Daniel Craig has been in limelight for enlivening and reinventing British secret agent James Bond in Casino Royale, the world’s longest-running movie franchise.
He had been applauded for revitalizing the Bond’s character.
And what people assume regarding Bond girls?
For five decades, 007’s leading ladies have experienced charges of irrelevance, anachronism and sexism. Bond girls are either exposed as determined love interests, lady in distress, sex objects or villainesses - who all end up being bedded and saved by Bond.
For women they are far from ideal women and for men they symbolize the perfect women.
Marketing director Gina Tan, 32, says, she has stopped paying attention to the Bond girls because they are just ‘disposable eye candy for a male audience’. ‘They just have to look sexy, but there’s not much meat underneath. I find that very degrading. If I attach it to male fantasy, then they can never be outdated. But if I relate them to women today, then they are.
According to her Michelle Yeoh in 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies is the best Bond girl because ’she was not there to look skimpy, she fights better than Bond and is a solid character’.
Ms Sarah Tan, deputy editor of Female magazine, also doesn’t accept as true Bond girls are as iconic as before.
No matter how the bond girl is represented, the ultimate hero is James bond and she can never override or outshine the real hero.
Mr Silvester Phua, a 43-year-old copywriter said, James Bond may be increasingly more rooted in reality, but the Bond girls have always existed on the level of fantasy that pander to men’s tastes.’
He still thinks of them as the epitome of carnal beauty.
In Casino Royale, Treasury official Vesper Lynd (played by French actress Eva Green) is almost not typical Bond bombshell - she doesn’t prance around in a bathing suit or topple into bed with Bond by way of saying hello.
Eva Green told The New Paper in an earlier interview that she would have rejected the role if her character was just another notch in Bond’s bedpost. ‘I mean, Bond girl, it’s such a cliche, bikini on the beach, naughty temptress, male fantasy, I would not have been keen at all.’
Eric says, ‘If I go to see a Bond movie and there are no chicks, I’d be upset! They must always be there no matter what. You can’t break conventions.’
Well men seem not to be concerned about the bond girl’s portrayal. They still are ideal women for them.
