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Millennials Are Re-Watching James Bond And Getting Seriously Offended

Millennials Are Re-Watching James Bond And Getting Seriously Offended

While Daniel Craig dragged James Bond into the 21st Century, millennials are watching back old Bond films and finding serious flaws.

Chris Ogden

Chris Ogden

The James Bond films are all cinematic classics, but even the biggest cultural cornerstones can't escape the fact that things change over the space of 55 years - namely that sexism and racism are no longer cool.

Bond films have long been criticised for that, especially the older ones - it's not for nothing that Judi Dench's M called Bond a 'sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War' in Goldeneye.

While Daniel Craig may have dragged Bond into the 21st century, for some Bond aficionados 007 is still by no means perfect. As many millennials have grown up with Craig's Bond, it seems to come as a shock to people when they realise just how bad Bond films can be.

From the very start, when Honey Ryder emerged from the sea in the first Bond film Dr. No, Bond films have not exactly been respectful to women. Smooth as Connery's Bond was, to some he was also a mega sexist prick, one that would dismiss a girl by slapping her on the ass and saying 'Man talk'.

Some watching back have pointed out that many scenes of Connery's Bond 'seducing' a woman are basically him forcing himself on them until they give in. Is this what people found romantic in the 60s?

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Although Roger Moore wasn't quite as creepy, Bond fans are having trouble with Moore's 70s-80s Bond films in different ways - after all, isn't Live and Let Die essentially a blaxploitation film with its voodoo theme, black gangsters and pimpmobiles?

People seem particularly shocked when watching back 1974's The Man With The Golden Gun, a film that seems most notable for three things: Christopher Lee's Scaramanga, the twisty car jump, and mega racism.

Set mostly in Thailand and China, the film busts out all the racial stereotypes it can, from martial arts to silly names. For example, one of the Bond girls is named Chew Mee.

People are particularly unhappy with Sheriff J.W. Pepper, the racist Deep South sheriff on holiday in Thailand who calls people in Bangkok 'little brown pointy heads'. Yes, that actually happened.

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Modern viewers look to have fewer problems with late 80s and 90s Bond films as the racism toned down massively and women became just as badass as Bond, from Grace Jones' May Day in A View To A Kill and Michelle Yeoh's Colonel Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies.

However, for all the progress, people are still finding flaws, like A View To A Kill's Stacey Sutton, whose only role is apparently just to shout 'James!!!' helplessly, and Denise Richards' Christmas Jones, a nuclear physicist apparently ruined by her name.

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Of course, people our age all love Daniel Craig-era Bond, as producers ditched the terrible pun names and writers made the best female character yet in Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd.

But even the newest Bond films aren't exempt, as one person watching Skyfall took issue with Bond chatting up former sex slave Sévérine then sneaking naked into her shower and seducing her. All before she gets brutally killed after serving her function in the plot.

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We all have fuzzy memories of watching Bond as kids, but just as has happened with Friends, some people aren't enjoying seeing what he really was.

Every Bond film is a product of its time, but when it comes to some of the worst stuff, it looks like people are saying time's up.

Featured Image Credit: United Artists

Topics: Entertainment, TV and Film, James Bond