Superspy Science by Kathryn Harkup

Author:Kathryn Harkup
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472982230
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

First impressions

Ian Fleming’s relationships with women, in print and in real life, leave a lot to be desired. His fictional women are functional, they provide sex and ensure the smooth running of Bond’s life without any of the ‘annoying habits’ like wanting to settle down or change him in some way. They type his reports, tidy his home and fret about him when he isn’t there, but never cramp his style. They have a non-committal commitment to Bond’s best interests.

Fleming’s, and Bond’s, reputation for treating women as disposable objects was certainly not helped by the 007 film adaptations. Bond expert Henry Chandler counted 14 women who slept with Bond through 12 books, and 58 women in the first 20 films. With a handful of exceptions, the actors are equally disposable, with very few appearing in more than one film.1 These women were cast, certainly in the early days, primarily from modelling photos. There was little concern for their acting ability, and in most cases their voices were dubbed, reducing them quite literally to objects of desire. The treatment of most of the women in the Connery era of James Bond can be summarised by one moment in Goldfinger. Bond dismisses his masseuse, Dink, with a slap on the bottom and the words ‘Man talk.’2 Of course, not all the women, even in the early films, are so inconsequential.

The first film, Dr No, has Ursula Andress in the role of Honey Ryder emerging from the sea wearing a white bikini and knife belt, a scene that has become an iconic, much repeated moment in film history.3 A little later in the film, in a scene not re-shown nearly so often, Ryder describes how she took revenge on the man who had raped her; she put a black widow spider under his mosquito net. ‘A female, and they’re the worst. It took him a whole week to die.’

What she says is true; the female is more deadly than the male because the fangs of male black widow spiders can’t penetrate human skin. The venom from the females is a mix of nerve agents that can cause severe pain and lead to respiratory and cardiovascular collapse. However, the spiders only bite to defend their web and egg sac, and not all bites are fatal, though they can take days or weeks to recover from. Ryder may not have intended to kill the man.

The message is clear: Ryder is a resourceful woman who is not to be messed with. It’s a shame that this message is undermined by subsequent events. Up to this point she has been visiting Dr No’s island without incident, evading his guards and collecting shells quite happily. After bumping into Bond, Ryder is shot at, chased by dogs, exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, drugged and almost drowned. Though Ryder starts off as the more knowledgeable member of the party, Bond soon dominates. Like some strange superpower, Bond’s presence seems to drain women of rational thought and independent action.4 Finally, Bond rescues Ryder from a situation that he was largely responsible for creating in the first place.

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