5d ago

Bond Fans Fear Amazon Will ‘Woke-ify’ 007—But the Franchise Had a Trans Bond Girl in the 80s

rudevulture.com Bond Fans Fear Amazon Will ‘Woke-ify’ 007—But the Franchise Had a Trans Bond Girl in the 80s

As Amazon MGM Studios takes full control of the iconic James Bond franchise with a reported additional $1 billion payment to longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, fans worldwide are questioning what direction the spy series might take under its new corporate ownership. The deal,...

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I dunno if folks nowadays can remember how major Tula was for my generation.
She was the first trans person most of us were aware of, she made the terminology of the time become known to folks that had no idea transition even existed, or that anyone might want it. And she did it with grace and style.
It may seem crazy now, but the thing that sticks out to me most is how little people had a problem with her. I'm not saying it wasn't there, but the reactions lacked the venom and sheer insane fervor that's so common now. Like, even my redneck, ancient great aunt was all "t'ain't natural, but don't hurt nobody else if she ain't got the sense to know that."
Seriously, that woman was not pleasant about a lot of things, and that's the worst she had to say about it, and she called Tula she.
There were whiners and haters, yeah, but it just didn't have the craziness to it.
It's part of the reason the wave of hatred and rage towards trans people feels so artificial and off to me. I can't really figure out how to express it right, but it feels fake in a way that the more grounded objections didn't back then. Even the religious crazies weren't as crazy about it.
I'm grateful she stepped onto the world stage the way she did. I hope she knows how many people she inspired.
- The "hatred" is definitely artificial, and absolutely fueled by propaganda.
  The trans community was just next in a long line of scapegoats.
  "Yeah, you life sucks, but its X's fault, elect us and we'll punish X"
  Replace X with one or more of Jews, African Americans, Welfare Queens, Loose Women, Gays, Trans, Coastal Elites, etc.
- It all started with that one bathroom bill like 15 years ago. Nobody really cared about it before then. Same with abortion, not even religious people cared about it much until the gop started telling them to.
- it became a tool once they understood how to weaponize ignorance and confusion into fear and anger

These are the same people who complain about Star Trek "suddenly going woke"
- And Rage Against the Machine turning woke
  
  RATM a band so woke they decided to shutter their forums because the feds were worried people were organizing on it.

That's not the fear Bond fans have about Amazon having the franchise. The fear is they are going to make it cramp.
Just get whoever it was that wrote the script for Kingsman to do the script for this. They know what James bond is about, goofy stupid stuff
- I mean Roger Moore was campy as hell but I loved it
- James Bond has always been crap
  
  It's not Amazon studios level crap. Except that very weird one with the Voodoo zombies, that was crap.

Excluding the obviously evil things people are using against "wokism," every time I hear someone bitching about something being "woke" these days I can't help but picture a racist boomer that's scared of change, except now it's the next generation taking the initiative. Just like violence in video games in the 90s, Rock N' Roll in the 80s, the devils lettuce in the 70s, and hippies in the 60s. All the way back to when parents were saying their kids were reading too many books or listening to too much radio back in the 1800s and early 1900s. It's literally always the older generations that are upset that things are changing and not staying exactly as they were when they were young. And this only reinforces the notion that we need more younger people making decisions and not just the same old white dude that started the company back I'm the 90s.
- I literally use complaints about wokeness to lead me to cool new media to experience the same way people used the Satanic Panic to lead them to D&D and rock and roll in the 80s. I have to say, it's a good strategy.

I mean, it tracks to me that Amazon would want more Bond films- they have always been just shy of extended luxury advertisements. The woke nonsense is just the excuse some people will use to talk about it.
I don't watch much of anything, but there's apparently such a market for decrying wokeness, you could probably make decent viewercounts revisiting old movies with the same lens.
- That would shatter the narrative these people are trying to push: that Hollywood has only recently been engaging in "wokeness". In reality, like you said, just about any movie or TV show could be viewed through the same lens and yield similar results. Hell, here's a great video where the author literally does this: https://youtu.be/MZtRabDCLyY. Timestamp 14:25, but the whole video is a good watch.

I feel like anyone who unironically complains about something being "woke" should be banished from the land. There's no way that person is worth keeping around. They are certainly a net negative.
- Wokeness is just base-level anti-racism. Anyone who complains about "woke" is literally just declaring their racism. It never meant and never means anything other than exactly that.
- banished from the land.
  The ocean called. They don't want them, either.
- Feels like tge only way a leftist society would work, exile bigots to the outside.

Very strong "I'm not racist, I have a black friend" vibes from this article. One actress 50 years ago is hardly progress.
Rather than trying to redeem/rewrite 007, why not spin off a new character instead. Might take some effort and skilled writing, but Amazon have money right?
- Modesty Blaise
  Grew up in a refugee camp. Takes over a criminal gang, then turns it into an international mercenary syndicate that is employed by the British Secret Service. Is plenty good at killing, but prefers non-lethal weapons and martial arts. Has a long-time platonic male sidekick with whom she is emphatically not in a will-they-won't-they relationship; they're just best action friends.
  Modesty Blaise is just dying for a modern day franchise of her own, and she could just be Modesty Blaise, international woman of ass-kicking, not "the time they cast a woman as James Bond," or even a Bond spin-off. It's madness that it hasn't happened already.
  
  Arse-kicking, obviously.
  (I agree though)
  
  That would be refreshingly different.
- Not to mention all the actual racism, misogyny, and the rape.
  
  I appreciate the Bond series as legend, but my partner and I couldn't face any more movies portraying the same icky encounters as in ~~the first Casino Royale~~ Dr. No. We just felt incredibly uncomfortable for the woman being taken advantage of by Bond, in a beach hut
  We loved the Daniel Craig films, though. Suitably modern.
- And calling her a "Bond girl" is a bit of a stretch. Great that she was included but she's not quite on the level of Melina Havelock or Countess Lisl von Schlaf in the movie.
  
  She was included because she was stealth and no one knew. It only came out after the fact.
  Most trans people were invisible at the time. You either did all the surgeries, fully passed, and cut off everyone who knew you pre-transition, or you didn't get get to live a normal life.
  She wasn't there because the filmmakers wanted to be progressive.

I mean, I don't know why a show that was showing rape as positive, sexy and wanted by women even still exists so...
- I suspect many fans don't want the franchise to end, and the rights-holders don't want the cash cow to stop lactating. In a twisted way, capitalism bore money-obsessed folks who relentlessly rape marketable products for all their worth

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