Therapist Dwight Hurst explores how 007 has ventured beyond the realm of tired stereotypes, and not necessarily for the better.
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James Bond is boring.
No, for real. Like, snoozeville.
You might think this is a hard sell. After all, the man goes around shooting bad guys and bedding beautiful women wherever he goes. What could be boring about that?
Let me show you why Mr. Bond is less interesting than real men. Like you, for example.
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Daniel Craig recently sent the internet into a feeding frenzy when he stated that he would rather “slit [his] wrists,” than star in another Bond venture. He explained that it is important for us to remember that Bond is “a misogynist,” and when asked what the character has to offer us in the way of day-to-day inspiration, he replied, “Nothing.”
Mr. Craig is certainly not the first to accuse Ian Fleming’s golden-gunned boy of being a testosterone soaked amalgamation of all things stereo-typically Alpha-Male. And there’s nothing more boring than stereotypes.
Or is there?
If you venture a step beyond stereotypes, you will find yourself in the land of archetypes. Famous psychologist Carl Jung defined archetypes as images and patterns that emerge, giving embodiment to deeply held cultural beliefs. Archetypes shape self-concept, and can thereby affect our expectations of the world.
Some are beneficial. Many are neutral. Others are deeply destructive.
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Here are the three most dangerous male archetypes that James Bond doesn’t seem aware he has been personifying all along.
1) The Super-Man
This is actually a broad archetype, also including Batman, Indiana Jones, any character ever played by Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, and Mel Gibson. Oh, and of course, the actual Superman, although he plays it a little on the nose.
James Bond is the toughest of the tough guys. He can fight, drive, dismantle, shoot, and climb over anything or anyone that gets in his way. Internet writers have chronicled how much and how long Bond would have had to train to survive just one of his adventures, and (spoiler alert) it’s a lot. Just one Bond adventure would take a decade or more of preparatory training in acrobatics, martial arts, shooting, vehicle proficiency, and some cursory medical training.
So he can do more things, and do them longer and better, than any real person. We allow it because he is fictional. We forgive him for being a Parkour-mechanic-ninja-marksman. We give him that inch, and he takes it a mile further.
In multiple Bond iterations he is forced to face the rigors of age, injury, or wounding. He does this with the grace of Sean Connery and the apparent healing powers of Wolverine. In Skyfall, a damaged and out-of-shape Bond passes his physical examination for service just because he really, really, really wants to. That’s it. It is just a sheer force of will to make his body work when it is broken.
We real males usually find ourselves dodging our mental and emotional limitations. Consequently men have become notorious for trying to wish away everything from suicidal thoughts to prostate cancer. This is the archetype that tells us never to share our needs with others, especially our partners or families.
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He even dramatically collapses of exhaustion from being so awesome the moment the doctor leaves the room. When Pierce Brosnan’s Bond is in a similar situation he proceeds to seduce his doctor. His female doctor of course, we can always talk about Bond’s “No-Homo” archetype in another article.
We want this from our Super-Men. Just like Batman in The Dark Night Returns, recovering from a broken back by doing a lot of sit-ups, this archetype of super-abilities tells us that we ought to be able to transcend the natural world and all of it’s limitations.
In the real world men rarely find themselves called upon to fake being healthy enough to return to punching & shooting everybody. We real males usually find ourselves dodging our mental and emotional limitations. Consequently men have become notorious for trying to wish away everything from suicidal thoughts to prostate cancer. This is the archetype that tells us never to share our needs with others, especially our partners or families.
In his aptly titled book I Don’t Want to Talk About it, Terrence Real chronicles how this tendency to under-report our own depression leads men to increase their likelihood of addiction, aggression, and suicide.
The archetype of the Super-Man kills men. Literally.
2) The Super Horn-Dog
Recently a young man in my office made a confession.
He told me he is naturally monogamous. He said he craves more commitment from his relationship. He even went so far as to say that he is really enjoying dating the one person he has been seeing for a while.
I have heard many such confessions over the years of doing therapy. Men often tell me this with a glancing-over-the-shoulder, hand-in-the-cookie-jar kind of shame. They believe they shouldn’t be this way.
In real life, many men don’t mind when a girlfriend talks about commitment. They actually want to leap for joy that the interesting, exciting person that they have been dating is considering hanging around them a while longer.
James Bond is an athletic, aggressive sex-haver. Sex is often portrayed as an important part of his secret agent duties, but it is more frequently shown to be his primary style of recreation. This plays into the archetype of the hyper-sexual male, a sex-for-sport machine with little to no consideration for partner selection or feelings.
In real life, many men don’t mind when a girlfriend talks about commitment. They actually want to leap for joy that the interesting, exciting person that they have been dating is considering hanging around them a while longer.
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With a willing partner this is not inherently clinically damaging. However, as an archetype hung up on the societal wall to shame the men who more naturally attach to partners in a healthy way, it can do great harm. Men engage with this by conforming, trying to play the part of Don Juan, or by being ashamed when they cannot. Often they do both.
Many, if not most, men are uncomfortable in this role. This is especially true as men move into adulthood. The most common complaints about relationships that I hear from men have to do with the amount of affection they receive from their partner. In other words one of the most frequent relational problems facing adult men is one that the Super-Horndog would never face.
3) The Super Dummy
What? Isn’t James Bond a smarty-pants? He’s like Sherlock Holmes with a burnt photograph or a cellphone’s ID Chip!
Yes, he’s an out-of-the-box thinker in the killing-dudes-creatively department. Like all fictional characters he makes great intuitive leaps when the plot calls for it.
Doesn’t matter, though. At his core, 007 is a dummy. And he is proud of it.
Think of anytime Bond has an interaction with “Q.” Q is of course the gadgets guru, or “Nerd Patrol,” as Bond refers to him when he is at the gym towel-whipping other Double-Os.
We don’t freak out at this because he is always in a setting where one of these skill sets is called for, but how many people do you know who can effectively who solve their problems through sex or violence?
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Bond’s eye rolling is almost audible when M tells him how to escape life threatening situations, or simply how to not kill himself with the equipment. Brosnan’s Bond even went as far as to take the instruction booklet for his new car and chuck it into the path of the on-board machine gun defense system that he would then never know how to control.
This is of course played off for laughs in the movie as machine guns are fired within the close confines of an underground subway tunnel.
Bond’s message to Q, and to us, is clear:
A. Real dudes don’t need instructions (See Archetype 1: Super-Man).
B. Only nerds care about knowing stuff.
The worst part of this archetype is that is combines the other 2 into one. Due to the creative use of storytelling, we never notice that Bond only has two approaches to problem solving: violence and indiscriminate sexing. In the original Bond novels he sometimes uses these 2 approaches at the same time.
We don’t freak out at this because he is always in a setting where one of these skill sets is called for, but how many people do you know who can effectively who solve their problems through sex or violence?
Was the picture that just jumped into your head of a bunch of admirable men who caused you to think, “Yeah, I want to be like all of those guys”?
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Bottom line, you are a more interesting man than James Bond.
Real men are more…real. They have passion and interest for things beyond fighting and mating. They come up with clever ways to help get their kids to sleep. They work hard to better themselves vocationally, spiritually, or physically. They support friends in need, kick bad habits, and mentor younger men into the fold of trying to be a good dude.
If you like watching Bond blow up stuff, then you should definitely do that. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking he is a hero. He should watch you to learn about being heroic.
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Photo credit: Flickr/6ZxKvC
“Pop culture doesn’t simply entertain; it also shapes how we view the world around us. Consequently it is important to identify and address the various racial, religious, gender-based, and socioeconomic prejudices that influence these works.” –Matthew Rozsa, Good Men Project, June 13, 2015 ( https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/seinfeld-political-correctness-purity-tests-mrzs/ ) I wanted to bring in Matthew Rozsa’s quote there because I think sums up a predominant underlying attitude- One that so-called ‘progressives’ seem to embrace so care-freely, and juxtapose with such vigor & rigidity so zealously on everything from Bond to Beethoven. Such as that could never accept something like Bond as relatively or… Read more »
What makes fictional men like Bond interesting is that he is a FICTIONAL BREAK FROM REALITY. I wager that most men when they think about it don’t want the Bond Life forever. They may want to have a limited time in that world but they would eventually want to get back to reality. Hell I don’t think I’ve ever met a guy that would legitimately take on that life if they had the choice. Honestly this sounds like you are trying to attack Bond because you don’t like it. Its fine if you don’t like it but that doesn’t justify… Read more »
Y’know, I’m really getting tired of seeing articles like this about Bond and other action movie characters. These guys aren’t meant to be realistic. They aren’t meant to be kind, sensitive, and feminist. They aren’t meant to be role models. They are meant to ENTERTAIN. Watching a guy who can do anything, is super smart, and always gets the beautiful girl- yes, it’s a fantasy, but we humans have turned to fantasy as our primary form of entertainment since we were painting on cave walls. Why? Because sometimes, fiction really is more interesting than reality. And finally, call the Bond… Read more »