So over the holidays hanging out with friends and family, I expected to have the usual ribald conversations with my loved ones about pop culture and their political leanings. I’m an easy target to them because I am a free-minded liberal (especially after a lot of vodka) and many of my friends are conservatives (or THINK they are). To my pleasant surprise and glee, I ended up spending the holidays debating with friends and family about the big brouhaha about the leaked Sony emails and Rush Limbaugh’s ravings about the possibility of Idris Elba being the next James Bond.
That is to say that James Bond could be black. In my humble opinion, given the fact that James Bond is a fictional character, I don’t see any harm in diversifying the role. Hey, in my opinion, the world is getting smaller and browner. Comparing President Obama and James Bond is like comparing apples and oranges, given the fact that President Obama is not a fictional character and James Bond is. Idris Elba definitely isn’t getting any points for being a black Briton. In a 2011 interview with NPR, Elba even said he’s not interested in becoming the ‘black’ James Bond. ‘Sean Connery wasn’t the Scottish James Bond, and Daniel Craig wasn’t the blue-eyed James Bond, so if I played him, I don’t want to be called the black James Bond,’ the actor said. But I digress.
Just as there are presumably people of color in the real-life MI6 these days, and race is a social construct, there’s no real reason James Bond HAS to be white. Dean Obeidallah gets it right:
?While we can debate whether historical figures should always be played by actors who share the same race, clearly fictitious ones can evolve as the times change.?
Over the past 50 years they didn’t create James Bond to the letter of how Ian Fleming wrote him to be. Still, that apparently doesn’t make any difference. It seems that some people believe that if the character they love was originally white, they should stay white forever. They view any updating of a character’s skin color to reflect our nation’s changing demographics and opening up leading roles to non-white actors– who are forever being cast as thugs, thieves, servants, and sharecroppers — as a sacrilege.
In the past, Rush Limbaugh has attacked the concept of multiculturalism with comments like:
“Multiculturalism is ripping this country’s heart out.”
I rarely agree with Rush Limbaugh on anything, but I think in this case he is onto something. I think the real debate is less about ?The Black James Bond? and more about money, multiculturalism, and marketing. Still, Rush Limbaugh thinks he has the pulse of the heartbeat of conservative America:
?We had 50 years of white Bonds because Bond is white. Bond was never black?I know it’s racist to probably even point this out.?
Well, has anything ever stopped Rush Limbaugh from being the blowhard he really is? How exactly do you go about justifying labeling a fictional character as being a ?whites only? character? It is true, the original Bond, as imagined by Ian Fleming, was white, Scottish, born around 1920, and resembled white singer and actor Hoagy Carmichael. Taking these factors into consideration, the original Bond would be +/- 100 years old now and highly unlikely to be as attractive as Elba or Craig to be out there seducing women or spry enough to be out there killing people. Over the 50 years of Bond films, he’s remained literally ageless at about 35 years old and has gone from fighting in the Cold War to taking on evil media moguls and cyberterrorists.
There is also truth to the fact that the background of James Bond is murky and subjective. The Daily Mail’s Hanna Flint notes that author Ian Fleming didn’t create Bond’s Scottish heritage until after the first film, Dr No, was released with Scottish actor Sean Connery in the lead role. This in and of itself indicates that they weren’t following Ian Fleming’s character to the letter over the past 50 years of Bond films. Flint notes:
“When writing You Only Live Twice, the spy’s parents were given as Andrew Bond, from the village of Glencoe, Scotland, and Monique Delacroix, from the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, to fit with Connery’s interpretation of the role.”
According to the BBC, following the death of his parents, Bond goes to live with his aunt, Miss Charmian Bond, in the village of Pett Bottom, and after being kicked out of Eton, James heads to Fettes College in Scotland, his father’s school.[Ian] Fleming also alludes to his own personal upbringing by having Bond briefly attend the University of Geneva, before being taught to ski in Kitzb?hel, however the casting of later Bonds haven’t exactly gone with the writer’s intentions.
According to the BBC, Limbaugh’s ravings aren’t the only comments suggesting that the prospect of a black James Bond is unlikely. The prospect of Idris Elba eventually replacing Daniel Craig as the next James Bond went from hypothetical internet speculation to something more substantial last week, when the Daily Beast uncovered a conversation about this in those hacked Sony emails: “Idris should be the next Bond,” Sony Pictures chair Amy Pascal wrote, reportedly to a fellow studio executive. There were murmurings in those hacked emails expressing concern that black actors underperform in foreign markets and shouldn’t be counted on in big-money films.
“I believe that the international motion picture audience is racist – in general pictures with an African American lead don’t play well overseas,” one email read. “But Sony sometimes seems to disregard that a picture must work well internationally to both maximize returns and reduce risk, especially pics with decent size budgets.”
So, going forward, the remaining arguing over drinks issues with my friends will be:
- whether Elba will be too old to play Bond once Daniel Craig leaves the series?
- will a Bond movie with a black actor cast in the lead role underperform?
- will Sony’s hand be forced to produce a Bond movie with a black actor cast as James Bond so they won’t look like they are shying away from a racial controversy?
- will Limbaugh’s ravings make a black James Bond more likely?
Watch this space?
Sources:
Obeidallah, D., (2014) Rush Limbaugh’s Fear of a Black James Bond. Retrieved December 29, 2014 from: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/29/rush-limbaugh-s-fear-of-a-black-james-bond.html
Zurcher, A., (2014) Rush Limbaugh and his ?black Bond? outrage. Retrieved December 29, 2014 from: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30594460
Hongo, H., (2014) Limbaugh: Buh-Buh-Buh-Bond Isn?t Buh-Buh-Black. Retrieved December 29, 2014 from: http://gawker.com/limbaugh-buh-buh-buh-bond-isnt-buh-buh-buh-black-1674722087
Flint, H., (2014) Idris Elba tweet thanks James Bond support amid racist comments to play spy. Retrieved December 29, 2014 from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2888515/Idris-Elba-tweets-thanks-James-Bond-support-amid-racist-comments-t-play-spy-s-black.html#ixzz3NKzmvyZY
Duke, A., (2014) Denzel Blacklisted! Sony Execs Warned Not To Cast Washington In Big Flicks Because Black Leads ?Don’t Play Well? ? Latest Shocking Email Leak. Retrieved December 29, 2014 from: http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2014/12/sony-email-hack-denzel-washington-black-leads-international-audience-racist/
Limbaugh: “Multiculturalism is ripping this country’s heart out” Retrieved December 29, 2014
