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Amen, sister
Show me a reaction to anything on Bluesky which has predominantly racist reactions then. Most people aren’t racist, but X is now set up to promote and encourage that sort of thing.
Anyway, Hitch and Nick are right.
I’ve been playing Hitman for the first time this week: it’s extremely clever although I think it’ll take me years! I hope First Light is a touch more linear.
I consider that racist.
The reaction to these character changes is the same thing that would happen if you made Miles Morales a white man or John Stewart a Chinese man.
I suppose the moral of the story is don’t bother with Twitter. I’d say the same about Reddit honestly (don’t even use BlueSky, whatever that is).
Let’s not start this here.
That’s an insane flip. I’m sure there are some corners which have revelled in that guy’s death but I’ve seen very little of it, and that’s nothing to do with being racist. Don’t start that ridiculous both sides stuff. And it’s nothing to do with James Bond or this video game, we’re not talking about Kirk’s sad death.
Nope. It’s been established -and accepted- over the last thirty years that M is a code name assumed by different and disparate people. They just have to be British and senior. Q’s got a cravat and sense of style, let’s see if people get as hot under the collar about his character changing a bit too, or whether it’s just about racists being racists.
How is it a flip to say that X is not the only social media platform for hateful content? Bluesky and Reddit are both hotbeds for hate right now whether you see it or not.
And that's not what Fleming wrote, Moneypenny, Q, and M are all established characters in the novels. M only became a "code name" in 1995.
And yes there would be a massive uproar if characters like Miles Morales and John Steweart were made white or Indian or anything other than black.
Having just re-read Casino Royale (the novel) it’s explicitly stated that M’s existence is supposed to be a top secret - hence the cypher M. M’s been a codename since he first appeared in the books!
You shouldn't change the race or gender of a character that you, yourself didn't create. If you want an Indian Spy Chief, then write about that. Don't decide you're going to change an authors work after 70 years.
This is moving the goalposts; at first you said M wasn’t a codename, which is objectively wrong, and now you’re saying your argument is that there was only one M in the novels, while true, doesn’t seem relevant to whatever point you’re trying to make.
And you’re assuming Fleming wouldn’t have approved of the Nomi character; while also irrelevant, Fleming explicitly expressed to Broccoli and Saltzman that they keep Bond contemporary with the times, which I think is evidence that he would’ve approved of the character / decisions made by the then-producers and the Brocolli family. But again, it matters not really if Fleming would’ve approved of Nomi.
Thank you!
Some people are a lost cause. Yes, Fleming would not have approved of making his character an Indian woman.
Haha this was for @007ClassicBondFan
EDIT: to respond to your edit, Fleming’s work remains unchanged.
Nope, they've even changed his novels, wrong again.
Gosh, its fair to assume he wouldn't want his novels to be changed without his consent. Just because the man is dead does not give you the license to change his characters.
Some publications are censored, yes, and I’m sure we agree that that is unfortunate. But nothing that is material to this discussion has been changed through this censorship.
And Major Boothroyd’s been made into Q (a character Fleming didn’t explicitly write about) for the early films specifically. Obviously since TWINE it’s a code name like M’s. Moneypenny I suppose is the same character in different versions… I don’t remember anyone getting hung up about Niomi Harris taking the role for what it’s worth. Honestly, I suspect most know all this but don’t care. Getting too hung up on Fleming in this case is pointless and a lot of this is an extension of the films in a contemporary game.
I mean, even if M were still Sir Miles - similar background/personality - and was played by a non-white actor but in a contemporary story, would most people care? I think they do that in the Dynamite comics if I’m not mistaken. Like, it’s not exactly a case where they’ve race swapped Othello or Black Panther. As I said short of a specific hang up about the one playing this character I don’t see why it’d elicit any strong feeling.
Ian Fleming's thoughts on the world are pretty clear from his writing and interviews.
All good points, and this is usually where these race discussions get mired; people can’t understand that things like blaxploitation exists, and there are stories where a character being black is integral to the story being told, where Bond or M continuing to be white is not integral. I’d concede that it probably was in LALD, but we’ve had that novel, and had that film. I think it’s okay to move on and tell new and interesting stories.
There are characteristics of these characters that are integral to the stories being told, and there are characteristics that are not. What’s important is the stories, not the amount of pigment in melanin.
I understand your perspective and I think we’re both passionate fans of Bond, which makes you a friend in my book. We may be too far a part on some issues but I admire your love of the character and stories, and I hope we both get to enjoy Bond in many formats for years and years to come.
I’ll put it like this: if Bond in a contemporary film started voicing the opinions he had about, say, lesbians in the GF novel I think that’d be very strange for all of us to watch. It’d be equally bizarre if he came out with a genuine rant about tea being the downfall of the British empire, and it may well have even been odd to hear in the 60s.
Ultimately the films and any other media don’t come from strictly adapting the books, or the characters. It doesn’t even come the producers/creatives involved having the same world view as Fleming (the likes of Connery and Maibaum famously had little in common with the man). They retain that foundation of the novels, but there’s no gospel of Fleming either. If anything it’s the differences in adaptation that make Bond what it is today.
“They retain that foundation of the novels” I think is the catalyst for the discussion. I think people don’t agree on what is “foundational” and what isn’t.
Tell that to the Broccoli family - are you suddenly going to start decrying the films because they don’t inherently follow Fleming’s text?
EDIT; As always @007HallY puts things more eloquently than I ever could!
It’s not clear cut, and even those knowledgable about Fleming would disagree. As I said no gospel of Fleming exists, we have no clue what he’d approve of or not were he alive today, and Bond as a character has been adapted/changed up since Connery and pretty much everything subsequently. For what it’s worth I think these adventures/every iteration of the character is recognisable as the man from those books.
I’m not quite sure what this has to do with the new M here though, I must admit.
I think we agree on all points here, and I think the relevance is the topic of making M black. Is M's whiteness "foundational" to the novels? I personally don't think so, but some do.
It would be to the character if the current lot of Bond media were strict adaptations of Fleming’s novels I suppose you could argue (ie. Set in the 50s). Even then I don’t think his whiteness is a core trait of his character that drives the plots (so again, we’re not talking about Othello here). With contemporary works I don’t think it’s relevant, and with another character taking the name of M it’s even less so.
I was joking about the inherently unforgivable aways evil racist kill him now the white women are next on the food chain white man it was a joke at the crazies I was being sarcastic. Haha 😄 @Daltonforyou that's why I hope we stear away from politics because it's very toxic right now