMDb Die Another Day Message Board posted 20 May
2005 ‘Re: James Bond in a post 9/11 era?’
16 IMDB Die Another Day Message Board posted 23 May
2005 ‘How daft is Miranda Frost?’
17 BBC News ‘North Korea takes aim at Bond’ 14
December 2002. http://www.news.bbc.co.uk
(accessed 2 June 2005).
18 ‘Die Another Day’ reviewed by Harvey Karten http://
www.imdb.com/reviews/334/33402 (accessed 24
April 2005). The author has added emphasis not least
because it reminded me of the famous exchanges
between President Kennedy and Ian Fleming over the
need for the intervention of 007 with regard to the
Popular geopolitics and audience dispositions
possible assassination of Fidel Castro in the early
1960s (see Willman 2005).
19 ‘Bond+20marks 40 years, yet filled with over-the-top
action . . .’ A Movies2002 http://www.imdb.com
(accessed 23 April 2005).
20 There is some evidence that the Soviet leadership
during the Cold War watched James Bond films in
so-called ‘closed shows’. According to one KGB
defector, Oleg Gordievsky, the Central Committee of the
Soviet Communist Party eagerly consumed the films
and the reputation of real-life British intelligence activi-
ties was enhanced as a consequence (Black 2004, 302).
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