The co-star who turned the tables on James Bond: “He is the Bond girl, not me”
Since the 1960s, the James Bond franchise has seen various iconic interpretations of the character, from the beloved Sean Connery era to the most recent embodiment of 007, Daniel Craig. Alongside them, we’ve seen many unforgettable female characters too, often dubbed as ‘Bond girls’.
The history of Bond girls is long and complex; however, with the depiction of various female characters in the earlier movies now looked back on as misogynistic and objectifying. Many of these characters were failed by the writers by coming across as rather one-dimensional, predominantly existing as bikini-clad eye-candy for viewers.
In 1964’s Goldfinger, Shirley Eaton’s Jill Masterson is found dead, completely covered in gold, appearing almost fully naked apart from the body paint. Instances like these have become iconic moments in both cinema history and Bond history, although it’s hard to deny that the franchise predominantly had the male viewer in mind when concocting such scenes. Even the fact that many female characters are known as Bond girls rather than women is a testament to the franchise’s complicated approach to gender.
Some women who starred in the Bond franchise were not keen on the term at all, finding that it diminished their role. “Well, they can call other people Bond girls, but I don’t like it, for the simple reason that that character would have been a good character in any film, not just a Bond film. I consider Bond girls to be those ladies who took one look at Bond and fell on their backs. Whereas Pussy Galore was quite a character,” Honor Blackman once said in an interview with Paul Kirkley, revealing that she “hates” the term.
However, in recent years, the depiction of women in the series has improved, and for one Bond star, she stood up to the producers who were keen to have her appear semi-naked. In fact, Eva Green, who starred in Casino Royale as the secret double agent Vesper Lynd, found that Craig fit the stereotypical bill of the ‘Bond girl’ rather than her character.
“Well, he is the Bond girl, not me. He’s the one who comes out of the sea with his top off. […] I’ve been nude in a film before and found it very troubling, so I was quite glad not to be in this film. In the shower scene – you remember? – they wanted me to strip down to my panties. We had a good fight about that. I used to go to Daniel and ask for his support,” she explained to The Guardian.
Certainly, as the years have progressed, more and more women in the industry are now able to find the support to stand up to demands that they might otherwise be uncomfortable with, and Green was not going to do anything she didn’t want to do. Instead, it’s Craig who has an erotically-charged moment, replicating the iconic moments in which Bond girls have emerged from the sea, such as the scene with Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder in Dr No and Halle Berry as Jinx in Die Another Day.
