Abstract
When Daniel Craig emerged from the sea as the new James Bond in Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006), his appearance (and his physique) created a media furore. For the first time since the days of Sean Connery, James Bond was once again a sex symbol. Starting with the many examples offered by the James Bond franchise, this essay identifies the sex symbol as a ubiquitous but essentially ill-defined category of celebrity status. Challenging a ‘common-sense’ understanding of the sex symbol, this essay emphasises the importance of the sex symbol as a way into understanding the complexity and mutability of attitudes towards sex and sexuality. The intention of this article is to bring the category of sex symbol into critical view, to make some provisional suggestions as to the ways in which this phenomenon might be interrogated and to consider what the specific issues might be in relation to an understanding of the male sex symbol in particular.
Published Version
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