In the FYEO book black women are referred to as "Negresses" and there are constant references to "Niggerheads" which I guess are a sort of coral. I don't think Ian Fleming was actually a nasty racist. Anyone who's seen Django Unchained will remember the language and I don't think of Tarantino as a racist.
Negress is the female version of the male Negro, a now dated/offensive term for a black person.
Is it really such a shock that a novel published nearly 60 years ago doesn't reflect modern attitudes? I think people are getting way too hung up on this issue. It was a different time, a different world really. The best we can do with this is learn from it, look at what attitudes used to be and vow not to go back to that. There's no need for us to dissect Fleming's character - he was a product of his time and of society and that's all.
Since this is a topic about race, Bond isn't an Englishman. Fleming in his later books (OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG) is clear that he comes from Scots/Swiss parents and considers himself Scottish.
In Moonraker, Bond in a period of self-reflection "knew that there was something alien and un-English about himself. He knew he was a difficult man to cover up".
I've always understood this to imply that Fleming considered Bond, at least initially, to be English. Or why else would he reflect that he didn't personally look English?
My father was Scots and my mother was English, and i wouldn't reflect that I looked, say, un-Asian... I would only reflect that I looked un-English/un-British.
Of course it's well documented as Barbel notes that in the later novel OHMSS, Fleming gives Bond his Scots/Swiss parentage, but I wonder if in the early novel Moonraker he hadn't though of Bond as Emglish.
Is it really such a shock that a novel published nearly 60 years ago doesn't reflect modern attitudes? I think people are getting way too hung up on this issue. It was a different time, a different world really. The best we can do with this is learn from it, look at what attitudes used to be and vow not to go back to that. There's no need for us to dissect Fleming's character - he was a product of his time and of society and that's all.
Well said, DouglasJ. In total agreement.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
Just started reading LALD last night and it's fair to say I was quite shocked when I read the chapter title mentioned earlier!!
Yes, but did you read my post above explaining where this chapter title actually came from in the first place - some historical background there. I haappened upon the eponymous novel by chance in 2008. I get the feeling that no many people get the reference Fleming was making in his 1954 LALD novel nowadays - after all the novel of the same name was published in the mid-1920s.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
edited March 2013
I meant to add that in the October 1964 General Election, the Conservartive candidate for the Smithwick constituency stood on a racial platform, under the banner tag of "If you want a Nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour." This was criticised at the time, when immigration into Britain friom the colonies was still controversial. This was the Britain Ian Fleming lived in (although by this time he had passed away). How things have changed - to the extent that the Chairwoman of the Conservative Party until recently was Basroness Warsi, a Muslim peer.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I always got the impression from reading the novels that Bond thought himself a little alien and un-English like at times because his heritage was Scots/Swiss, but for most of the time he definitely considered himself a true Englishman as he was a citizen of England and obvious a solid patriot considering his profession.
Seems about right to me; he's content to be considered English by foreigners, since he spends most of his time in England anyway and they're not far wrong, and he's definitely a patriot. As a Scot who spends a lot of time in Germany, I can sympathise; it's pretty much to do with language. If you speak German, you're thought to be from Germany (not Austria, Switzerland, etc); if you speak French, you're from France (not Belgium, Luxembourg, etc); if you speak English, you're from England (not Scotland, Ireland, etc).
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
Seems about right to me; he's content to be considered English by foreigners, since he spends most of his time in England anyway and they're not far wrong, and he's definitely a patriot. As a Scot who spends a lot of time in Germany, I can sympathise; it's pretty much to do with language. If you speak German, you're thought to be from Germany (not Austria, Switzerland, etc); if you speak French, you're from France (not Belgium, Luxembourg, etc); if you speak English, you're from England (not Scotland, Ireland, etc).
Yeah, in Fleming's time, with him writing of course, it seems like Bond is referred to as being English more often than British. It was only later in the books when Bond being Scottish was confirmed, though Fleming had that in mind much earlier (even before the casting of Connery). LOL, I remember being corrected here for refering to Bond as English vs. British, maybe by Moonraker5?
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
Seems about right to me; he's content to be considered English by foreigners, since he spends most of his time in England anyway and they're not far wrong, and he's definitely a patriot. As a Scot who spends a lot of time in Germany, I can sympathise; it's pretty much to do with language. If you speak German, you're thought to be from Germany (not Austria, Switzerland, etc); if you speak French, you're from France (not Belgium, Luxembourg, etc); if you speak English, you're from England (not Scotland, Ireland, etc).
Yeah, in Fleming's time, with him writing of course, it seems like Bond is referred to as being English more often than British. It was only later in the books when Bond being Scottish was confirmed, though Fleming had that in mind much earlier (even before the casting of Connery). LOL, I remember being corrected here for refering to Bond as English vs. British, maybe by Moonraker5?
Yes, the UK and Republic of Ireland is a complicated place when it comes to identity, but then so is the United States, I guess.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I don't recall any particularly racist passages in FYEO...
I've been listening to the audio book of FYEO recently and recalled this part, "The girls were swarthy brunettes. They looked like cheap Cuban whores. they wore bright bathing-dresses and a lot of gold jewellery, and laughed and chattered like pretty monkeys." I can’t say for sure if racism was definitely in Fleming’s thought, and/or if there were even some socio-economic, “sub-racism” in there if we can call it that, since I believe that does exist in the social strata of various global regions and I can recognize that kind of thinking.
I’ve also been listening to DAF and in Chapter 3, “Hot Ice,” and in it Bond says, “There’s nothing so extraordinary about American gangsters,’ protested Bond. ‘They’re not Americans. Mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meat-balls and squirting scent over themselves.’” LOL
In popular and "revered" literature, an extreme example of racism being normative of the times was written by Mark Twain in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which were both laced with racist dialogue. Was Mark Twain racist? If yes, did he know better? If yes, according to whose standards, our present sensibilities and political correctness? The same can be asked about Quentin Tarantino and for any critical or awards body that approved of the movie, or for the matter, anyone who bought tickets for any of his movies.
I’m sure we all have “bad” neighborhoods in relatively close proximity to our homes; what do we think about as we drive by these places and what are our thoughts about the people who live there? If they’re negative thoughts, do we think they’re founded?
Having a better feel for today’s social pulse and being more intellectually savvy than me, I asked my 18-year old son the other day "what is racism?" ...and he replied that racism is basically the inherent belief that one race is inferior to another. So, at the risk of opening a philosophical can of worms, is the media at large racist? As a Marketing major in college, we studied market segmentation, on which the discipline of marketing, its sub-discipline of advertising, then merchandizing and therefore practically the bulk of American economy relies. The race of people used in TV commercials for example, the life settings portrayed (single parents, same-sex parents, mixed couples, proportion of minorities in social groups, etc.) the channels they’re aired on, the timeslots and so on, are all dependent and finely tuned to marketing statistics and research that cost multi-million dollars to produce, all used to predict the consumer behavior of very specific sub-cultures, which include mixes of race, religion, gender, age and even sexual preference. Don’t these assumptions rest on bigotry? I think we really need to expand our understanding not only of our times, but of our history, the realities of our world and what's beyond our walls.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
It was another era, a relief we have past that era but it is also interesting to see what it was like. For example you know when you have to make a decision so go eny, meeny miny mo. Well I learnt that the N word use to be in the little ryme instead of the word Tigger which is pretty awful.
Fleming racist, it was just that era I guess. I remember hearing my Grandmother talk, she was shocking!
“The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. "
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
I don't recall any particularly racist passages in FYEO...
I've been listening to the audio book of FYEO recently and recalled this part, "The girls were swarthy brunettes. They looked like cheap Cuban whores. they wore bright bathing-dresses and a lot of gold jewellery, and laughed and chattered like pretty monkeys." I can’t say for sure if racism was definitely in Fleming’s thought, and/or if there were even some socio-economic, “sub-racism” in there if we can call it that, since I believe that does exist in the social strata of various global regions and I can recognize that kind of thinking.
I’ve also been listening to DAF and in Chapter 3, “Hot Ice,” and in it Bond says, “There’s nothing so extraordinary about American gangsters,’ protested Bond. ‘They’re not Americans. Mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meat-balls and squirting scent over themselves.’” LOL
In popular and "revered" literature, an extreme example of racism being normative of the times was written by Mark Twain in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which were both laced with racist dialogue. Was Mark Twain racist? If yes, did he know better? If yes, according to whose standards, our present sensibilities and political correctness? The same can be asked about Quentin Tarantino and for any critical or awards body that approved of the movie, or for the matter, anyone who bought tickets for any of his movies.
I’m sure we all have “bad” neighborhoods in relatively close proximity to our homes; what do we think about as we drive by these places and what are our thoughts about the people who live there? If they’re negative thoughts, do we think they’re founded?
Having a better feel for today’s social pulse and being more intellectually savvy than me, I asked my 18-year old son the other day "what is racism?" ...and he replied that racism is basically the inherent belief that one race is inferior to another. So, at the risk of opening a philosophical can of worms, is the media at large racist? As a Marketing major in college, we studied market segmentation, on which the discipline of marketing, its sub-discipline of advertising, then merchandizing and therefore practically the bulk of American economy relies. The race of people used in TV commercials for example, the life settings portrayed (single parents, same-sex parents, mixed couples, proportion of minorities in social groups, etc.) the channels they’re aired on, the timeslots and so on, are all dependent and finely tuned to marketing statistics and research that cost multi-million dollars to produce, all used to predict the consumer behavior of very specific sub-cultures, which include mixes of race, religion, gender, age and even sexual preference. Don’t these assumptions rest on bigotry? I think we really need to expand our understanding not only of our times, but of our history, the realities of our world and what's beyond our walls.
Some very interesting observations there, superado. I think that the racism Fleming's Bond gives against the American gangsters in DAF was highlighted by O.F. Snelling in his 1964 study of the literary James Bond - he felt that Fleming was setting Bond up for a hiding and a head-whipping which sadly never came to pass as not enough was made of the Spangs - they appeared as joke Western cowboy villains that Bond had no trouble defeating. This is what makes DAF such a disappointment for me (and doubtless countless others) - there is the real lack of credible villains - apart from the thugs Wint and Kidd, of course. The villains in DAF are set up as jokes/cyphers/stereotypes at the very beginning by Fleming and Bond and they never recover from this fateful parody of their existence. Somehow Fleming was in DAF affected by the malaise that said that these villains were somehow just not as impressive in any way as the machinations of Le Chiffre, Mr Big and Sir Hugo Drax and the reader can only rather limply agree with this. This is also the reason why TMWTGG fails as a novel - it's about asttacking the sugar cane resource in Jamaica for Fidel Castro's interests and again Francisco Scaramanga is a mere thug with a golden revolver. There are also far too many changes of locale in DAF and the plot is merely about American gangsters smuggling diamonds around the world - quite a comedown after a ICBM aimed at London in the previous Bond novel Moonraker, don't you think?
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
I don't recall any particularly racist passages in FYEO...
I've been listening to the audio book of FYEO recently and recalled this part, "The girls were swarthy brunettes. They looked like cheap Cuban whores. they wore bright bathing-dresses and a lot of gold jewellery, and laughed and chattered like pretty monkeys." I can’t say for sure if racism was definitely in Fleming’s thought, and/or if there were even some socio-economic, “sub-racism” in there if we can call it that, since I believe that does exist in the social strata of various global regions and I can recognize that kind of thinking.
I’ve also been listening to DAF and in Chapter 3, “Hot Ice,” and in it Bond says, “There’s nothing so extraordinary about American gangsters,’ protested Bond. ‘They’re not Americans. Mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meat-balls and squirting scent over themselves.’” LOL
In popular and "revered" literature, an extreme example of racism being normative of the times was written by Mark Twain in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which were both laced with racist dialogue. Was Mark Twain racist? If yes, did he know better? If yes, according to whose standards, our present sensibilities and political correctness? The same can be asked about Quentin Tarantino and for any critical or awards body that approved of the movie, or for the matter, anyone who bought tickets for any of his movies.
I’m sure we all have “bad” neighborhoods in relatively close proximity to our homes; what do we think about as we drive by these places and what are our thoughts about the people who live there? If they’re negative thoughts, do we think they’re founded?
Having a better feel for today’s social pulse and being more intellectually savvy than me, I asked my 18-year old son the other day "what is racism?" ...and he replied that racism is basically the inherent belief that one race is inferior to another. So, at the risk of opening a philosophical can of worms, is the media at large racist? As a Marketing major in college, we studied market segmentation, on which the discipline of marketing, its sub-discipline of advertising, then merchandizing and therefore practically the bulk of American economy relies. The race of people used in TV commercials for example, the life settings portrayed (single parents, same-sex parents, mixed couples, proportion of minorities in social groups, etc.) the channels they’re aired on, the timeslots and so on, are all dependent and finely tuned to marketing statistics and research that cost multi-million dollars to produce, all used to predict the consumer behavior of very specific sub-cultures, which include mixes of race, religion, gender, age and even sexual preference. Don’t these assumptions rest on bigotry? I think we really need to expand our understanding not only of our times, but of our history, the realities of our world and what's beyond our walls.
Some very interesting observations there, superado. I think that the racism Fleming's Bond gives against the American gangsters in DAF was highlighted by O.F. Snelling in his 1964 study of the literary James Bond - he felt that Fleming was setting Bond up for a hiding and a head-whipping which sadly never came to pass as not enough was made of the Spangs - they appeared as joke Western cowboy villains that Bond had no trouble defeating. This is what makes DAF such a disappointment for me (and doubtless countless others) - there is the real lack of credible villains - apart from the thugs Wint and Kidd, of course. The villains in DAF are set up as jokes/cyphers/stereotypes at the very beginning by Fleming and Bond and they never recover from this fateful parody of their existence. Somehow Fleming was in DAF affected by the malaise that said that these villains were somehow just not as impressive in any way as the machinations of Le Chiffre, Mr Big and Sir Hugo Drax and the reader can only rather limply agree with this. This is also the reason why TMWTGG fails as a novel - it's about asttacking the sugar cane resource in Jamaica for Fidel Castro's interests and again Francisco Scaramanga is a mere thug with a golden revolver. There are also far too many changes of locale in DAF and the plot is merely about American gangsters smuggling diamonds around the world - quite a comedown after a ICBM aimed at London in the previous Bond novel Moonraker, don't you think.
LOL, I just responded to your post in the YOLT thread before coming here and I've learned another lesson about perspective! Yes, I've always thought that Fleming's portrayal of American gangsters was ludicrous and felt that was carried over to DAF the movie (and GF), unfortunately. However, I've also been referencing John Griswold's Annotations and Chronologies and was surprised that many if not all the gangs mentioned by Fleming are based in reality because many of their names seemed just too fantastic. I think listening to the books gives a fresh perspective and I was just thinking about the extent of research that Fleming must have undertaken for DAF. The horse race operations and the wire service accompanying that was richly textured and I'm curious about the sources he used, surely his friends living stateside like his Etonian partner in crime, Ivar Bryce and a guy named Ernest Cuneo if I remember correctly, which was a resource person of Fleming's specifically for this book.
As a side note, after listening this time vs. reading the dialogue between Tiffany and Bond in "Bitter Champagne," I would say this is the best conversation Bond ever had with a love interest in the whole series, very rich and moving. I used to have a vague mental image of Tiffany Case in the novel, but after having a marathon of sorts of Bogart and Bacall movies last year, I can't help but think that Fleming might have been influenced by Lauren Bacall particularly with the manner of speech, her wardobe in those movies and the brusque, tough gal presence, although I haven't come across any information to support that.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
You're not the only one to think that, supes. John Brosnan in his "James Bond in the Cinema" compared the novel Tiffany to Lauren Bacall and the film Tiffany to Lucille Ball.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
Yes, Tiffany Case is certainly one of the more substantial Bond girls and half of this comes across in the DAF film. The DAF novel shows the real Tiffany Case, but there are at least shades of her mean character in the filmic DAF.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
Yes, Tiffany Case is certainly one of the more substantial Bond girls and half of this comes across in the DAF film. The DAF novel shows the real Tiffany Case, but there are at least shades of her mean character in the filmic DAF.
"Keep leaning on that tooter, Charlie, and you're gonna get a shot in the mouth." LOL!
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Just my 2 cents on Ian Fleming being called a racist.
Point 1: The different words used to describe black people
First of all exactly which "N" word are you talking about? (for the purposes of this post I will use them as it is relevant). "Nigger", in my time (born in 1969 and I am in the US) has always been considered racists. The black community is allowed to use this despite some efforts by some to make it go away. But is is an absolute "NO NO" for anyone who is not black to use this word.
However "Negro" is not necessarily racist. In many contexts and I would imagine certainly in the writings of Fleming "Negro" is not intended as an insult. It was a way of saying "black person". In the US we even have an organization called "The United Negro College Fund" created and run by people in the black community.
Incidentally in the US there have been different words and phrases that the black community has tried, as what was once accepted may no longer be. In the 70's there was a movement away from "black". We tried "Afro American". That did not last long. "Afro" soon became to mean a hair style as in "He has an afro" (long curly hair in a round shape). Then in the 80's we landed on "African American". But as a society we have expanded our knowledge of the world, now there are some that question this. "African American" is supposed to mean "black people" not North African people from places like Egypt. I think now "black" has made a comeback. No one wants to use a 6 syllable phrase that is not really accurate. It is ok to say "the black community", no one considers that racist. "Black" is only a racist word if you put it into a certain context, no one literally means black as in the color, we all just sort of agree that what it means and move on.
Point number 2: I doubt Ian Fleming was a racist.
Ian may have used the words "negro" and he may have written characters who fit into certain black stereotypes, but I have not seen any overt racism, i.e. a hatred of an entire race of people. As mentioned above you can not consider the use of the word "negro" as racist. It was a common term back then and the context in which he used it was not racist (from what little I have read in the novels and in here).
Additionally the use of ALL stereotypes was very common up until the 1980's. In the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's the landlord is played by a white man who's character is an extremely stereotypical Chinese man (complete with thick accent and the round pointed hat).
Thus I take issue with this notion that "Ian Fleming was a racist because everyone was a racist". It's not like he was in the KKK. Non-racist did not have the sensitivities to other cultures as we do today. Was Ian Fleming insensitive to other cultures, sure. Then again many were insensitive. Adding to that was the notion of western superiority. The UK and US thought we were model nations that save the world from evil. We thought everyone loved us and wanted to be us.
It's a much different world today. The US is hardly a white country any more. Globalization has made us all more aware of other cultures.
Here are a few more examples of things that have changed:
- "Oriental" used to be used instead of "asian". Many would often go further to call all asians "chinese".
- "indian". Many did not realize that "indian" as in "american indian" came into being due to an old mistake by Columbus. He was trying to find a new route to India, when he found America he thought it was India. Now in San Francisco "indian" means people from India (there are so many here now it would be crazy to mean anything else).
-"indian giver" many used that to mean giving a gift and taking it back. Obviously an insult, but when it's commonly used non-racist didn't stop and ponder "hey I think this is insensitive".
- first world, second world, third world. first was the west and it's allies, second was russia and their allies and third was everyone else.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
A very interesting post indeed, yoyoyojo. I enjoyed reading that and am in total agreement, especially on the "negro" point - that was what black people were called in all books, plays and films at that time - it was not intended as an insult in any way.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
If I may chime in - although I certainly understand that one has to put things in context and not judge things some things that have occurred in the past by today's standards, there are some manisfestations of racism and bigotry that stand out no matter what the time period. Slavery, for example. Obviously nothing we're discussing here rises to that level, but I'm not so sure that it would be as easy to just say "well sure, he called them the 'N' word, but that's how it was back then" if one has been the target of such racist slurs. I don't point this out in an effort to accuse Fleming or his creation, James Bond, of being racist, but I have detected traces in some of the Bond films. I have only read a few of the novels (LALD wasn't one of them), and there were a few things that gave me pause in a some of Fleming's language (if I recall he was sort of demeaning, and at the very least condescending, towards the Japanese in YOLT and against Koreans in GF). Perhaps I am a little more sensitive to these things having been the target of racism myself in the past (and even now, occasionally). Still, as I stated previously, context matters, which brings me to Mr. Tarantino. I have enjoyed all of his movies, particularly Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained and Jackie Brown (which is underated IMHO), but I have to admit that his liberal use of the "N" word makes me cringe. However, I didn't find it as offensive in Django as I found it to be in both Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. Perhaps it's because I was more accepting of Tarantino's attempt to stay true to the times he was depicting, and there is no doubt that the "N" word was used frequently and without hesitation during the slavery era. One might argue that the use of that word in Tarantino's other films was also a reflection of his attempt to create "authentic" dialogue for certain characters. Certainly a guy like Ordell Robbie from Jackie Brown would probably have no problem using that slur as he does to refer to his hapless flunky, Beaumont, who happens to be Black, but I still found it to be unnerving. This was the case even more with respect to Pulp Fiction when he has the character Jimmy Dimmick refer to "Dead Nigger Storage" several times (and it certainly doesn't help that Jimmy is played by Tarantino himself!) Do I believe Tarantino is a racist? No, not really. But there are times when it appears that he takes such glee in tossing around the N word in his films, I start to wonder.
I'm not really sure I have a real point here other than to state as I have in the past that racism is obviously a somewhat complicated and sensitive subject, but it needs to be discussed in order to be recognized, understood and, hopefully, eradicated. In my opinion, we've come a long way and we still have quite a distance to go.
I don't recall any particularly racist passages in FYEO...
I've been listening to the audio book of FYEO recently and recalled this part, "The girls were swarthy brunettes. They looked like cheap Cuban whores. they wore bright bathing-dresses and a lot of gold jewellery, and laughed and chattered like pretty monkeys." I can’t say for sure if racism was definitely in Fleming’s thought, and/or if there were even some socio-economic, “sub-racism” in there if we can call it that, since I believe that does exist in the social strata of various global regions and I can recognize that kind of thinking.
I’ve also been listening to DAF and in Chapter 3, “Hot Ice,” and in it Bond says, “There’s nothing so extraordinary about American gangsters,’ protested Bond. ‘They’re not Americans. Mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meat-balls and squirting scent over themselves.’” LOL
In popular and "revered" literature, an extreme example of racism being normative of the times was written by Mark Twain in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which were both laced with racist dialogue. Was Mark Twain racist? If yes, did he know better? If yes, according to whose standards, our present sensibilities and political correctness? The same can be asked about Quentin Tarantino and for any critical or awards body that approved of the movie, or for the matter, anyone who bought tickets for any of his movies.
I’m sure we all have “bad” neighborhoods in relatively close proximity to our homes; what do we think about as we drive by these places and what are our thoughts about the people who live there? If they’re negative thoughts, do we think they’re founded?
Having a better feel for today’s social pulse and being more intellectually savvy than me, I asked my 18-year old son the other day "what is racism?" ...and he replied that racism is basically the inherent belief that one race is inferior to another. So, at the risk of opening a philosophical can of worms, is the media at large racist? As a Marketing major in college, we studied market segmentation, on which the discipline of marketing, its sub-discipline of advertising, then merchandizing and therefore practically the bulk of American economy relies. The race of people used in TV commercials for example, the life settings portrayed (single parents, same-sex parents, mixed couples, proportion of minorities in social groups, etc.) the channels they’re aired on, the timeslots and so on, are all dependent and finely tuned to marketing statistics and research that cost multi-million dollars to produce, all used to predict the consumer behavior of very specific sub-cultures, which include mixes of race, religion, gender, age and even sexual preference. Don’t these assumptions rest on bigotry? I think we really need to expand our understanding not only of our times, but of our history, the realities of our world and what's beyond our walls.
"Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
That's quite shocking regrading Tarantino's use of the N-word there. He's more of a racist than Fleming then, who only used the word and chapter title to refer to a work of the same name by Carl Van Vechten.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I wouldn't go so far as to call Tarantino a racist simply because he uses the N word in his films. As I said, the context may provide some justification, although even allowing for that I believe Tarantino goes overboard. In his interviews he asserts that he uses words the way he believes his characters would use them, not as an endorsement of their use of the words, but as a reflection of the personalities and sensibilities of those characters. He also points out that the Black characters he features are often more well-rounded, resourceful and admirable than many of the white characters, and that he has the utmost respect for the characters and the actors who portray them. One can choose whether or not to believe him, but Tarantino has addressed the charges of racism many times, and he is vehement about the fact that he is getting a bum rap when people accuse him of being a racist.
That's quite shocking regrading Tarantino's use of the N-word there. He's more of a racist than Fleming then, who only used the word and chapter title to refer to a work of the same name by Carl Van Vechten.
"Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
I wouldn't go so far as to call Tarantino a racist simply because he uses the N word in his films. As I said, the context may provide some justification, although even allowing for that I believe Tarantino goes overboard. In his interviews he asserts that he uses words the way he believes his characters would use them, not as an endorsement of their use of the words, but as a reflection of the personalities and sensibilities of those characters. He also points out that the Black characters he features are often more well-rounded, resourceful and admirable than many of the white characters, and that he has the utmost respect for the characters and the actors who portray them. One can choose whether or not to believe him, but Tarantino has addressed the charges of racism many times, and he is vehement about the fact that he is getting a bum rap when people accuse him of being a racist.
That's quite shocking regrading Tarantino's use of the N-word there. He's more of a racist than Fleming then, who only used the word and chapter title to refer to a work of the same name by Carl Van Vechten.
Sorry. My misunderstanding. Context is key as they say.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I wouldn't go so far as to call Tarantino a racist simply because he uses the N word in his films. As I said, the context may provide some justification, although even allowing for that I believe Tarantino goes overboard. In his interviews he asserts that he uses words the way he believes his characters would use them, not as an endorsement of their use of the words, but as a reflection of the personalities and sensibilities of those characters. He also points out that the Black characters he features are often more well-rounded, resourceful and admirable than many of the white characters, and that he has the utmost respect for the characters and the actors who portray them. One can choose whether or not to believe him, but Tarantino has addressed the charges of racism many times, and he is vehement about the fact that he is getting a bum rap when people accuse him of being a racist.
That's quite shocking regrading Tarantino's use of the N-word there. He's more of a racist than Fleming then, who only used the word and chapter title to refer to a work of the same name by Carl Van Vechten.
Sorry. My misunderstanding. Context is key as they say.
"Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley."
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,843MI6 Agent
I wouldn't go so far as to call Tarantino a racist simply because he uses the N word in his films. As I said, the context may provide some justification, although even allowing for that I believe Tarantino goes overboard. In his interviews he asserts that he uses words the way he believes his characters would use them, not as an endorsement of their use of the words, but as a reflection of the personalities and sensibilities of those characters. He also points out that the Black characters he features are often more well-rounded, resourceful and admirable than many of the white characters, and that he has the utmost respect for the characters and the actors who portray them. One can choose whether or not to believe him, but Tarantino has addressed the charges of racism many times, and he is vehement about the fact that he is getting a bum rap when people accuse him of being a racist.
Sorry. My misunderstanding. Context is key as they say.
It certainly is all that. There's much food for thought in this thread. One could write a few articles just on what we've been discussing here.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
superadoRegent's Park West (CaliforniaPosts: 2,656MI6 Agent
I wouldn't go so far as to call Tarantino a racist simply because he uses the N word in his films. As I said, the context may provide some justification, although even allowing for that I believe Tarantino goes overboard. In his interviews he asserts that he uses words the way he believes his characters would use them, not as an endorsement of their use of the words, but as a reflection of the personalities and sensibilities of those characters. He also points out that the Black characters he features are often more well-rounded, resourceful and admirable than many of the white characters, and that he has the utmost respect for the characters and the actors who portray them. One can choose whether or not to believe him, but Tarantino has addressed the charges of racism many times, and he is vehement about the fact that he is getting a bum rap when people accuse him of being a racist.
That's quite shocking regrading Tarantino's use of the N-word there. He's more of a racist than Fleming then, who only used the word and chapter title to refer to a work of the same name by Carl Van Vechten.
My son is a big Tarantino fan but I like Jackie Brown more than he does (the Tarantino film that sat with me the best, actually), " ...across 110th street... “Yes, it's hard to tell really what Tarantino is, but it boils down to asking if he's malicious in his racism ( lol, am I implying that there's a "good" racism?) I think he feels a lot of personal affinity with minorities, particularly the "soul" sub-culture and it's interesting to note how in Jackie Brown there's the portrayal of at least 3 mixed couples or near-coupling, Sam Jackson and Bridget Fonda, Robert DeNiro and the black receptionist from the TV show, Becker and of course Mike Cherry and Jackie Brown, a message of reunification between the races? Then the whole underlying message of the film, empowerment for a down-and-out, past her prime female who is black, statistically a lethal, triple-whammy in our socio-economic environment, who used her wits instead of sex or her beauty to transcend beyond her troubles.
When I was younger, I ran with different crowds and some groups particularly having the urban deviant underpinnings portrayed in Tarantino's movies, with people of different races and because we all were bonded in the "brotherhood of deviance" if you can call it that, racial slurs were tossed at each other and all accepted it as nothing by merit of said unspoken bond. That's why I laugh myself silly when watching Tarantino movies with the dialogue, partly because of course even in his period movies, you can hear Tarantino speaking through his characters and I know where he's coming from.
Again about my younger days, thrown into the mix were friends of different sexual preferences from both genders and frequenting establishments of theirs, there was also a lot of the throwing around of gay slurs; the funny thing was that some of my friends' militant gay acquaintances criticized them for keeping mixed company! I have a feeling that it's mostly in America where there is so much taken in extremes, where people have become too PC and sensitive over non-essentials whereas people from other parts of the world have told me how relaxed their cultures are with different races, etc. even though the racial integration and sexual preferences are not as commonplace compared to the USA, a curious paradox in parts of the world where "rights" aren't so over-rated.
"...the purposeful slant of his striding figure looked dangerous, as if he was making quickly for something bad that was happening further down the street." -SMERSH on 007 dossier photo, Ch. 6 FRWL.....
Comments
Since this is a topic about race, Bond isn't an Englishman. Fleming in his later books (OHMSS, YOLT, TMWTGG) is clear that he comes from Scots/Swiss parents and considers himself Scottish.
I've always understood this to imply that Fleming considered Bond, at least initially, to be English. Or why else would he reflect that he didn't personally look English?
My father was Scots and my mother was English, and i wouldn't reflect that I looked, say, un-Asian... I would only reflect that I looked un-English/un-British.
Of course it's well documented as Barbel notes that in the later novel OHMSS, Fleming gives Bond his Scots/Swiss parentage, but I wonder if in the early novel Moonraker he hadn't though of Bond as Emglish.
Cos he's in England?
Well said, DouglasJ. In total agreement.
Yes, but did you read my post above explaining where this chapter title actually came from in the first place - some historical background there. I haappened upon the eponymous novel by chance in 2008.
Yeah, in Fleming's time, with him writing of course, it seems like Bond is referred to as being English more often than British. It was only later in the books when Bond being Scottish was confirmed, though Fleming had that in mind much earlier (even before the casting of Connery). LOL, I remember being corrected here for refering to Bond as English vs. British, maybe by Moonraker5?
Yes, the UK and Republic of Ireland is a complicated place when it comes to identity, but then so is the United States, I guess.
Well, Moonraker5 and myself are the two most likely suspects!
I've been listening to the audio book of FYEO recently and recalled this part, "The girls were swarthy brunettes. They looked like cheap Cuban whores. they wore bright bathing-dresses and a lot of gold jewellery, and laughed and chattered like pretty monkeys." I can’t say for sure if racism was definitely in Fleming’s thought, and/or if there were even some socio-economic, “sub-racism” in there if we can call it that, since I believe that does exist in the social strata of various global regions and I can recognize that kind of thinking.
I’ve also been listening to DAF and in Chapter 3, “Hot Ice,” and in it Bond says, “There’s nothing so extraordinary about American gangsters,’ protested Bond. ‘They’re not Americans. Mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meat-balls and squirting scent over themselves.’” LOL
In popular and "revered" literature, an extreme example of racism being normative of the times was written by Mark Twain in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," which were both laced with racist dialogue. Was Mark Twain racist? If yes, did he know better? If yes, according to whose standards, our present sensibilities and political correctness? The same can be asked about Quentin Tarantino and for any critical or awards body that approved of the movie, or for the matter, anyone who bought tickets for any of his movies.
I’m sure we all have “bad” neighborhoods in relatively close proximity to our homes; what do we think about as we drive by these places and what are our thoughts about the people who live there? If they’re negative thoughts, do we think they’re founded?
Having a better feel for today’s social pulse and being more intellectually savvy than me, I asked my 18-year old son the other day "what is racism?" ...and he replied that racism is basically the inherent belief that one race is inferior to another. So, at the risk of opening a philosophical can of worms, is the media at large racist? As a Marketing major in college, we studied market segmentation, on which the discipline of marketing, its sub-discipline of advertising, then merchandizing and therefore practically the bulk of American economy relies. The race of people used in TV commercials for example, the life settings portrayed (single parents, same-sex parents, mixed couples, proportion of minorities in social groups, etc.) the channels they’re aired on, the timeslots and so on, are all dependent and finely tuned to marketing statistics and research that cost multi-million dollars to produce, all used to predict the consumer behavior of very specific sub-cultures, which include mixes of race, religion, gender, age and even sexual preference. Don’t these assumptions rest on bigotry? I think we really need to expand our understanding not only of our times, but of our history, the realities of our world and what's beyond our walls.
Fleming racist, it was just that era I guess. I remember hearing my Grandmother talk, she was shocking!
-Casino Royale, Ian Fleming
Some very interesting observations there, superado. I think that the racism Fleming's Bond gives against the American gangsters in DAF was highlighted by O.F. Snelling in his 1964 study of the literary James Bond - he felt that Fleming was setting Bond up for a hiding and a head-whipping which sadly never came to pass as not enough was made of the Spangs - they appeared as joke Western cowboy villains that Bond had no trouble defeating. This is what makes DAF such a disappointment for me (and doubtless countless others) - there is the real lack of credible villains - apart from the thugs Wint and Kidd, of course. The villains in DAF are set up as jokes/cyphers/stereotypes at the very beginning by Fleming and Bond and they never recover from this fateful parody of their existence. Somehow Fleming was in DAF affected by the malaise that said that these villains were somehow just not as impressive in any way as the machinations of Le Chiffre, Mr Big and Sir Hugo Drax and the reader can only rather limply agree with this. This is also the reason why TMWTGG fails as a novel - it's about asttacking the sugar cane resource in Jamaica for Fidel Castro's interests and again Francisco Scaramanga is a mere thug with a golden revolver. There are also far too many changes of locale in DAF and the plot is merely about American gangsters smuggling diamonds around the world - quite a comedown after a ICBM aimed at London in the previous Bond novel Moonraker, don't you think?
LOL, I just responded to your post in the YOLT thread before coming here and I've learned another lesson about perspective! Yes, I've always thought that Fleming's portrayal of American gangsters was ludicrous and felt that was carried over to DAF the movie (and GF), unfortunately. However, I've also been referencing John Griswold's Annotations and Chronologies and was surprised that many if not all the gangs mentioned by Fleming are based in reality because many of their names seemed just too fantastic. I think listening to the books gives a fresh perspective and I was just thinking about the extent of research that Fleming must have undertaken for DAF. The horse race operations and the wire service accompanying that was richly textured and I'm curious about the sources he used, surely his friends living stateside like his Etonian partner in crime, Ivar Bryce and a guy named Ernest Cuneo if I remember correctly, which was a resource person of Fleming's specifically for this book.
As a side note, after listening this time vs. reading the dialogue between Tiffany and Bond in "Bitter Champagne," I would say this is the best conversation Bond ever had with a love interest in the whole series, very rich and moving. I used to have a vague mental image of Tiffany Case in the novel, but after having a marathon of sorts of Bogart and Bacall movies last year, I can't help but think that Fleming might have been influenced by Lauren Bacall particularly with the manner of speech, her wardobe in those movies and the brusque, tough gal presence, although I haven't come across any information to support that.
"Keep leaning on that tooter, Charlie, and you're gonna get a shot in the mouth." LOL!
Point 1: The different words used to describe black people
First of all exactly which "N" word are you talking about? (for the purposes of this post I will use them as it is relevant). "Nigger", in my time (born in 1969 and I am in the US) has always been considered racists. The black community is allowed to use this despite some efforts by some to make it go away. But is is an absolute "NO NO" for anyone who is not black to use this word.
However "Negro" is not necessarily racist. In many contexts and I would imagine certainly in the writings of Fleming "Negro" is not intended as an insult. It was a way of saying "black person". In the US we even have an organization called "The United Negro College Fund" created and run by people in the black community.
Incidentally in the US there have been different words and phrases that the black community has tried, as what was once accepted may no longer be. In the 70's there was a movement away from "black". We tried "Afro American". That did not last long. "Afro" soon became to mean a hair style as in "He has an afro" (long curly hair in a round shape). Then in the 80's we landed on "African American". But as a society we have expanded our knowledge of the world, now there are some that question this. "African American" is supposed to mean "black people" not North African people from places like Egypt. I think now "black" has made a comeback. No one wants to use a 6 syllable phrase that is not really accurate. It is ok to say "the black community", no one considers that racist. "Black" is only a racist word if you put it into a certain context, no one literally means black as in the color, we all just sort of agree that what it means and move on.
Point number 2: I doubt Ian Fleming was a racist.
Ian may have used the words "negro" and he may have written characters who fit into certain black stereotypes, but I have not seen any overt racism, i.e. a hatred of an entire race of people. As mentioned above you can not consider the use of the word "negro" as racist. It was a common term back then and the context in which he used it was not racist (from what little I have read in the novels and in here).
Additionally the use of ALL stereotypes was very common up until the 1980's. In the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's the landlord is played by a white man who's character is an extremely stereotypical Chinese man (complete with thick accent and the round pointed hat).
Thus I take issue with this notion that "Ian Fleming was a racist because everyone was a racist". It's not like he was in the KKK. Non-racist did not have the sensitivities to other cultures as we do today. Was Ian Fleming insensitive to other cultures, sure. Then again many were insensitive. Adding to that was the notion of western superiority. The UK and US thought we were model nations that save the world from evil. We thought everyone loved us and wanted to be us.
It's a much different world today. The US is hardly a white country any more. Globalization has made us all more aware of other cultures.
Here are a few more examples of things that have changed:
- "Oriental" used to be used instead of "asian". Many would often go further to call all asians "chinese".
- "indian". Many did not realize that "indian" as in "american indian" came into being due to an old mistake by Columbus. He was trying to find a new route to India, when he found America he thought it was India. Now in San Francisco "indian" means people from India (there are so many here now it would be crazy to mean anything else).
-"indian giver" many used that to mean giving a gift and taking it back. Obviously an insult, but when it's commonly used non-racist didn't stop and ponder "hey I think this is insensitive".
- first world, second world, third world. first was the west and it's allies, second was russia and their allies and third was everyone else.
I'm not really sure I have a real point here other than to state as I have in the past that racism is obviously a somewhat complicated and sensitive subject, but it needs to be discussed in order to be recognized, understood and, hopefully, eradicated. In my opinion, we've come a long way and we still have quite a distance to go.
Sorry. My misunderstanding. Context is key as they say.
It certainly is all that. There's much food for thought in this thread. One could write a few articles just on what we've been discussing here.
My son is a big Tarantino fan but I like Jackie Brown more than he does (the Tarantino film that sat with me the best, actually), " ...across 110th street... “Yes, it's hard to tell really what Tarantino is, but it boils down to asking if he's malicious in his racism ( lol, am I implying that there's a "good" racism?) I think he feels a lot of personal affinity with minorities, particularly the "soul" sub-culture and it's interesting to note how in Jackie Brown there's the portrayal of at least 3 mixed couples or near-coupling, Sam Jackson and Bridget Fonda, Robert DeNiro and the black receptionist from the TV show, Becker and of course Mike Cherry and Jackie Brown, a message of reunification between the races? Then the whole underlying message of the film, empowerment for a down-and-out, past her prime female who is black, statistically a lethal, triple-whammy in our socio-economic environment, who used her wits instead of sex or her beauty to transcend beyond her troubles.
When I was younger, I ran with different crowds and some groups particularly having the urban deviant underpinnings portrayed in Tarantino's movies, with people of different races and because we all were bonded in the "brotherhood of deviance" if you can call it that, racial slurs were tossed at each other and all accepted it as nothing by merit of said unspoken bond. That's why I laugh myself silly when watching Tarantino movies with the dialogue, partly because of course even in his period movies, you can hear Tarantino speaking through his characters and I know where he's coming from.
Again about my younger days, thrown into the mix were friends of different sexual preferences from both genders and frequenting establishments of theirs, there was also a lot of the throwing around of gay slurs; the funny thing was that some of my friends' militant gay acquaintances criticized them for keeping mixed company! I have a feeling that it's mostly in America where there is so much taken in extremes, where people have become too PC and sensitive over non-essentials whereas people from other parts of the world have told me how relaxed their cultures are with different races, etc. even though the racial integration and sexual preferences are not as commonplace compared to the USA, a curious paradox in parts of the world where "rights" aren't so over-rated.