The underlying homoeroticism of James Bond
If the purists were up in arms over James Bond having blonde hair, then whatever they’d have to say were the franchise to be a great deal more brazen in realising its latent homoeroticism doesn’t even bear thinking about.
Ever since Sean Connery arrived on the scene in 1962’s Dr. No and transformed 007 into an instant cultural icon, the typical view of the character has been that of the stereotypical ‘men want to be him; women want to be with him’ archetype of machismo. He’s suave, sophisticated, handsome, and always gets the girl, but the long-running series needs to adapt and evolve to remain relevant.
The most blatant teasing of Bond’s sexual preferences existing anywhere outside of the heteronormative came in Skyfall, where it’s heavily implied he had – at the very least – a dalliance when Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva caresses his leg and says, “There’s a first time for everything.” In response, Daniel Craig quips, “What makes you think this is my first time?”
Unsurprisingly, Barbara Broccoli revealed the studio requested the line be omitted from the final cut, only for the request to be rejected. When Craig was quizzed on whether or not Bond was bluffing, the actor suggested he didn’t “see the world in sexual divisions” before more aptly explaining that while “someone suggested that Silva may be gay,” his more reasonable explanation was that “I think he’ll fuck anything.”
There’s always been an air of lingering sexual tension between Bond and many of his adversaries over the years, with his naked torture at the hands of Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre in Casino Royale even adding a kinky BDSM element into the proceedings, if that’s the reading one chooses to take, based on how 007 maintains that mischievous twinkle in his eye even when he’s getting repeatedly whacked in the nuts.
Three-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter John Logan – one of the first openly LGBTQ+ creatives to work on a Bond film in a major capacity when he penned Skyfall along with series regulars Neal Purvis and Robert Wade – told The Hollywood Reporter the scene was a natural progression for the character given the many interpretations to have been derived over the years.
“There were so many scenes where Bond goes mano a mano with the villain, whether it’s Dr. No or Goldfinger or whatever, and there’s been so many ways to do a cat-and-mouse and intimidate Bond, and we thought, what would truly make the audience uncomfortable is sexual intimidation,” he explained. “Playing the sort of homoerotic card that is sort of always there subtextually with characters like Scaramanga in Man With the Golden Gun or Dr. No. So we just decided that we should play the card and enjoy it.”
Even in GoldenEye, Sean Bean’s Alec Trevelyan says at one point that “James and I shared everything,” and it doesn’t take a huge amount of inference to read between prospective lines to hint at the intense competition between them to become the best agent in their field could have evolved into something else other than a friendship before devolving into one killing the other to stop him shattering socio-political stability.
On the other hand, even the implications – overt or not – of LGBTQ+ characters in Bond canon haven’t always been handled with particular grace or poise. Diamonds Are Forever‘s Wint and Kidd are not-so-subtly intimated to be a couple, and they’re painted as irredeemable villains who get their comeuppance at the hands of the sharp-dressed hero.
It’s even worse in the book, with Ian Fleming having Felix Leiter remark that “some of these homos make the worst killers”. Similarly, Rosa Klebb was heavily implied to be a lesbian on-screen in From Russia with Love, but in Fleming’s initial prose, she’s described as “the oldest and ugliest whore in the world,” which is hardly complimentary. Francisco Scaramanga is one of many Bond villains to stir up homoerotic tensions without any confirmations being made, but again, in the book, he can’t whistle and is instantly linked by M to the “popular theory that a man who cannot whistle has homosexual tendencies.”
Openly gay actor Ben Whishaw felt the reveal of his Q being gay in No Time to Die was “unsatisfying” to him; Pierce Brosnan doesn’t think Broccoli “would allow a gay Bond to happen in her lifetime” even if it “would certainly make for interesting viewing” from his perspective, while Craig flat-out said he couldn’t imagine an LGBTQ+ spin on Bond “because he’s not gay”. The homoeroticism is there, without a doubt, but it’s a long way away from becoming accepted as part of the Bondian fabric.
