Here we are in an age where we’ve busted the things of the old world and our beliefs and our understanding of it, and supplanted them with a husk of civilization.
asserted
we → bust → civilization
Nothing embodies our slow march to the enshittification of our time more than what’s happening in popular culture.
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what → embody → culture
And whatever you think you understand about the plunging trajectory of this flaming bin of safety commodification, blasé conformism, and dead-eye purge of excitement and thrill, it is clearly defined in one man: Bond, James Bond.
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it → think → man
The longest-running film franchise based on the spy-thriller novels by Ian Fleming is in the final stages of selecting its next protagonist, and let me tell you, I’m not impressed.
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I → run → you
Of course, I come from a place that lived squarely in the “before times” when men were unabashedly men and “woke” was a thing you did in the morning or maybe at noontime after enjoying a harmless night with actual people in an actual social setting where there was smoking, drinking, flirting, and even gambling.
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you → come → setting
But we’ve seemed to transfer the morality of sinlessness into a social-justice crusade against everything Bond was about.
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Bond → seem → everything
“Toxic masculinity” has made the rounds, hot on the lips of every liberal arts college, womyn’s studies master’s program, and — proving its legitimacy as one of the more stupid and vapid social contagions in a long list of what modern feminism has done to the male-female relationship — the pages of such serious and studious periodicals like Cosmopolitan, Teen Vogue, and Vanity Fair.
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feminism → make → Cosmopolitan
Then, in the trickle-down empowerment economy, #MeToo became the currency of the social climbers, grifters, and general feminist bitches who were upset that they were home alone on Saturday nights.
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they → trickle → nights
The patriarchy must be stomped, and Bond became just another man-target in the Karen wars of the 21st century.
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Bond → stomp → century
It’s a miracle Daniel Craig — the latest on-screen embodiment of the British superspy — lasted as long as he did.
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he → ’ → superspy
But his rugged demeanor and machismo had to be tempered with some underlying trauma and vulnerabilities that gave him a pass where the previous Bonds would not.
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Bonds → have → pass
It would be silly to pretend that Bond could carry on, untouched, by today’s perpetual reckoning and iconoclasm.
uncertain
Bond → pretend → reckoning
The director of “No Time to Die,” the 25th installment of the film franchise, Cary Joji Fukunaga, explained as much to The Hollywood Reporter:
Is it Thunderball or Goldfinger where, like, basically Sean Connery’s character rapes a woman?” Fukunaga asks.
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Fukunaga → die → woman
“She’s like ‘No, no, no,’ and he’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
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he → ’ → ?
That wouldn’t fly today.
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That → fly → ?
Fukunaga welcomed Phoebe Waller-Bridge (the “Fleabag” creator and noted She-woman Man Hater) to the scriptwriting team, signaling that Bond’s manhood was on the chopping block:
Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the film was bringing its globe-trotting lothario into Hollywood’s post-#MeToo reality.
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hurdle → welcome → reality
After all, No Time to Die began development in 2016, before the industry embarked on a period of self-reflection in the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s downfall for predatory behavior.
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industry → die → behavior
Though Craig’s oeuvre puts a greater emphasis on the quality of drinks than the quantity of women, the history of Bond includes casual misogyny and worse.
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history → put → misogyny
I’m not aware of any fans of the franchise, or anyone who is even peripherally familiar with it, who walk away from one of the films thinking, “Gosh, these Bond films are spectacular action productions, but they could really use more female equity and empowerment.”
uncertain
they → ’m → equity
So of course, in Hollywoodland, where every -ism imaginable is projected onto the American consumer, they take this on as a “problem” to be solved.
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they → project → problem
“You can’t change Bond overnight into a different person.
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You → change → person
But you can definitely change the world around him and the way he has to function in that world.
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he → change → world
It’s a story about a white man as a spy in this world, but you have to be willing to lean in and do the work to make the female characters more than just contrivances,” Fukunaga says.
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Fukunaga → ’ → contrivances
He’s dangerous — and those very qualities that make him terminally dangerous to a society that shuns anything adjacently masculine, which, lobbing a grenade into the oppo feminist trenches mid-Karen War — are just what we need to blow up a culture drunk on its own androgyny and cheap sex sexlessness.
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we → ’ → androgyny
Sorry, gals, but your very cris de coeur is how we got here.
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we → get → ?
After women’s liberation and touting promiscuity as freedom and prostitution and pornography as honorable sex work, and righteous indignation at one Shane Gillis joke (spot the lie, though!), the champions of feminist theory are big mad that James Bond sleeps with women and makes sexual innuendo part of his fictional repertoire.
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innuendo → tout → repertoire
Yes folks, we’re talking about a fictional character.
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we → talk → character
And the OG Bond, Sean Connery, is being unfairly maligned by our backward-jeering progressive cultural gatekeepers.
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Bond → malign → gatekeepers
“I never liked James Bond.
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I → like → Bond
I never liked the way women were in James Bond.
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women → like → Bond
The whole concept of James Bond is drenched and born out of profound sexism,” Helen Mirren ninny-splained, proving that escapism and fun just aren’t meant for some people.
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escapism → drench → people
Fortunately, former Bond star Pierce Brosnan weighed in, defending 007.
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Brosnan → weigh → 007
But there’s a certain world and room to move within the proscenium arch of what [Bond creator and author] Ian Fleming put down.
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Fleming → ’ → what
Bond isn’t a problem to be solved.
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Bond → solve → ?
Connery played Bond starting with 1962’s “Dr. No,” and his portrayal was so striking that Fleming later revised his Bond novels to better conform to the Connery image.
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Fleming → play → image
There is a reason his Bond will be the one by which all others are measured, feminism be damned, and it is in his swagger, composure, wit, cool confidence, and the demeanor of a dangerous man in physicality, intelligence, and sexual magnetism.
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it → be → physicality
The “problem” his haters have is confusing this with being “toxic.”
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haters → have → this
And just like everything else related to romance, sex, men and women, and relationships, the feminist mystique is on a mission to eradicate any semblance of these things in society, assuring us that masculine and feminine is a zero-sum game rather than a balance.
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masculine → relate → us
What Connery’s Bond does in the six films in which he starred is simplify the natural roles between the sexes, good and evil, honor and dishonor, and between sophistication and charm and repulsive vulgarity.
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he → star → sophistication
He could imply sexual tension without being explicit or tawdry.
uncertain
He → imply → tension
…and 12 more, not listed.
The Aporia
