James Bond's “Pussy” and Anglo‐American Cold War Sexuality

Abstract

The James Bond movies are the longest-running franchise in film history, making 007 the most iconic spy figure in international cinema. Likewise, Fleming's novels enjoyed immense popularity during the Cold War, especially after John F. Kennedy announced in an interview with Life magazine that From Russia with Love ranked as one of his top ten favorite books. In fact, at the time of Fleming's death in August 1964, over thirty million copies of Bond books had been sold, and two years later, at the height of Bond mania, that number had doubled to sixty million (Giblin 24). When inflation is considered in the calculations, the cinematic versions of Fleming's novels reflect equally impressive numbers; From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and GoIdeneye (1997) all rank among the top one hundred highest grossing films of all time (List of Highest Grossing Films). With Penguin Books re-releasing the Bond novels, many people are now turning (or returning) to Fleming's work, and what is perhaps most striking to these twenty-first century readers is the stark political incorrectness that the author employs. As several academic pieces on James Bond reveal,1 the spy clearly views non-British cultures as far inferior to his own, and these views are usually depicted through Fleming's villains who, to Englishmen, are racial others. These characters, which include Bulgarians, Italians, Germans, Yugoslavs, Russians, Koreans, Turks, and Americans, are the victims of shameless racial stereotypes and ethnic slurs (Arms 75). For example, in his first novel, Casino Royale, Fleming describes the local Bulgarians as stupid, but obedient and notes that they are merely used by the Russians simple killings or as fall-guys for more complicated ones (27). In Diamonds Are Forever, American gangsters are described as mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meatballs and squirting scent all over themselves (18). Likewise, many of Fleming's villains, in both the novels and the films, possess sexual deviancies and physical abnormalities demarcating them as degenerate enemies. Stromberg, in The Spy Who Loved Me, possesses webbed hands; Scaramanga, in The Man with the Golden Gun, sports three nipples; Kidd and Wmt, in Diamonds Are Forever, are homosexual henchmen, and in the cinematic version of the story, Blofeld dresses in drag. These narrative devices suggest that the James Bond franchise is unwilling to acknowledge that individual differences exist among any nationality or race; the individual is reflective of the whole, and in the world of Bond, no nationality is safe from criticism -except, of course, the British. However, English nationalism is not only embodied in Fleming's villains; the novels also reveal perceived cultural supremacy through the bodies and sexuality of the series' women. In From Russia with Love, Bond is able to seduce Tatiana Romanova, a Russian agent who is originally sent to seduce and destroy Bond; this plot twist links O07's sexual prowess to his national potency by literally placing Britain on top of Russia, as their affair signals Tatiana's desire to defect to the United Kingdom. The link between female bodies and national governments is also apparent in the story when Rosa Klebb, the head of operations and executions for SMERSH, informs Tatiana of her assignment to beguile Bond. Here, Klebb tells the young Russian, You will seduce [Bond]. In this matter, you will have no silly compunctions. Your body belongs to the state. Since your birth, the State has nourished it. Now your body must work for the state (77) -and in fact, Klebb's own body and sexuality reflect the inhumanity and deviancy of the Soviets. Fleming describes Rosa as a neuter who sleeps with both men and women. She might enjoy the act physically, but the instrument was of no importance ... and this psychological neutrality . …