James Bond

Well I didn’t grow up with Bond (it was the generation before mine), but I get the same ‘guilty pleasure’ feeling from Bond. So I don’t think nostalgia quite explains it. Perhaps it’s something more primal, or perhaps, as the author argues later in his piece, it’s about a feeling of naughtiness from consuming something that you know intellectually to be in appropriate.

I’m not sure.

That being said, I’ve been reading the Fleming books for the first time via a collection I picked up for kindle and to be frank, I’ve enjoyed laughing at the pervasive and totally unvarnished, racism, sexism and homophobia. Obviously I don’t subscribe to these views – but there is something satisfying about reflecting on what society WAS like, laughing at the assumed (but totally midsuided) superiority of the author/protagonists and being thankful that I never had to live in a society like that.

Take Goldfinger for example (I highlighted a number of the more egregious quotes on my kindle so they are readily at hand):

‘Here’ – Goldfinger took the cat from under his arm and tossed it to the Korean who caught it eagerly-‘I am tired of seeing this animal around. You may have it for dinner.’ The Korean’s eyes gleamed.
…
‘It happens that I am a rich man, a very rich man, and the richer the man the more he needs protection. The ordinary bodyguard or detective is usually a retired policeman. Such men are valueless. Their reactions are slow, their methods old-fashioned, and they are open to bribery. Moreover, they have a respect for human life. That is no good if I wish to stay alive. The Koreans have no such feelings. That is why the Japanese employed them as guards for their prison camps during the war. They are the cruellest, most ruthless people in the world. My own staff are hand picked for these qualities. They have served me well. I have no complaints. Nor have they. They are well paid and well fed and housed. When they want women, street women are brought down from London, well remunerated for their services and sent back. The women are not much to look at, but they are white and that is all the Koreans ask – to submit the white race to the grossest indignities. There are sometimes accidents but’ – the pale eyes gazed blankly down the table – ‘money is an effective winding-sheet.’

And then:

Bond liked the look of her. He felt the sexual challenge all beautiful Lesbians have for men. He was amused by the uncompromising attitude that said to Goldfinger and to the room, ‘All men are bastards and cheats. Don’t try any masculine hocus on me. I don’t go for it. I’m in a separate league.’

Bond came to the conclusion that Tilly Masterton was one of those girls whose hormones had got mixed up. He knew the type well and thought they and their male counterparts were a direct consequence of giving votes to women and ‘sex equality’. As a result of fifty years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused, not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits – barren and full of frustrations, the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied. He was sorry for them, but he had no time for them.

And

Bond said firmly, ‘Lock that door, Pussy, take off that sweater and come into bed. You’ll catch cold.’ She did as she was told, like an obedient child. She lay in the crook of Bond’s arm and looked up at him. She said, not in a gangster’s voice, or a Lesbian’s, but in a girl’s voice, Will you write to me in Sing Sing?’ Bond looked down into the deep blue-violet eyes that were no longer hard, imperious. He bent and kissed them lightly. He said, ‘They told me you only liked women.’ She said, ‘I never met a man before.’

It’s genuinely caveman stuff. But maybe with the benefit of distance the ‘guilty pleasure’ is being able to look back on it with a sense of amusement and smug superiority.