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Comments
I don't want to see your money go up in smoke. :)
Sure is ☺️
There are instances of sympathetic characters smoking.
I think he stopped around the time of CR.
Yes, a seedy character who works with the villain and is pretending not to he sympathetic.
Thanks. I thought as much. He used to be quite a heavy smoker.
The point of smoking a cigar in Cuba and cigarettes in other circumstances is to show enjoyment of those vices. Or with the cigarette, many times as a release for stress. I'm not a smoker, but I relish Bond indulging in those along with martinis, red meat, and other items.
I don't really follow this though: if you can understand the smoking being taken away then why would you also not like it?
I also agree with others that smoking a cigar isn't the same as smoking cigarettes. One is an occasional indulgent luxury, the other is an addiction which looks a bit sad now (hence Severine being shown smoking: it actually helps to portray her character as looking desperate and nervous). I'm happy with Bond not smoking cigarettes any more, I have no objection to him enjoying a cigar on his veranda looking out to sea.
There's also Fleming's example of Gala Brand in Moonraker.
I've always said, Skyfall needed a scene between Severine in her robe waiting and Bond approaching in the shower, where she knows he's there and they drink together before Severine initiates the shower scene. I know there's some who don't have a problem with it, but I think just that idea alone would've avoided some of the controversies that came out after that sequence.
I also agree that the public conscious has kind of created this parody of James Bond that presents this all-encompassing idea that the Bond films are extremely sexist, so some of the progression that has been made sometimes goes unnoticed - but the franchise is also guilty of birthing the issue by itself.
Yes, and the ending of Fleming's Moonraker is definitely where they got the idea for that ending in QoS my view.
That changed years ago. Bond 'turns' a lesbian in the third film in the series: that hasn't aged well, and has looked a bit wrong for a couple of decades too!
Kind of like how I'm fairly sure smoking has been phased out for reasons other than "political correctness" (smoking looks like a loser habit nowadays), I think the changes to Bond's womanizing has also (mostly) not been a result of PC culture.
You can see from both the semi-controversial Severine scene in Skyfall and the somehow-not-at-all-controversial scene with Lucia in Spectre that there's been no sign of fear from the producers in how they portray Bond's behavior with women. (I don't have any problem with the Severine scene, as it contains the fairly standard cinematic exposition with regard to consent)
I think the main reason for any change we have seen is simply that the producers are trying to make better movies with more interesting characters. Having Bond bonk hotel staff as a coda to an exposition scene is not something you're going to find in a film Sam Mendes, Daniel Craig, or Barbara Broccoli is interested in making. The corny casual sex stuff is mostly as dated as smoking.
Incidentally, I assume we'd all be aware here that except for OHMSS, Bond doesn't have more than one woman (if that) in any of the books. You don't even have to talk about Gala Brand as an exception--the rule is one per book.
The late and great Rik Mayall :))
What's the fun in that. This is a good example as to how the attitudes of the fans have shifted over the years as well.
As long as the stories are good, does it really matter if he shags two or three or four women? If you want fun, do that kind of thing yourself! :)