Gwendolyn Sobkowiak | staff writer

Okay, so it’s not pressing news, but MGM studios blessed Netflix this month with limited time access to the entire James Bond series. It’s sent me deep into the belly of a classic, awesome, but still undeniably sexist universe.

Watching the movies has been putting me in a bit of a moral conundrum. Caught between a rock and a hard place, I’ve been grappling with enjoying something that so deeply goes against my feminist values.

I never thought I’d like the films if I’m being honest. I’ve always been skeptical of the franchise.

I just didn’t grow up watching these kinds of movies. My dad’s more of a nature nerd than a spy guy, so in my childhood watches were never magnetic, and movies rarely included spymobiles and high stakes shootouts.

But watching the Bond movies as a college student has actually been really fun. It’s hard not to get a kick out of the over-the-top antics of seemingly endless trap doors, suspected KGB operatives with thick accents and retro cars being tossed into lagoons with our fearless hero inside. The older movies, to me, are like a mix of “Sharknado” and “Mission Impossible,” really high stakes but at times laugh-out-loud ridiculous.

I’ve been watching them in spurts before their upcoming leave date. I have neither the time nor the stamina to watch them all. There’s 27 movies in total, with seven 007s (try saying that 10 times fast) to date.

I’ve caught on to the little things, like the agent’s favorite drink (a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred), his classic introduction (Bond, James Bond), and of course his infamous “license to kill.” There’s the recurring characters, like Q, MoneyPenny and Felix Lighter. There’s even classic scenes I’ve noticed across the franchise; the casino, the tour of the cleverly hidden gadget emporium, and the ever colorful nightclubs.

But besides all of the cool stuff is the overwhelming, quite yucky and unavoidable sexism that isn’t just slinking in the background. It’s front and center, and in the intro it’s doing flips across the screen. The women in the James Bond universe are just as much accessories as his tailored suits.

Sexism isn’t just an accidental part of the Bond films, it’s a tenet of the franchise. This isn’t shocking, but it’s still an uncomfortable truth for many fanatics of the series.

Even newbies to the franchise know that Bond is a ladies man, to put it nicely. According to a 2018 Pubmed article on unsafe sexual practices in movies, Bond ends up in bed with around 58 women over the course of the series. Although these women lead a myriad of careers, many of them are in vulnerable positions. Often these women are victims under the influence of the movie’s villain or at times turn out to be double agents. Sure, it’s a part of the movie trope that Bond gets the girl, but did it have to be every girl? Is that the only reason there are women in the movie at all?

In the early movies it definitely feels that way. Women show up on screen and become conquests instantly, sometimes only appearing for a scene scantily dressed before sleeping with the hero and disappearing or else violently dying. Bond flirts, talks about, ogles or attempts to be with women constantly, often for no benefit to the plot. Women are portrayed as two dynamic opposites, either femme fatales (hot, dangerous and soooo down) or doves (weak, flighty and a super bummer when they’re killed). Yes, there are exceptions, but I’m hard pressed to find a woman Bond hasn’t immediately tried to seduce.

The sexism has gotten better in more recent films I’ve heard, but I just haven’t made it there in my watchlist yet. From what I’ve read online there’s still not a real pass of the Bechdel test (which just requires two named women talking to each other about something other than a man) in any of the movies. The women are there to serve Bond. They’re not having their own arc, and they’re usually not important enough to be named.

The bummer is that getting the girl is usually pretty central to the plot, even if it’s just a fling. The directors are going to make you watch their strange glass-eyed portrayal of womanhood gasp, giggle and stamp her foot throughout every awesome fight scene, just to be struck down by a villain’s backhand. At least there’s our brave British knight in shining armor ready to scoop her up. Womp, womp.

It’s hard, I know the movies are a product of their time and an element of culture that had already been long debated. I don’t think genderswapping James Bond is going to solve the problem, nor should we get rid of the movies entirely.

I just think we should have more female characters in general. Let more of them be annoyed by Bond’s antics and actually mean it. Let there be consequences to his actions. Let’s have more women who aren’t just poster girls. Or at least make them more interesting. Can’t there be more types of women in the world? Surely they can’t all be that beautiful always. Let them have flaws and character quirks, it can still be fun. Let it all remain over the top. Let more women be interesting, please.

I think I’m okay with watching the old movies, so long as I’m not paying money to support the creation of more movies in this style. I’m not going to go around wearing the man on a t-shirt, but I’m definitely still going to keep watching the series. I truly love the costumes and really there are cool enough sets and dialogue to keep it entertaining. I’ll just roll my eyes during the “guy talk” parts. I don’t think liking the movies or even liking Bond’s character makes you sexist, it’s just that letting it go unacknowledged does.

Gwen Sobkowiak can be reached at sobkowiakg@duq.edu