Bonded : Sticking discussions to the fly strip
Bonded : Sticking discussions to the fly strip
Sticking discussions to the fly strip
Publication date: 2021-10-25
The latest Bond franchise film "No Time to Die" came out recently as the fifth and last of the current "Bond", Mr. Tough and Vulnerable. The plot, delayed for release by the pandemic, involves a pandemic, apparently. I aint seen it, but have watched a bunch of nausiating entertainment industry "interviews" that operate as subliminal advertising, some not-so-standard advertising and some film reviews.
The review of exiting-Bond's tenure seems to be that despite much hoodoo over nothing, Casino Royale, followed by SkyFall are ranked as 2 and 1 of this Bond's films, with this latest coming in a close third to Casino. Films three and four seem to not hold the attention of the fan boi's but this film links them all together. It carries on from the end of the fourth, and knits some themes held throughout. Bond gets to play with toys again, and there are many great essential action sequences. So, its all an "end or era" party of backslapping, franchise preservation and end of lockdown escapist fun.
Why not? The producers who seem to really run the shop are happy with Daniel Craig's efforts playing Bond over the period, and it is a Big Thing in the British Film industry. Hans Zimmer gets to do some scoring, Billy Ellish does the main song (echoing the past of these great signature songs, as the film does itself with references to many a past film, as declared by reviewers) and why should not we all just be happy for a nice bit of destruction and distraction at the cinema?
Indeed. There are deeper questions about media and its narrative control, and not getting distracted from the nature of reality, but that's an individuals choice.
Leaving that by the by, there were issues which Youtube's algorithms were not throwing at me that have been promoted recently. This got me thinking about narrative control, not so much in the film itself, but in the algorithms or "narrative generation".
Can you remember Cambridge Analytica? This "scandal" of a political consultancy using data from FrackBook, sorry FaceBook, to target specific election demographics in the USA? No? It must have been the Internet Research Agency. I got confused. The data obtained by Big Tech or Social Media or the Western Social Credit System is used by those who can pay for it to sell you sox, car insurance or your politicians, depending on where you live. Since that little post-Snowden wake up call, we had the complete distraction of RussiaGoat, and numerous ongoing aggressive wars, but in the cultural background two almost irrelevant, but resurgent issues; "Cancel Culture" and "Wokism".
These CC and W things are really just PR facits of identity politics, which itself is a distraction from politics itself. Interesting that. Nonetheless, in this latest Bond film we are given a collection of strong female characters. I'm all for it. But, if equality is the idea, where is the female arch-villain!? Oh, sorry, I'll just hide my head.
One of these is a double-O "00-something". She is dark skinned, sassy, by-the-book and female. I like it. She is not a Bond "girl", for there are no more Bond "girls", they are Bond "women". But, she's not one of them either. That roll seems two fold, the white french lass and the more mature "Latin American" woman.
The issue that raised my interest was that, despite lots of pushback against cancel culture and wokism in the media, I saw none at all in reviews on this film. Cancel culture claims are a bit weak "why dont we see large breasted white women in bikini's emerging from the water in brown skinned subjugated colonial territories?" is just asking for trouble. But, the lack of "wokism" criticism is strange. The franchise is setting up a new "00", a cool, sassy, dark skinned woman. Where is all the outrage against the maligning of men as the defenders of civilization by killing people with nifty technology?
I hope it is obvious that I am being a little flippant and even sarcastic, here and there. But, I do declare that I saw none of this natural response from anti-wokism conservative voices given to me on ThemTube. This is a comment about the algorithmic control of narrative more than it is about the validity of any argument. I don’t really care about the arguments. I'll make up my own mind. But, one, two actually, are just not there, whatever their validity.
Bring on the new Recieved-Pronounciation correct, negro British woman to fight evil for MI-6. She can drink Lemon, Lime and Soda and seduce whoever she wants. But, I feel that there are paternalists out there that are having their voices repressed. This is not good, because that way the feminists can't argue with them!
Positive discrimination is discrimination. Ideological censorship is censorship. I don’t like positive or negative ideological censorial discrimination.
Sources
NO TIME TO DIE Trailer – In Cinemas October 2021, James Bond 007, (youtube channel), 2020
NO TIME TO DIE | Final US Trailer, James Bond 007, (youtube channel), late 2021
No Time To Die: How Daniel Craig's Bond Changed Everything, captainmidnight, (youtube channel), 2021-10-15
No Time to Die - Movie Review, Chris Stuckman, (youtube channel). 2021-10
No Time to Die - Review!, Dan Murrel, (youtube channel), 2021-10-07
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