Why James Bond really wasn't supposed to be so darned British


I've been a fan of James Bond since my teenage years, and I like all of the movies, and all of the actors who have ever played him, and all of the books. Heck, I even like the James Bond music! And since it's November of 2021, I'm waiting to see who will be portraying the character in the next movie now that Daniel Craig's run is over. Whatever they do I'm sure will be fine with me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who insists that the movies be consistent with the books, or even any kind of consistency at all - James Bond is supposed to be a fantasy, that's how this works. And I made the decision to embrace the fantasy of secret agents when I learned what real secret agents do.

But to be fair to the creator of James Bond, he was trying to mix a little bit of reality with a large dose of fantasy. They were written right after the end of World War II, and it was at that point that the United States firmly stepped into the task of policing the world, and England had to give up that role. It must have been a sad time for patriotic Brits who remembered when the sun never sat on the British empire!

James Bond was a cold-war operative. That is, he was supposed to sneak around the enemies of the Western World, and quietly stop anything from escalating into an actual war. He did this as an assassin, and to be fair to the British, their intelligence was always much better than us Americans. We had the firepower, they had the finesse. So Bond was supposed to be a combination of both things - fierce firepower and a calm attitude towards espionage.

Of course, as the Cold War started coming to an end, the movies had some difficulty keeping the character relevant, and by the 1980s the Bond films had become comedic, with an emphasis on Bond being very British. He even had the Union Jack on his parachute in one movie! Yes, I know it's just a fantasy, but the character was becoming absolutely ridiculous, and he might as well have ordered bangers and mash with roly-poly pudding when he was out dining at his favorite restaurant in Russia.

And that brings me back to where I started - thinking about the next actor to play James Bond. And although I'd like to see a British actor (never an American!), I'm inclined to go with someone who isn't so darned British - maybe someone who looks like Sean Connery!

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