House of Eratosthenes

Academics who set out to discover what makes the ideal Bond girl found that apart from having long dark hair, she is likely to have an American accent – and to carry a weapon.

The unexpected findings were reached by a team who assessed the physical traits of all 195 female characters in the first 20 Bond movies, then contrasted the characteristics of the 98 who had “sexual contact” with Bond with those of the 97 who did not.

The paper itself is here.

A quantitative content analysis of 20 James Bond films assessed portrayals of 195 female characters. Key findings include a trend of more sexual activity and greater harm to females over time, but few significant across-time differences in demographic characteristics of Bond women. Sexual activity is predicted by race, attractiveness, size of role, and aggressive behaviors. Being a target of weapons is predicted by size of role, sexual activity, and weapon use, while being harmed is predicted principally by role. End-of-film mortality is predicted by sexual activity, ethical status (good vs. bad), and attempting to kill Bond. This identification of a link between sexuality and violent behavior is noted as a contribution to the media and sex roles literatures.

“Few significant across-time differences”? I wonder if they noticed that all of the 60’s Bond girls, aside from the legendary Pussy Galore, had foreign origins/accents whereas all of the 70’s Bond girls, apart from Solitaire and Major Amasova, were American. The across-time differences are there, if you really look.

Bond movie producers want women to come see the next movie, just as much as the men, and this is why the Bond girl evolves. The appeal to the masculine mind and libido provides none of this incentive for change, whatsoever. Bond could sleep with Marilyn Monroe herself, and as long as we got a glimpse of her somewhat-naked, we’d be every bit as motivated as if she was Vesper, Jinx or Agent Fields. So the Bond girls change just as, and for the same reason as, hemlines going up and down, heels growing thicker or thinner, boots becoming taller or shorter, hair being worn up or down. They change, cyclically, to appeal to the women. They are fashion.

One thing that’s long been a source of amusement is that each Bond girl claims, in all sorts of ways, to be more skilled, independent and strong-willed than all the Bond girls that came before. But after a few decades’ worth of Bond movies have been put in the can, we see there really weren’t too many revolutionary moments like that. One could reasonably say there haven’t been any at all.

Of course, if every Bond girl’s contribution was limited to a) smooching with 007 right before the closing credits, b) getting abducted and c) getting rescued, the women in the audience would have been bored out of their minds and stopped going. But the men would have lost interest even quicker, I think. And that assumes Ian Fleming would have been motivated to finish writing the books…which is quite doubtful. Bond girls, from the very first pages of the very first books, have always had something to make them spiced up, interesting, and interconnected with the story’s events.

The sentence that begins “Being a target of weapons is predicted by size of role, sexual activity, and weapon use…” implies that an important point or two might have gone whistling over the researchers’ heads. Bond girls have been, for a very long time now, assorted according to well-established classes and it would be a statistical-sampling error to put them all in one bucket and then examine the concoction for meaningful patterns or trends. There is the “bad girl gone good” role started by Ms. Galore, and then there is the “doomed girl” we see from time to time, whose premature demise occasionally brings out the dark, vengeful side of Bond. It is often useful to have a just-plain-bad girl slip under the sheets with the superspy to see what kind of information she can pry out of him, only to learn later that Bond beat her at her own game. This is a motif that has had generations to go out of style but still remains entertaining and fresh today.

If I had unlimited time, I might be inclined to repeat the research to see if I could do a better job. First thing I’d inspect: How much of an agenda did each Bond girl have, as a character in an entertainment action movie, to displace James Bond as the central character — with Jinx as #1, followed by Wai Lin, then by Amasova. And then, against that ranking I’d plot another arrangement reflecting a general consensus about whether that character was well-received.

I expect I’d find that on opening weekend, as well as years later when the movie is nothing but a dusty old DVD on a shelf, there is an eyeball-rolling and simmering resentment against the women who are designed to “spin off” and perhaps get their own series going. A grudge nursed by both male and female Bond fans. My theory is that people really don’t care that much about who’s stronger or who’s more resourceful or who’s more independent or who is more likely to save the world working alone — but audiences cannot abide multiple, competing objectives at work in character design. They can tolerate chaos but they can’t stand a mess.

And so nobody has a kind word to say about poor Christmas Jones.

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Bond Prefers BrunettesTuesday, June 9th, 2009

Bond Prefers Brunettes
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009