For His Eyes Only Part 8

In Casino Royale (Martin Campbell 2006), however, scholars such as Lisa Funnell have argued that a new model of heroic masculinity is presented. Instead of romantic conquests, Bond's hard body serves as the locus of his heroism, and specifically his capacity to act, react, and endure pain ("I Know" 461-4). In the film, he is poisoned, beaten, tortured, and shot at while operating in Italy and Montenegro. He might not have been able to save his lover Vesper Lynd, but his anger is channeled in Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster 2008) as he violently pursues those responsible for her death (Dittmer and Dodds 77). Bond's body endures further punishment but again prevails despite attempts to burn, blow up, and batter him. In the following film, Skyfall, focus remains on Bond's body. Accidentally shot by Moneypenny while pursuing an adversary, his physical recovery and return to active service is not straightforward. Embittered towards M who ordered Moneypenny to shoot, patronized by a new intelligence leader Mallory, and forced to undertake a series of physical and psychological tests, he is only cleared to return because M lies about his test scores. Throughout this process, Bond's body is shown to be aging (Dodds 121-3).

Skyfall is the first to present the impression that both Bond and M might be too old to continue in their professional roles. In previous films, actors playing Bond have been replaced if they are considered too old for the role (e.g. Roger Moore) or if they prove to be less popular with audiences (e.g. Timothy Dalton). Other recurring characters, such as Q and Moneypenny, are allowed to age because their roles center on the value of their technical and administrative skills respectively, and when they do venture into the field their function is largely advisory. Q played by Desmond Llewelyn (1963-99) accompanies Bond into the field on numerous occasions from Thunderball to Licence to Kill (John Glen 1989). Q's role varies from being a brusque colleague to a fatherly confidante, and the continuity of Llewelyn's presence allowed for the exchange of paternal advice in The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted 1999). Likewise, when Moneypenny played by Lois Maxwell (1962-85) accompanied Bond into the field, she served in an administrative capacity. The aging of both actors was tempered by the casting of young colleagues in their films. For example, Q is paired with an a.s.sistant, Sharon, in For Your Eyes Only (John Glen 1981) and another, R, in The World is Not Enough. Furthermore, in Octop.u.s.s.y (John Glen 1983), Moneypenny introduces Penelope Smallbone as her new a.s.sistant in the office.

What is significant here is the different trajectory of Q and Moneypenny. Llewelyn played the role of Q until he died in December 1999 after the release of The World is Not Enough. In comparison, Maxwell was replaced as Moneypenny after A View to a Kill (John Glen 1985) even though she was far younger than Llewelyn. Caroline Bliss took over the role in The Living Daylights (John Glen 1987) and Licence to Kill; she was 26 years old when she first appeared as Moneypenny and remains the youngest actor to be cast for the part. When Bond reappeared in 1995, Samantha Bond was featured in the role and Moneypenny is presented as a professional and independent woman in her thirties; Samantha Bond's Moneypenny shares more in common with the iterations offered by Maxwell and Naomie Harris than Bliss. With the casting of Judi Dench in the role of M in GoldenEye (Martin Campbell 1995), the Bond franchise has attempted to reshape its gender politics by featuring the t.i.tle character now working within a professional network of women.

Gender and age intersect in powerful ways in the Bond franchise. The character M is a good case in point. Actor Bernard Lee occupied the role between 1962 and 1979, and only missed the next film, For Your Eyes Only, because of a serious illness that led to his death. Much like Llewelyn, he was able to age in the role until his death and the character was recast. In the Bond franchise, there seems to be a pattern in which recurring male characters like Q and M are permitted to age (signifying wisdom and experience) while recurring female characters like Moneypenny are replaced when they are no longer considered a creditable source of flirtation for Bond. It is not enough for Moneypenny to be a competent administrator or, as Bond describes her in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Peter Hunt 1969), as "Britain's last line of defence." As Samantha Bond's depiction of Moneypenny ill.u.s.trates, she still needs to be young and beautiful in order to be considered s.e.xually viable for Bond to flirt with. She can be career-driven and have relations.h.i.+ps with other men, but if she continues to age then the s.e.xual politics of the office are subject to intervention. Samantha Bond's Moneypenny was replaced after four films when she was 41.

Significantly, Moneypenny is not present in Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, the films that restart the Bond series. One reason for this is that the films are fixated on Bond-his emergence as a field agent, tragic love affair with Lynd, and changing relations.h.i.+p with M. In Skyfall, Moneypenny is re-introduced after a 10-year hiatus but the character is vastly different from earlier incarnations; she is depicted as a field agent rather than office worker. Subsequently, when Bond tells Moneypenny that fieldwork is "not for everyone," he draws attention to the intersection of age and gender that underscores the narrative of the film and, in many ways, the franchise at large. Skyfall puts forward the impression that (older/experienced) male agents belong in the field over (younger/less experienced) female ones who serve better as accomplices or sidekicks rather than professional colleagues.

While Bond has worked with competent female agents from other intelligence agencies (e.g. Jinx in Die Another Day [Lee Tamahori 2002] and Camille Montes in Quantum of Solace), his British female counterparts have been ridiculed and seduced by him in the field. Egregious examples include Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun, Caroline in GoldenEye, and Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace. While Fields appears to have greater agency than the other two, she is killed by the Quantum group for her a.s.sociation with Bond. Besides Dench's M, who develops a strong maternal connection with Bond, Moneypenny has served as Bond's most protracted British female ally in the franchise. With the exception of Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace her presence has been constant, albeit modest in terms of actual screen time. She has left the London-based office, but in the main only to recreate an office-like environment in a submarine (You Only Live Twice [Lewis Gilbert 1967]), an abandoned s.h.i.+p (The Man with the Golden Gun) and a pyramid (The Spy Who Loved Me [Lewis Gilbert 1977]). In order to better understand the politics of representation surrounding fieldwork in Skyfall, I will consider Moneypenny's role in the franchise and focus on how she negotiates the gendered and aging boundaries between the office and the field.

NEGOTIATING THE OFFICE AND THE FIELD.

Moneypenny has been one of the most enduring characters in James Bond franchise. As Tara Brabazon rightly notes, Miss Moneypenny has been featured in more James Bond films than any figure except the t.i.tle role. She is the a.s.sistant to M, head of the British Secret Service. All agents, administrators, technicians and scientists must pa.s.s through the Moneypenny office and antechamber to reach the Imperial core [M's office]. (489) The office is a critical s.p.a.ce not only for welcoming visitors due to see M but also as a site for encounters involving Moneypenny and Bond. Since the earliest films, these brief and flirtatious exchanges have become emblematic of the narrative arc a.s.sociated with the Bond films. Namely, after a spectacular opening encounter highlighting his last mission, Bond's return to London is essential for him to be a.s.signed his next mission.

While his time in the office rarely exceeds 10 minutes, these moments contribute to the characterization of Bond as seasoned field agent, office flirt, and largely insolent towards male figures of authority. With M and Q, Bond remains resolutely child-like, either showing off his knowledge of a particular topic or resorting to boyish humor. If Moneypenny is Britain's "last line of defence", she also functions as Bond's last line of professional and personal defense. She will occasionally speak up for him, attempt to collect intelligence on his whereabouts, and forewarn him about M's mood before he enters the office for a meeting. As M's personal secretary, she has access to state secrets but she is not above spying on M in an attempt to help Bond negotiate his way through their office-based encounters. As Moneypenny ages so does the significance of these gestures, from that of a flirtatious young woman with a romantic interest in Bond to more of a mother figure in the films released in the 1980s.

This concern for Bond s.h.i.+fts markedly in the 1990s when Samantha Bond occupies the role. As a thirty-something woman, Moneypenny is paired with a female M who has famously accused Bond of being a "s.e.xist misogynistic dinosaur" in GoldenEye. While M berates him, Moneypenny accuses Bond of s.e.xual hara.s.sment and mocks his s.e.xualized gestures. While Moneypenny once looked forward to receiving flowers from Bond in Octop.u.s.s.y, she seems unimpressed by the empty cigar case he hands her in The World is Not Enough. Bond's pathetic attempt at a phallic shaped gift is pointedly disposed of as trash and Moneypenny shows little interest in flirting with Bond, a strategy that no longer gains him traction in a new era of open office s.p.a.ce with new social-spatial rules. More importantly, Samantha Bond's Moneypenny walks through the MI6 building and also briefs Bond in the car while he is travelling to the airport in Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode 1997). Under M's leaders.h.i.+p, Samantha Bond's character is shown to be more of a confidante than office secretary. While she is not presented a field agent (and there is no hint that she has ever been one), her roles and responsibilities have clearly been enhanced. Under the new leaders.h.i.+p of Dench's M, both women are operating in s.p.a.ces that their male counterparts were never shown to be occupying; working with the Americans in mission control centers, being intimately involved in operations and even fieldwork, and having domestic/personal lives. Moneypenny goes on dates and M is married with children.

After a 10-year absence, Moneypenny played by Naomie Harris returns to the Bond franchise and could remain a staple character in the ongoing re-booting of the series. While Casino Royale was Bond's origin story, I would argue that Skyfall const.i.tutes Moneypenny's. Although she is initially introduced as a field agent operating in Turkey, her return to the office environment in London is not straightforward. She enters the field again in order to join Bond in China and survives a shoot-out in London. While Bond cannot fathom the idea of ever giving up the field to be re-const.i.tuted as an office-worker, Moneypenny is encouraged by Bond to leave the field and her representation from clothing to demeanor changes accordingly.

GENDER AND COMPETENCY (OR WHY FIELDWORK MATTERS).

Fieldwork is essential to Bond's ident.i.ty, and his craft depends on his ability to negotiate a diversity of places and contexts in which his physical and social skills will be tested. The fieldwork undertaken is often improvised, and one where he is largely trusted to complete his mission independently. In Thunderball, for example, he disobeys an order to travel to Canada and insists on visiting the Bahamas in search of a possible lead. While M queries this insistence, he is allowed nonetheless to deviate from his initial mission instructions. Such autonomy does lead to mistakes and in Casino Royale Bond is fitted with a tagging device precisely because his innovative style of fieldwork causes a major diplomatic incident. Notwithstanding reprimands and sanctions, Bond's capacity to undertake fieldwork is not placed in long-term doubt. He may be a "blunt instrument" but there is a basic faith that his physical and emotional attributes remain necessary to work in a fluid and unpredictable world of danger and intrigue.

Such longevity has depended on the continued support of M and Moneypenny. Since adopting the role of M, Dench's character has frequently taken Bond to task for his personal and professional misdeeds and complained about being held accountable by her superiors for his actions. But her reprimands never really stopped Bond from continuing to act as a field agent, even if he has not enjoyed the formal imprimatur of MI6. Unlike her male equivalents, Dench's M has arguably enjoyed a closer relations.h.i.+p with Bond and 007 never visited the home of any other M before Dench (with the only exception being in OHMSS, which is considered an outlier film in the Bond canon). Bond's fieldwork has been aided, as Casino Royale demonstrated, by hacking into M's computer in order to gain confidential information about potential suspects. Bond's presence around M is quite different in the Craig era. While frequently indignant about Bond's transgressions, including his calculated seduction of women and ruthless use of violence, she is prepared to sanction their usage.

This working flexibility proves crucial to both Bond and M. Despite her seniority, ministerial and parliamentary oversight of MI6 is depicted as far more pressing than in the past. Before Casino Royale, it was rare to see any reference to more than an occasional demand for results from ministerial figures. M was trusted to manage the secret agents. It was M who decided who was to be cajoled, prohibited, encouraged, and rewarded. The Craig era marks a s.h.i.+ft in political accountability and Bond's legendary autonomy is somewhat constrained. M, Lynd, Rene Mathis, Fields, Moneypenny, and Gareth Mallory monitor him electronically and personally, albeit with varying degrees of success.

What is arguably at play is two models of governance-on the one hand, Bond's experiential knowledge and risk-taking and, on the other, a more closely monitored form of management with emphasis on accountability, cost-benefit a.n.a.lysis, and risk a.s.sessment. Another way to represent this apparent schism is to see Bond's methods as profoundly nostalgic-a man used to thinking, fighting, and sleeping his way through field-based challenges. Both M and Bond dislike any form of managerial oversight. Both revel at the prospect of high levels of autonomy and bridle when questioned by superiors. Although she is not a field agent, M's body, like that of Bond, is an archive of encounters. She does not have the physical scars that mark Bond's body but she proves willing to leave her desk environment if required. Some of those excursions into the field have proven less than ideal (for example being imprisoned in Istanbul in The World is Not Enough) and arguably ended up contributing to Bond's difficulties in terms of mission completion. Such experiences, however fleeting, proved vital in her appreciation of Bond's resilience, especially when captured by North Korean forces in Die Another Day. But his return also provoked her to send him to the Falkland Islands for a detailed a.s.sessment of his suitability for a return to fieldwork. Bond later escapes and evades this testing regime without, as in the case of Skyfall, having to rely on M's discretion.

M's decision to deploy a female field agent with Bond on his mission to Istanbul in Skyfall is significant, and one of three key moments where fieldwork plays a crucial role in the depiction of Bond as an aging but physically capable field agent. Although her relations.h.i.+p with Bond is not explained at the start of the film, Moneypenny is shown to be a deft driver while in pursuit of Patrice. Her shooting skills, however, appear to be challenged twice. Initially, she misses a fleeing Patrice and then accidentally shoots Bond after being told to "take the shot" by M. In the s.p.a.ce of about 10 minutes, Moneypenny's performance and M's competence are questioned. Should M have ordered the shot when Bond was fighting with Patrice on top of a train and would Bond have missed (or even pulled the trigger) if he had faced a similar shot opportunity? What role did fieldwork inexperience and managerial panic play in this particular moment of the mission? Why did the two women, as opposed to any men, make the mistakes? At stake in this opening scene was a missing disk containing details of NATO agents, and M feared that such a loss would destroy her professional reputation and compromise the spying capacities of allies. Interestingly, the victims of that missing disk are all shown to be men; dead MI6 agents and a near-dead Bond. Later when Dench's M is questioned by a younger female politician, there is a lingering sense that her mistakes and misjudgments have had dreadful consequences for men. No other M has ever been subjected to this level of moral and official scrutiny.

Bond's eventual return to active field service is drawn out and uncertain. In the aftermath of his recovery, Bond's aged and damaged body is the subject of testing. Unlike the situation presented in Die Another Day, Bond is a partic.i.p.ant in Skyfall. Significantly, we are not shown any of the testing regimes that Moneypenny might have undertaken. In his discussion of gender aesthetics, Richard Dyer notes that men accomplish their masculinities by activity (153). The physical development, training, and, if necessary, rehabilitation of the body is critical in that regard. In the case of female characters, as Funnell notes in the representation of Trinity in The Matrix (The Wachowskis 1999), their films convey the impression that their training has been carried out off-screen (Warrior 176), as if to suggest that it is not worthy of public scrutiny. The audience is lead to presume that Moneypenny underwent extensive training before her Istanbul mission and she emerges in Skyfall as a fully-formed field agent.

By not showing the audience Moneypenny's training, it becomes easier to imagine her being transferred away from fieldwork. Because the audience is not shown the inst.i.tutional scrutiny of her skill set, it is difficult to gauge whether her training was inadequate and/or her task of "taking the shot" was reasonable. Moneypenny takes part in a subsequent fight sequence in Macau and even then her mission, and tentative return to the field, is framed as "watching Bond's back." While Bond might trust Moneypenny, as evidenced by him letting her shave him with a cut-throat razor, the audience is left less certain as they have been given limited information about her competency and professional training. By withholding this information, the narrative sets up her return to the office as being understandable and acceptable.

This lack of narrative information is even more significant in the depiction of a parallel event. When Silva forces Bond to "take the shot," his miss leads to the death of Severine and his mistake is presented within a broader character arc focusing on redemption. The audience sympathizes with Bond because he is struggling with a physical injury and forced to use an old-fas.h.i.+oned pistol. By way of contrast, Moneypenny is able-bodied and equipped with a high-powered sniper rifle. When she misses the shot, the audience does not empathize with her, even though her mistake (unlike Bond's) does not lead to the death of anyone.

While Bond's injured shoulder may have contributed to his inaccuracy, Moneypenny has no obvious injuries to contend with when she shoots Bond in Istanbul. While M lies to ensure Bond's return to the field, she is not prepared to sanction the return of Moneypenny. Her youth is equated with inexperience, while Bond's aging body is judged capable of resurrecting the mission to recover the stolen disk. M and Bond find solace in one another's company due to their shared struggle with age, inst.i.tutional oversight, and scrutiny of proficiency but it is clear that the kind of relations.h.i.+p that Samantha Bond's Moneypenny enjoyed with M has not been replicated in Skyfall. Moneypenny is not a confidante, and M shows little sympathy to her plight post-Istanbul.

AGE AND AGENCY.

The role of fieldwork is complicated and the second episode of Bond's aging resilience is to be found in another part of Asia. Bond's physical frailty in Shanghai means that he is unable to prevent his main suspect from literally slipping through his fingers. On arrival, he is greeted by the return of Moneypenny to the field. In a moment of intimacy, Moneypenny shaves Bond's face as if to suggest that Bond remains not only a strongly heteros.e.xual figure (a body to be desired) but also a body that is redeemable (and made youthful again). Dressed in a tuxedo his swagger returns, and while Moneypenny offers to "mind his back" in a casino, his resurrection appears complete when he gambles and flirts with the femme fatale, Severine. His love-making, in a steamy shower, echoes earlier films where a series of female characters contribute to affirming Bond's credentials as a fit and heteros.e.xual field agent. Coupled with his time in the casino, the consummation of their mutual l.u.s.ting appears as a "reward" for his risky behavior in Macau.

Significantly, Moneypenny plays no further role in helping with Bond's field-work-her restorative labor is done as she reinst.i.tutes Bond's sense of purpose. Bond returns to the mission, sleeps with Severine, and the narrative arc moves on without Moneypenny. The audience is left to presume that she returns to London and it is a tracking device attached to Bond's shoe that provides an electronic rather than embodied connection with M back in the office. Later, when Bond decides to take M to his old childhood home in Scotland, he increases his geographical distance from Moneypenny, who is left in London to co-ordinate plans to prevent further carnage. Bond's reconnection with his family home provides him with an opportunity to not only protect M from Silva but also to reclaim his masculinity and sense of purpose. Bond is reunited with Kincade, the old gamekeeper and subst.i.tute father figure, who explains to M (and the audience) how Bond coped with the traumatic loss of his parents by hiding in a secret pa.s.sageway under their family home. Reliving these traumatic experiences appears to consolidate Bond's resolution and provides a more positive impression of his masculinity. In comparison, Moneypenny is not offered narrative s.p.a.ce to reclaim her heroic ident.i.ty, and her mishap in Istanbul continues to trouble her even if she ably supported Bond in Macau.

What the field perhaps proves, in the case of the visit to the Bond family home, is that women like M simply age while men like Bond come back revitalized. M can be taught simple entrapment techniques but ultimately it is her rather than Bond who is. .h.i.t by an adversary's bullet. Her age and accompanying sense of frailty, compounded by the fact that she is a widow and her children appear absent from her life, is magnified by the time they reach Scotland. It is she who requires comfort, warmth, and rea.s.surance from both Bond and Kincade. Moneypenny's youthful inexperience and M's fragility and ageing render them out of place when it comes to the field. They occupy the extremes of an ageing-gender spectrum. It is Bond and the much older Kincade who repel the attack by Silva and his henchmen. While Bond can survive two bullets to the chest area, the locus of his heroic and muscular masculinity (Funnell, "I Know" 462), M cannot endure a wound to her stomach, the locus of her maternal ident.i.ty, much like other female characters who die from wounds to the stomach/ womb (Funnell, Warrior 50). M, the maternal figure to both Bond and Silva, dies in the arms of Bond. Her death serves as a warning about the suitability of (some) women working in the field, while the film also reflects on Bond's decision to take M away from London. M may have been safer in London with Moneypenny and other colleagues. She might even have killed Silva in a final act of defiance in the face of an impending death but instead she is taken out of the office and it is left to Bond to finish the job and reclaim his masculinity in the grounds of his old family home.

M is used as a trap just as Bond has been in the past in films such as From Russia with Love (Terence Young 1963). M goes along with his unconventional decision-making, which she trusts will be effective. What the excursion to his childhood home suggests is the final element of his rehabilitation. As with the Batman prequel trilogy (Christopher Nolan 2005, 2008, 2012), this is a field agent, as recognized by Lynd, who lost his parents and decides to become a secret agent. The loss of Lynd traumatizes him initially but then he becomes hardened once more. His rehabilitation is supported by a father subst.i.tute figure and later with his childhood home destroyed there is nothing to hold him back from returning to the field. Moneypenny is nowhere to be seen. In the origin stories of iconic male superheroes such as Bond and Batman, there is no s.p.a.ce for women to craft their own heroic ident.i.ties let alone project alternative heroic trajectories.

CONCLUSION.

On two occasions while in the field, Craig's Bond has either been killed or a.s.sumed to be dead. In each case, women were implicated in his death. In Casino Royale, Valenka, the girlfriend of archenemy Le Chiffre, successfully poisons Bond and he is only revived from certain death by Lynd's quick actions. In Skyfall, it is a.s.sumed that Moneypenny killed Bond after following an order from M to "take the shot." In both cases, the women are punished for their transgression by being removed from the action narrative-while Valenka is killed by Mr. White and his Quantum a.s.sociates off-screen (a death that is only mentioned in pa.s.sing conversation), Moneypenny is relegated to the periphery of the s.p.a.ce of physical action and does not reappear in key narrative scenes. Moneypenny's disappearance rather than death has consequences for Bond's resurrection and the narrative arc. By the end of the film, two of the three female characters are dead (M dies in Bond's arms and Severine is killed as part of a macabre shooting contest between two men) and Moneypenny is portrayed as uncomfortable with the gendered travails of the field.

Some media reports have suggested that in Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015) Money-penny might be back in the field and represented as an active sidekick to 007. While Harris is reportedly keen to reprise the role, the speculation about Spectre and her character's development might also be a response, on the part of the Bond franchise, to address widespread criticism regarding Skyfall's poor treatment of women. Perhaps Spectre will expand on Moneypenny's origin story and provide her with an opportunity to return to the field in order to reclaim her professional competence and heroic ident.i.ty (much like Skyfall did for Bond). Spectre might offer a further exploration of how the relations.h.i.+p between the field and the office gets negotiated by an individual who, in various stages of her character development, has been secretary/gatekeeper, personal a.s.sistant, confidante, and finally a field agent who not only ensures the safety of M but also aides and abets 007. In Spectre, Bond will return to the field and it will be interesting to see if Moneypenny will join him.

CHAPTER 23.

"WHO IS SALT?"

The Difficulty of Constructing a Female James Bond and Reconstructing Gender Expectations Jeffrey A. Brown "Who Is Salt?" was the tag line used on posters in the months leading up to the 2010 release of director Phillip Noyce's film Salt, starring Angelina Jolie. In spite of its vague marketing, Salt went on to become the most successful female spy movie in history, earning more than $300 million USD at the worldwide box office. Salt was praised by critics and audiences for being a fast-paced action film that follows the exploits of Evelyn Salt, a CIA operative and KGB spy, as she evades both American authorities and Russian terrorists while thwarting a nuclear strike, the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Russian President, and a coup to overthrow the United States government. The question "Who Is Salt?" is a specific reference to her narrative status as a double-agent. But, as a female spy, it is also indicative of the character's uncertain position within the larger genre and traditional gender representations. Women in spy movies are typically cast as seductresses, villainesses, or romantic prizes for the male hero. The infamous "Bond Girl" type tends to overshadow any other female representation in espionage tales. Yet Salt is more like Bond than his Bond Girl. Her atypical status as a female superspy reveals many of the gendered preconceptions inherent in the spy genre that has limited female heroism.

Salt is an interesting case study because the film was a self-conscious attempt by a major studio to create a female equivalent to the Bond franchise. The change of the protagonist's s.e.x exposes the gendered a.s.sumptions of several key spy film conventions, such as patriotism, s.e.xuality, and trustworthiness. Much of the press surrounding Salt addressed Jolie's a.s.sumption of a role usually a.s.sociated with masculinity. It was widely reported that the role of Edwin A. Salt had been scripted for Tom Cruise. When he backed out studio executives approached Jolie who had previously declined their requests to be a Bond Girl on the grounds that she would rather play Bond himself. The character was changed to Evelyn Salt and with only some minor script adjustments, Jolie found herself playing the closest thing to a female Bond. Roger Ebert wrote in The Chicago Sun-Times: "Salt is a d.a.m.n fine thriller..." ( 1) and "Evelyn does everything James Bond did, except backwards and barefoot in the snow" ( 6). Richard Corliss, in his Times review, claimed that Salt effectively honors "the core premise of a Bond or Bourne film-that the main character is bold and resourceful" ( 4). By most accounts Salt delivered a female superspy as good, if not better, than Bond and other male spies.

SALT AS BOND NOT BOND GIRL.

The change of gender did not lessen any of the action sequences or abilities of the protagonist. Salt scales the sides of buildings, jumps from one moving vehicle to another, and fights as well as any male character. In fact, Salt's gender does not seem to be a factor in the film. No bl.u.s.tery villains ridicule her as "just a girl," no s.e.xist agent calls her "butch," and she never has to dress revealingly or flirt with men to disarm them. The increased prominence of action heroines over the last 15 years in film series like Kill Bill (Quentin Tarantino 2003, 2004), Resident Evil (Paul W.S. Anderson 2002, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2016, Russell Mulcahy 2007), and Jolie's own Tomb Raider (Simon West 2001, Jan de Bont 2003) has also normalized cinematic representations of women kicking a.s.s. Audiences no longer perceive action skills as exclusively masculine traits. Discussing early action heroines like Ellen Ripley from Aliens (James Cameron 1986) and Sarah Connor from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron 1991) Elizabeth Hills notes, from the perspective of gender binarism "aggressive women in the cinema can only be seen as phallic, unnatural or figuratively male" (39). Jolie's Salt manages to subvert these outdated conventions and appears to be a heroic character that just happens to be female.

That Salt does not emphasize the heroine's femininity marks the film as being significantly different than other action-oriented films and television programs. Strong female characters in contemporary Hollywood continue to be represented as s.e.xually attractive. Embodied by traditionally beautiful actresses like Kate Beckinsale, Milla Jovovich, and Scarlett Johansson, most mainstream films offset the implication that casting women in violent and heroic roles renders them masculine or unfeminine by emphasizing their diminutive physical size, delicate faces, and s.e.xual desirability. As Lisa Purse notes, "female heroes combine their readily apparent strength and skill with a more traditionally feminine, and often emphatically s.e.xualized, physique" ("Return" 187). The standard objectification of the male gaze is in full force when women kick a.s.s. The s.e.xual fetis.h.i.+zation of modern heroines is often justified as a form of post-feminist liberation, wherein women can embrace beauty and s.e.xuality as just one of the "girly" pleasures they can employ for their own purposes. Salt's divergence from this tradition is notable since Jolie is clearly recognized by the public as one of the world's most beautiful women. Her established celebrity status predisposes audiences for Salt to interpret her character as s.e.xy even if the film itself does not overtly eroticize her. Thus, Jolie as Salt can be s.e.xy despite deemphasizing her femininity as a plot device.

While the action sequences in the film present Salt as an equal to the likes of Bond, the narrative diverges from the Bond formula in notable ways, particularly in relation to s.e.x and nationality. Part of the audience's pleasure in watching Bond has always been his s.e.xual adventures. Bond's s.e.xuality panders to the heteros.e.xual male viewers' fantasy of being irresistible to women. "There was never any question," observe Colleen M. Tremonte and Linda Racioppi, "that Bond would not only vanquish his male enemies but that he would also dominate even the most a.s.sertive Bond 'girl'" (184). Bond's s.e.xual exploits carry the weight of ideology in that he repeatedly a.s.serts Western patriarchal authority over other nations through his domination of women. As Tricia Jenkins argues, through "Bond's s.e.xual prowess [...] Britain can subdue even the most powerful, deviant nations in the world" (313). Though the Bond films have struggled to appear less misogynistic in recent years, particularly since Daniel Craig took over the t.i.tle role in Casino Royale (Martin Campbell 2006), his relations.h.i.+ps with women are still a key ingredient in the Bond formula. Despite the inclusion of Judi Dench as Bond's female superior M starting with GoldenEye (Martin Campbell 1995), and an increase of active roles for Bond's female helpers in recent years, women in the world of Bond are still exotic beauties included for their looks rather than their skills.

The franchise's historic use of s.e.xually available Bond Girls is crucial to Bond's status as a masculine and British ideal. As Lisa Funnell notes, Bond is: firmly located within the lineage of British heroes. Envisaged through the lover literary tradition, Bond joins some of Britain's most glamorous literary and early cinematic heroes who were presented as brilliant, witty, urbane, cultivated and sensitive, as well as gentle heroes, men of action who risk everything for a higher cause and the women they love. ("I Know" 458) Unlike Ian Fleming's novels, in which Bond was rooted in the British tradition of masculine lover, the films have melded the British lover with the American ideal of the brute "everyman" hero. The balance between British and American models of heroic masculinity have varied from film to film, and from actor to actor, but Bond's s.e.xuality has remained a stable indication of his brand of heroism. His s.e.xual conquests confirm his heteros.e.xual masculinity (Black 107), particularly for American audiences that might perceive "witty and urbane" as feminizing traits. Bond's hyper-s.e.xuality has been somewhat diminished in the Craig era films, with him bedding fewer women and developing more serious romantic relations.h.i.+ps. But Bond's virility is still foregrounded and visually bolstered through the display of Craig's muscular body. More than any of the previous Bonds, Craig's masculinity is displayed through his body and its ability to bear the marks of physical pain. This ability to triumph over physical trauma is a marker of American ideals of heroism, the clearest examples of which appeared during the Reagan era films of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Still, the long-standing tradition in Bond narratives is that s.e.x is a crucial part of the escapist male fantasy. The persistent double standard in Western culture regarding casual s.e.x means that if a female spy like Salt were to have s.e.x with multiple men she would be perceived as devious and s.l.u.tty. But where Bond has recently been limited to fewer s.e.xual partners per film, Salt is denied any s.e.xual relations.h.i.+ps at all. Despite being portrayed by Jolie, Salt does a fairly remarkable job of not eroticizing her. Scenes of her falling in love with her husband are romantic rather than erotic, and an opening sequence showing Salt in her underclothes being tortured is brutal rather than s.e.xual. Likewise, when Salt is trying to evade capture in the CIA headquarters there is a moment when she removes her panties that could have been played up for t.i.tillation but is instead presented as utilitarian, as she quickly uses the garment to cover a security camera. The film does not undermine Salt's status as an active protagonist by essentializing her s.e.xually. This is no small accomplishment given that women in Bond narratives "have always been conceived in terms of male desire and pleasure [...and] represented as erotic spectacle" (Woollacott 110). While this is a welcome change in the depiction of strong women in a spy-action film, it also means that she is not allowed to actively engage in s.e.x as Bond does. Salt's only romantic involvement is with her husband, who is unaware that she is a double-agent. Moreover, the character is mostly absent from the narrative, seen only briefly in flashbacks and during his execution. While Salt is certainly attractive, she does not flirt with men in the film.

Salt's avoidance of s.e.xualizing its heroine is an exception to the spy genre rule that female agents have to be seductresses. Female spies have had more success headlining their own adventures on television, but even there women are overwritten by s.e.xuality. Series like Alias (2001-06), Nikita (2010-13), and Covert Affairs (2010-14) focus on strong and competent women who are often presented as more Bond Girl than Bond. These heroines-Sydney Bristow, Nikita, and Annie Walker respectively-are exceptionally skilled agents but often have to rely on their beauty in order to dupe men. In almost every episode they are called upon to perform an exaggerated feminine stereotype as part of their mission. Sultry guests at formal parties, high-end prost.i.tutes, and damsels in distress are regular undercover a.s.signments. This convention is an example of what Mary Anne Doane refers to as a masquerade of femininity (Femmes 25). In contrast, exaggerated s.e.xuality is not part of Salt's spy skills. When she infiltrates the White House, she impersonates a male soldier rather than a stunning female party guest. Salt's masculine masquerade, while surprising, is employed in a practical sense to gain access to a restricted level rather than to suggest that she is a masculinized heroine.

Because female s.e.xuality and espionage are so closely linked in popular culture, these small screen super-spies have to strike a balance between appearing s.e.xy and being s.e.xually compromised. While Bristow, Nikita, and Walker are routinely fetis.h.i.+zed by their narratives, they never employ copulation to achieve their missions. They use the lure of s.e.x as an effective tool of the trade, but as good American heroines they would never actually prost.i.tute themselves to accomplish their goals. In her discussion of s.e.xuality and nationality in Alias, Miranda J. Brady argues that the series presents: foreign and minority female spies as single-minded vixens who apparently place personal and national interests above family. Conversely, Sydney Bristow, the white American female spy, desperately clings to familial normalcy and wants nothing more than to reproduce the heteronormative familial structure. While foreign female spies will shamelessly enter into a s.e.xual contract (including marriage) to gain information, Sydney Bristow will only emulate the use of s.e.x for espionage, saving copulation for meaningful, conjugal relations. (113-4) Given cultural values about gender and s.e.xuality, for a female spy to actually use s.e.x would be un-American and un-heroic. By this cultural logic, Salt's status as a genuine heroine is far more precarious than her small screen counterparts. Through flashbacks, the audience learns that Salt initially targeted her husband as part of a mission. But it is also revealed that Salt fell in love with him before they were married and her main concern is for his safety after her cover is blown. Salt's love for her husband renders her actions heroic even when her national allegiance is drawn into question.

TRUSTING SALT.

Despite the narrative's best efforts to present a gender-neutral action/thriller in the Bond tradition, Salt does have to contend with perceptions of female spies as untrustworthy. Salt's status as a Russian sleeper agent continuously puts her national allegiances in doubt. Male film spies like James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Ryan, as well as those from television such as Jack Bauer from 24 (2001-14) and Michael Westen from Burn Notice (2007-13) may have disputes with their superiors or question their governments' decisions, but their loyalty to a greater national cause is never placed in doubt. Jack Ryan can yell at the President for his costly mistakes in Clear and Present Danger (Phillip Noyce 1994) but viewers know it is because Ryan is the real patriot. Female spies are almost always depicted as suspicious and unknowable. The stereotypical fear of female s.e.xuality as untrustworthy takes on far greater importance in fictional espionage. As Estella Tincknell argues in her discussion of post-feminism in spy stories: female agents are almost always double-agents. Their untrustworthiness for the state is, then, systemically linked to their availability to the central male character and to the threat desire poses for him. This anxiety, although represented in the terms of the genre's overt concern with protecting national (or Western) power interests, can also be understood as a symptom of the threat femininity poses to the stability of masculinity. The female double-agent's "doubleness" is const.i.tuted in her apparent lack, her fragmented subjectivity, rather than the wholeness of masculinity. (101-2) For Tincknell, the female double-agent is a crucial threat the male hero must overcome. She is a s.e.xual lure that can lead to the hero's downfall, either by delivering him to the central villain or, worse yet, trapping him into mundane domesticity.

Salt avoids being cast as a s.e.xual lure used to compromise a heroic male agent. But as a female spy, and a Russian sleeper agent with questionable loyalties, Salt is still over-determined by her "doubleness." Her lack of a true national ident.i.ty or allegiance tempers her heroism by leaving her intentions ungrounded. Bond may be many things, but above all else he is always a symbol of unwavering British (and Western) fort.i.tude. Even when Bond goes rogue and renounces his official status to pursue vengeance, as he does in both Licence To Kill (John Glen 1989) and Quantum of Solace (Marc Forster 2008), viewers know that his personal motives coincide with national concerns. There is never a possibility that Bond could be a traitor to his country even when he chooses to ignore direct orders. Bond embodies national stability and a conception of masculinity as steadfast and dependable. Salt, on the other hand, despite all of her actions, is still an enigma. There are no voice-overs or private moments that reveal Salt has converted to Western ideals. Jolie plays her as stoic and emotionally unrevealing of her state allegiances. There is only what Ben Child describes as "a stone-cold stare," while "playing both sides for fools" ( 6). The masculine Bond is iconic while the feminine Salt remains a question mark. Bond's perennial catchphrase, "Bond. James Bond" is a statement of firm ident.i.ty while Salt's defining tagline is the question "Who is Salt?" Longstanding misogynistic stereotypes of women as unknowable, mysterious, and duplicitous compound Salt's status as an ungrounded heroine.

This disjuncture in stability between male and female spy ident.i.ties parallels gendered preconceptions about nations themselves. Tremonte and Racioppi argue that Craig's hypermasculine body in Casino Royale reinforces the idea that national and international security is coded in gendered terms: Men [symbolically] are the main agents of the state and the international system of states; women, as some feminist scholars.h.i.+p has argued, are positioned as subordinate helpmeets and often embodied as symbols of the "nation." [...] National ident.i.ties, such as Britishness, therefore have been constructed within the context of a binary gender/political order; they are differentiated for men and women and reflect and direct gender roles. Historically, men protect and defend the nation-state, if necessary sacrificing their own lives; women serve the nation through reproducing and socializing its children and supporting militarized men who may be away from home. (187) The preconception is that men are protectors of the state and women are akin to the state itself, a romanticized haven in need of protection. Bond is ultimately heroic not just because of his exciting adventures, but because he is always a champion of Western culture. The franchise is premised on the notion that in a complex and ever-changing world Bond will remain an unflinching warrior against the forces of chaos that seek to undermine the state. But Salt's status as a female spy with an unknown political agenda denies her the level of iconic heroism afforded Bond. Salt's actions save the world but we are never really certain of why. She has no allegiance to the West and her heroism is coincidental to her own quest for vengeance.

Salt's unknown political and national concerns reflect the difficulty of presenting a Cold War themed spy film in a post-Cold War era. Russia is no longer a clear ideological opposite to America, which opens up the possibility that Salt is free to become an American hero, but it also implies an uncertain agenda. In Cold War era Bond films like From Russia with Love (Terence Young 1963), it was clear that agent Tatiana Romanova was acting under orders from her Russian superiors to entrap Bond. It was also clear that Bond could a.s.sert British virility and defeat the Russians in large part by romantically winning over Romanova. As a Russian female spy, Salt taps into the convention of s.e.xy communist fatales that could threaten Western democracy through seduction. In her discussion of Bond and Cold War s.e.xual politics, Tricia Jenkins describes the cultural fear that communism might literally seduce weak-willed men: "heteros.e.xual men who were 'slaves to their pa.s.sions' could be easily duped by seductive women working for the communists" (312). Thus, Bond represented a counter to this fear by not only being strong enough to resist seduction, but by being able to seduce women away from communism. Salt has no American counterpart to convert her to the West (even her husband is not American), nor is it exactly clear what she wants for Russia. As a Cold War sleeper agent activated in a post-Cold War environment, Salt is the epitome of a liminal character. While Romanova had a clear choice between Mother Russia and British Bond, Salt has no political choice to make. Moreover, audiences knew they could not trust Romanova until Bond won her over, but they could trust Bond. Viewers are never permitted this definitive trust with Salt; as a double-agent she remains an enigma and there are no indications that she even has sides to choose from.

WHO IS EVELYN SALT?.

According to the "binary gender/political" logic, only heroic male bodies are capable of protecting the state. Part of the success of Craig's version of Bond is the more realistic depiction of violence and the evidence of physical struggle marked on his body. Unlike earlier Bonds who rarely wrinkle their tuxedos, this Bond is constantly bruised, bloodied, and in need of time to heal. Bond, like the state itself, may be battered but never beaten. Conversely, while the real world settings of Salt ground the film in a realistic mise-en-scene, the action is pure fantasy. Salt's noticeably thin body never shows the signs of struggle. She dispatches hordes of enemies without breaking a sweat, engages in gun fights and jumps from moving cars with barely a scratch. Roger Ebert describes the action in Salt as "gloriously absurd. The Laws of physics seem to be suspended here the same way as in a Road Runner cartoon" ( 5). Lisa Purse points out that Salt, like science fiction and superhero films, provides "a s.p.a.ce in which female physical power is permitted" (Contemporary 81). But where the fantastical settings of science fiction "underlines its [female physical power] real-world impossibility," in Salt "Jolie performs her powerful physicality in a relatively real-seeming rendering of New York; that is, a fictional universe that looks uncomfortably close to the real world" (ibid. 81). The use of fantastic settings for many action heroines is a type of containment strategy that implies women can only perform their heroic feats in the realm of fantasy. Salt blurs the lines of this containment by letting a heroine undertake astonis.h.i.+ng acts without any lasting injury in an otherwise realistic setting. But in comparison to the new model of Bond that emphasizes his painful struggles as heroic perseverance, Salt's remarkable exploits and her ability to carry on when wounded seem less genuinely heroic. Salt's action is fun to cheer on, but it does not carry the same level of gravitas that the current version of Bond does.

While Jolie's Salt may not bear the physical injuries that Craig's Bond does, Salt does perform her action sequences in a far grittier way than most other action heroines do. Salt can be understood as liminal politically, caught between Russia and America, but she is also liminal in a sense that she straddles the conventional divide between female and male action heroes. The typical modern heroine may be violent but she rarely musses up her hair, let alone gets extremely b.l.o.o.d.y. The heroines' conventionally beautiful face, in particular, needs to stay attractive. This is notable in a film like Aeon Flux (Karyn Kusama 2005) in which "Aeon's face remains undamaged, undirtied, and carefully made-up; where injuries do happen they are minor and occur on other parts of the body" (Purse, "Return" 185). According to Purse, action films of the 2000s, including those starring Jolie, "re-imagine the traditional heroic qualities of toughness and determination in ways that uphold conventional notions of gender, emphasizing the female action hero's 'feminine' grace, dignity, and (well-maintained) appearance" (ibid. 190). Unlike most contemporary action heroines, Salt does not foreground Jolie's beauty at the expense of physical action. Salt may not need months of hospitalization to recover from a sustained beating and torture like Bond does in Casino Royale, but she does endure a brutal torture scene of her own at the beginning of the film, when her North Korean captors force oil down her throat. Likewise, near the end of Salt, we see the strain of her efforts on her blood-streaked face as she chokes Ted Winter to death with the chain she is shackled by. Audiences may not be ready to see a beautiful face like Jolie's b.l.o.o.d.y and swollen beyond recognition, but the film does mark its violence on her famous features, albeit strategically, in an effort to offer physical proof of her heroic efforts.

The question of the relative physical abuse marked on the bodies of Craig's Bond and Jolie's Salt may be the clearest example of culturally acceptable gender differences between the characters. Action film audiences expect to see the battered and beaten body of heroic men endure to defeat the villain. The iconic image of the badly wounded John McClane limping to the rescue on b.l.o.o.d.y feet in Die Hard (John McTiernan 1988) typifies the American model of masculinity as physically strong and resilient. This is the fantasy of masculinity that Craig's Bond taps into as he battles on despite the obvious damage done to his body. But audiences do not seem ready for the same type of realistic violence to be visited upon female heroines. Patriarchal notions about female vulnerability, and real world epidemics of violence against women, lead to an environment where excessive violence visible on a female body is unforgiveable in a way it is not for men. Moreover, action film violence carries with it a thinly veiled element of s.e.xual a.s.sault that registers differently depending on the victim's gender. When naked men are tortured, like the way Bond is in Casino Royale, the s.e.xualized threat is clear but the body endures and avoids penetration. A similar scene with a female as victim implies the possibility of rape, which is taboo in the fun fantasy of action movies. This difference explains Salt's brief glimpses of torture versus the prolonged scenes of Bond being tortured. The challenges of creating a female equivalent of Bond are not restricted to issues of s.e.xuality and trustworthiness, they also include navigating different gender expectations regarding acceptable levels of violence.

As an attempt to create a female version of Bond, Salt delivers on the thrills of action cinema and wisely avoids the gratuitous s.e.xual exploits that are central to the masculinist Bond fantasy. On the surface of it, Salt seems to present a gender-neutral version of a superspy adventure. Anyone can identify with Salt's exploits and her personal motivation for revenge. But at a deeper level, the film is mired in misogynistic fears about women as untrustworthy, and grounded in preconceptions about female agents as duplicitous. Salt is a fun adventure film and the character of Salt is intriguing, complex, and infinitely capable without having to resort to s.e.xuality. And while all of these characteristics contribute to a progressive depiction of female heroism, the film's core premise limits Salt's ability to equal the larger heroic and cultural status of Bond. Salt may not be a Bond Girl but she is not really Bond either, at least not in the sense of being a cultural hero. If Salt is a female Bond, she is the Bond of the recent past rather than present. The retro Cold War politics of Salt, and the unrealistic nature of the action sequences, are more in line with a version of Bond as embodied by Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan than the updated Bond of Craig. Salt is relatively more serious-minded than the Moore or Brosnan eras of Bond, but in a post-9/11 world even Bond has to treat espionage as more than just a series of fantastic action sequences. Salt's actions do save the world but her aloof nature and her lack of national ident.i.ty makes the film feel like just a fun fantasy.

On the bright side, Salt was a blockbuster hit by any financial standard. While Salt may not yet have the cultural cache of Bond she was embraced as a desirable female alternative to him. And Salt certainly has the potential to become a heroine who stands for larger state concerns. The film ends with Salt's escape and her vow to hunt down other Russian sleeper agents. Salt could easily be set up in sequels as an agent of Western protection, an immigrant who embraces Western cultural values. The delay in producing a sequel has left the character of Salt as an enigma and the potential for a female-driven franchise in limbo. Even before the film was released, director Phillip Noyce talked about long-term plans for a series of Salt movies, but his subsequent departure from the project has stalled a studio commitment. Bond is a fantasy of ideal masculinity and Western heroism, and while Salt is fun escapism she may not yet be enough of an ideal archetype to really challenge the Bond dominated formula of feature film super-spies.

Section 6.

JUDI DENCH'S TENURE AS M.

CHAPTER 24.

FROM MASCULINE MASTERMIND TO MATERNAL MARTYR.

Judi Dench's M, Skyfall, and the Patriarchal Logic of the James Bond Films.

Peter C. Kunze.

When Judi Dench a.s.sumed the role of M in GoldenEye (Martin Campbell 1995), the response stateside varied widely from indifference to derision. Some critics like Roger Ebert (1995) noted Dench's arrival but did not remark on the casting decision, as if to suggest that it was a routine move one might expect for the first Bond film of the 1990s. Others offered more s.e.xist and h.o.m.ophobic responses to the representation of a female M. Todd McCarthy of Variety called Dench's M an "iron maiden" ( 7), a term generally reserved for a torture device, whereas Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle casually refers to her as a "butch-looking woman" ( 5). In Time, Richard Schickel harshly described Bond's new boss as having "a butch hairdo, a brusque Thatcherite manner and a license to kill with unkindness" (92). While none of these critiques demean Dench's acting ability, M's appearance and demeanor face scorn, insult, and backhanded praise. Collectively, these reviews ill.u.s.trate, either in their ambivalence towards or petty snickering about M, the rise of postfeminism in contemporary Anglo-American popular culture. Postfeminist discourse believes the concerns of feminism are no longer relevant as women a.s.sume positions of power within the public and private spheres. One might think that the casting of a female M reflects greater gender equality in the Bond series and, more generally, in Hollywood film and society at large. Such gestures imply feminism has succeeded-but has it?

The latest Bond film, Skyfall (Sam Mendes 2012), marks Dench's exit from the franchise, therefore affording critics the opportunity to appraise her tenure as M. Focusing on her final performance, this chapter reads Dench's M through the lens of feminist critiques of postfeminist discourse and culture. While a female M gestures toward productive revision of the traditionally s.e.xist franchise, the move ultimately fails to support a worldview where gender inequities are properly addressed. In an age where ident.i.ty trumps ideology, a female M pays lip service to calls for greater representation while still perpetuating an ideology that, in the words of Tania Modleski, threatens to take us "back into a prefeminist world" (3). Through a close reading of Skyfall, this chapter challenges the progressivism of certain recent representations of women while demonstrating the patriarchal logic that persists in the so-called updated Bond films.

POSTFEMINISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS.

Like feminism itself, postfeminism escapes easy definition. Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff identify three different strains of postfeminism: postfeminism as "epistemological break within feminism" against the dominance of Anglo-American feminism, postfeminism as "an historical s.h.i.+ft after their height of Second Wave feminism" that views feminism as pa.s.se or complete, and postfeminism as a "backlash against feminism" that romanticizes and longs for masculine dominance (3).1 Modleski suggests postfeminism exuberantly declares its arrival, but "actually engag[es] in negating the critiques and undermining the goals of feminism" (3). Postfeminist, like postracialist discourse, announces false social progress as a conservative backlash against the radical potential of progressive politics. Angela McRobbie observes how "the new female subject is, despite her freedom, called upon to be silent, to withhold critique, to count as a modern sophisticated girl, or indeed withholding of critique is a condition of her freedom" (260). Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra observe that while postfeminism emphasizes "educational and professional opportunities for women and girls; freedom of choice with respect to work, domesticity, and parenting; and physical and particularly s.e.xual empowerment," it fails to explain the relations.h.i.+p between gender and power (2). Despite its inconsistencies, postfeminism remains seductive because of its individualist emphasis on personal choice and its pervasiveness across media (ibid. 2). While the ability of a female protagonist to select her own partner, career, and lifestyle may suggest the futility of contemporary feminism, her complicity in the power structures that subjugate herself and other women undermine the seemingly progressive ethos of the film.

While M may be a beneficiary of feminist progress in the workplace, the Bond films featuring Dench largely skirt gender issues inherent to a female authority figure supervising a largely male workforce. This oversight, or possibly even silencing of the issue, represents a postfeminist ethos in the recent Bond films. Postfeminism, as Tasker and Negra explain, concerns itself with the "'pastness' of feminisms, whether that supposed pastness is merely noted, mourned, or celebrated" (1). McRobbie contends postfeminism represents "the co-existence of neo-conservative values in relation to gender, s.e.xuality and family life [...] with processes of liberalization in regard to choice and diversity in domestic, s.e.xual and kins.h.i.+p relations" (255-6). These understandings limit postfeminism to concerns of personal identification, interpersonal relations.h.i.+ps, and market partic.i.p.ation. How might postfeminism play out in the professional world or even geopolitically? Over seven films, the gender of Dench's M becomes increasingly irrelevant as her position and mission objectives take precedent. M's focus on national security and the maintenance of geopolitical dominance supersedes her personal concerns. Her children are only alluded to in pa.s.sing conversation and her husband is seen only once sleeping with his back turned; by Skyfall, the audience learns he has died without explanation. What matters in the world of Bond is not love, but s.e.x, and not self, but country. M, as a representative of country, sacrifices any sense of self in favor of professional competence. This move has ramifications not only for how we understand women in this diegetic s.p.a.ce, but perhaps how we discuss gender in film more generally.

ENTER JUDI DENCH.

Primarily known as a stage actress, Dench made her first appearance as M in GoldenEye, and by her second film, Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode 1997), she had won international acclaim as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown (John Madden 1997). Dench's casting was doubly interesting: on one hand, it is in the tradition of casting a seasoned, cla.s.sically-trained British actor, and, on the other, it represents a crude modernization of the Bond franchise. When Dench's M first meets Bond and refers to him as a "relic of the Cold War," she speaks to him as a metonym for an aggressive, masculinized British nationalism and, by extension, the film series built around this persona. Dench's appearance attempts to revise the franchise's trademark s.e.xism, where the Bond Girl represents submission and the female Bond villain embodies non-normative s.e.xuality that is threatening to Bond. As Lisa Funnell has argued, "female villainy not only serves to strengthen Bond's heroic masculinity but also offers a perfect opportunity to demonize feminism as lesbian, deviant, threatening, monstrous, excessive, and other" ("Negotiating" 210). As neither s.e.x kitten nor femme fatale, Dench's M challenges the series' reductive understanding of women, yet her role is neither wholly progressive nor conservative. Perhaps Dench's M may best be viewed as a feminist character operating in a postfeminist narrative. The diegesis certainly resists such alleged progressiveness, and by the conclusion of Dench's tenure in the series, it recuperates the gender normativity that has become characteristic of the franchise.

GoldenEye introduces not only Dench as M, but Pierce Brosnan as the new Bond. Brosnan's Bond is characteristically attractive and debonair, and his humor is suggestive, even cra.s.s, delivered with a cheeky overtone that showcases his playful nature. M, however, is not wooed by Bond's tricks, and in their first encounter, the film ably navigates between traditional models of femininity and masculinity. In her a.n.a.lysis of Working Girl (Mike Nichols 1988), Tasker keenly observes that "advancement is presented as a form of masculinization" (Working 41). M draws upon masculinist metaphors to a.s.suage any concern regarding her competency. "If you think I don't have the b.a.l.l.s to send a man to his death," she warns Bond, "you're wrong." The metaphorical t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es