James Bond in Goldfinger, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying that my Childhood Hero Was a Sex Offender and Contribute to a Group Project

I was eleven-and-a-half years old. It was the summer between 5th and 6th Grade. After coming home from the office one evening, my mother presented me with a present, a bit of a surprise to me seeing as I felt I had done nothing to warrant this gift. Nevertheless, I accepted her gift and proceeded to open it, tearing away at the wrapping paper in typical eleven-and-a-half year old fashion.

A large box with the words “James Bond Anniversary Set,” or something along those lines, labeled the front of the box. I opened the box to see 4 VHS tapes lined neatly inside; the first three Bond films and one about the making of Goldfinger.

My mother proceeded to tell me that she received the tapes a while ago at work, and she believed that I was now old enough to watch them.

“Being old enough to watch them” surely meant, to my eleven-and-a-half year old self, that they were filled with all the awesome things that my socially liberal parents normally tried to shield me from –awesome things like violence and explosions and girls and bad words—so I proceed to thank my mother very graciously before grabbing the box set and heading to our VHS player.
“You can’t watch them tonight, though,” my mother called. “If you watch those movies this late you wont be able to fall asleep.”

That was probably the worst thing my mother could have said to me. I spent the entire evening tossing in my bed and waiting for the morning to come, itching to watch these grown-up films that I had finally been granted permission to view.

The morning came, and I was not disappointed.

James Bond: He was suave. He had the most awesome gadgets. He escaped death and foiled evil geniuses time and time again, and he always managed to charm two or three stunningly beautiful women along the way. But maybe the awe-inspiring characteristic of James Bond was how confidence seemed to ooze from every inch of his impeccably tailored physique all the time; he was never wrong. As an eleven-and-a half-year-old boy, I made a promise to myself, right then, that I would one day be James Bond. That summer I made it my mission to see every film and know everything there was to know about James Bond.

James Bond certainly had an Impact on my childhood. Today my idolatry of the James Bond figure has certainly cooled, but I do still love the series and never miss an opportunity to watch one of the older films when they roll on to TV. So, when the film Goldfinger came up as an option for a group project in a Popular Culture class that I was taking, I sprung to the occasion to have watching and analyzing one of my favorite films of all time, as homework.

Specifically, my assignment was to cosider how Goldfinger portrayed constructions of class, race, gender, nationalism, and so on. To contribute to my group, I chose to focus specifically on how the film represented the social relationship between the male and female genders. I figured this would be simple enough to do, as bond usually has at least a few flames in each film. Little did I know this seemingly innocent assignment would scar my perception of a childhood hero forever.

At about nine minutes into the film the viewer is presented with the first construct of the male-female social relation. James Bond (Sean Connery) is being massaged by a woman named “Dink,” but when American agent Felix Leighter (Cec Linder) comes to speak to Bond, he immediately dismisses Dink, telling her that she needs to go so that they can attend to “Man talk.” As she turns to walk away, Bond gives her a firm slap on the behind as a devilish grin shoots across his face.

Hardly two minutes later, Bond forcefully grabs a room key from a female hotel maid, saying to her: “You’re very sweet.” He uses this key to enter Goldfinger’s hotel room, where he finds Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) lying in a bikini. He proceeds to walk over to Masterson, and corners her on the balcony where she is lying. Three minutes later, Bond has apparently seduced Masterson, as she utters: “I’m beginning to like you Mr. ?”
“Bond, James Bond” He replies.

I was appalled –taken aback— shocked, I would say. I knew that James Bond had always taken certain liberties with women that might not be socially acceptable by today’s standards, but watching Goldfinger again from a Cultural Studies perspective had proven in a very convincing manor that my childhood idol had some blatantly misogynistic tendencies. Despite the psychological pain I felt as the image of my childhood hero was tarnished before my eyes, for the sake of my group, I pushed forth with my cultural analysis:

Bond’s interaction with Dink reflects an attitude of patriarchal superiority and an objectified view of women as a physical commodity echoing the works of both Cantor, regarding the purpose of Television (film in this case), and McLuskie, on his views regarding Shakespeare’s treatment of women in The Taming of the Shrew.

Chris Barker, in paraphrasing the works of Cantor notes that the primary role of films discourse on gender relations may be to “support the main institution of the patriarchal oppression of women” (48). James Bond’s actions reflect this in a strikingly clear manor. In his interactions, whether with Dink, Masterson, or later Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman), James Bond always gets his way, dismissing physically at times, the wills and opinions of his female companions. The fact that he dismisses Dink because he has to attend to “Man talk” reinforces the fact that he considers female perspective as having less validity than that of the male.

Secondly, it becomes obvious that besides often carrying an attitude of patriarchal superiority, Bond often views women primarily as a sexual object and commodity akin to how McLuskie (as paraphrased by Barker) viewed that Shakespeare portrayed the role of woman as “commodities within a pattern of luxury consumption and aristocratic lifestyle” (309). From the make of his car to his finely tuned knowledge of bourbon, Bond embodies all that is luxury and aristocracy, and unfortunately his treatment of women as a commodity indeed follows suit. The most egregious and physical manifestation of this occurs at when bond wrestles Galore into the ground (skip to 1:45):



Bond sports at least one plaything per film, and their names somehow often seem to reflect their objectified status, whether it be Pussy Galore, Kissy Suzuki, or Xenia Onatopp (Click here for the full list of Bond Girls).

Although I will never be able to see a James Bond film in quite the same way, I eagerly anticipate the release of Bond film 23 coming in 2012. It will be directed by Sam Mendes, who also happend to direct American Beauty, one of my all-time favorite films.

Works Cited:

Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2008. Print.