What it means for men’s and women’s body images when James Bond is treated like a Bond girl:
The ascendance of young adult literature means that pop culture has more and more gorgeous young men who are offered up like a dessert tray for heroines’ pleasures. And as images of what makes a man attractive and successful as determined by female desires and standards proliferate in our culture, it makes sense that the guys watching at home would start to worry if they measure up, and to think about what would happen to them if they started facing ideals as rigid as those imposed on women.
I expected this to read ‘Oh, the poor boys who now have to worry about body image,’ but it really has an interesting twist about Daniel Craig’s James Bond being sexy because he knows how to give a woman pleasure.
This is a really fascinating article.
That IS an interesting article! I’m really glad it addressed the growing pressure teenage boys are enduring when it comes to appearance. That stuff is toxic for women, and it’ll be just as toxic for men, and NOBODY should have to bear it, least of all kids.
However, the article talks about men who use their abilities for female pleasure like it’s ‘the new sexy,’ and that’s not true at all. Go watch a few of those Cary Grant vehicles. The Humphrey Bogarts and Spencer Traceys of the world were attractive to women for the same reason Daniel Craig’s Bond is: they didn’t just look good or dress well or kick around the town in high style; they also treated women the way women (theoretically) wanted to be treated.
Bogey was a rather homely guy, if you really look at him; much like Daniel Craig, whose face is compelling in a worn, expressive way but certainly doesn’t match classical male beauty standards (unlike Cary Grant, dear god, that man).
The Bond thing struck me as a bizarre complaint on Cohen’s part, because Craig’s Bond IS the classic Hollywood leading man—moreso than anybody I can remember seeing on the screen in the past 10-15 years. (You can probably turn up some examples—I’m forgetful—but still Bond is the examplar of the type, stretched to a point of fetishization.) Cohen’s right about them being a dying breed, but he picked the one guy who’s keeping the dream alive. Bond is a throwback to a fantastical conception of ‘manhood’ that never really existed anywhere but in Hollywood and white male power fantasies (if those aren’t the same thing). I’m pretty sure Cohen was just feeling the burn of inadequacy…which is also what James Bond is all about. ’All the men want to be him, all the women want to have him.’
So, welcome to the flipside, Cohen. That sword cuts both ways. It was rough not being Cary Grant, too, back in the day.
What’s most interesting to me is that from a female standpoint, the stylishness and dressing well and great abs and everything are alluring because they’re PART of that fairytale lifestyle that’s sold to women as the ‘classic feminine story.’ That story includes beautiful women in beautiful dresses, with beautiful men in beautiful suits, going to beautiful places where they’re treated like royalty. To be blunt, from where the ladies are sitting, the man’s just part of the package. (Mind you, the issues involved with everything I just said are a whole different subject.)
And the classic leading man was always portrayed with an eye to the ladies in the audience, as well as the men. It’s largely in the past 30 years or so, with the advent of testosterone-soaked action flicks as a Hollywood staple, that cutting a good figure was overthrown as a good quality in a hero, and shooting people and blowing things up became the (apparently less labor-intensive) form of courtship. (This is an observation, not a complaint, as I am known to enjoy the odd coating of sweat and blood on a man—but not everybody can pull it off, and Cohen doesn’t sound like he’d enjoy trying.)