Today in “Cry about it, diaper babies” news, there is a report that Bond 25, thebeleaguered final installmentin the Daniel Craig/Bond era, has embraced feminism and will feature scenes of emasculation and misandry, as a collective of women capture, humiliate, and ultimately murder James Bond before throwing his body off a cliff in a ritual sacrifice to the goddess. LOL, just kidding, all it is a lady spy using the 007 designation. But to hear the diaper babies panting into their YouTube channels about it, you would think that the new Bond movie features ritual male sacrifice, and not just, you know, a new character, who happens to be a woman, doing the same job as Bond. Apparently acknowledging that a woman can also do Bond’s job is a step too far for some men.
The Daily Mail—yeah, yeah I know—reported over the weekend that Feminist TV Writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge conceived a plot in which Bond is retired (which we already knew from initial reports about the movie), and has been effectively replaced within MI6, as people who retire typically are. His replacement is played by Lashana Lynch, lately ofCaptain Marvel,who is described by a production source as “black, beautiful, and a woman”, which is factual but also seems a bit strange to say, like it’s a miracle someone could be all three of those things at the same time. Like I don’t know which is more amazing to this person, that Lashana Lynch is black and beautiful, or a woman and black, but he—and it is definitely a “he”—seems really impressed that she is out here existing while being black, beautiful, AND a woman. Legit wondering if Lynch is the first black woman this guy has met.
Bond 25’s bonkers anonymous spokesperson aside, the revelation about Lynch’s character is merely that she is the next 007, the agent who takes on Bond’s duties after he retires. That is a perfectly normal thing that happens when someone retires, but sift through the comments—and I strongly recommend youdo not—and you’ll find a lot of diaper babies whining about The Feminists erasing another man from pop culture. Of course, that is not what is happening, Daniel Craig is still around as James Bond. But he retired, and the 007 was up for grabs. This isn’t basketball where they retire your jersey, it’s a f-cking spy agency where people die, like, every five minutes. These people are not sentimental.
I bet the whole thematic point of Bond 25 is going to be about Bond wrestling with a changing world where his womanizing and old-school methods aren’t as relevant or useful. And if this is the movie that wrestles with Bond’s legacy of creepy, questionably consenting sex scenes, I’m not mad at it. The Bond franchise cannot continue as it has for the last fifty years, the world has changed too much. That’s why people are instinctively seeking something new and different from Bond. (And it is why Dev Patel should be the next Bond.) But first, Daniel Craig is finishing out his era as Bond. No one is kicking him to the curb. He has not been replaced; James Bond is still a white dude for the diaper babies whose masculinity is so fragile it depends entirely on pop cultural representation. At this point, I would like to remake every movie with women until these guys vibrate so hard, they pop like an overripe zit.
