Is there anything wrong with 'ditzy' heroines?
sambwoy
Berkshire, EnglandPosts: 90MI6 Agent
The actress who plays Pussy Galore in Goldfinger has said in many an interview to do with Bond often regarded Pussy as substantially better than many other Bond girls on the grounds of intelligence or her position as a woman in the world of Bond.
But what is wrong with the girls that often get regarded as 'bimbos'? Is the problem really in the fact that the film around them is terrible?
With regards to, say, Stacey Sutton, I rather like A View To A Kill for the few merits that it has.
What got me thinking about this issue was not James Bond, but Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom. Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) was knocked for being not as brittle and intelligent as say, Marion in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but Spielberg actually wanted Willie Scott to be this way, judging by the making-of featurette that I saw on Temple Of Doom. Willie is a singer/showgirl who hates getting dirty and flaps and screams at the sight of spiders and monkey heads, which is a sort of running joke in the film.
In turn this got me thinking about often-knocked Bond girls like Stacey Sutton and Mary Goodnight, and when you compare that with the girls of the Daniel Craig era which are all bad pasts etc, and I think, do you go to the cinema to see a Bond girl who is deep and complex, or do you prefer a supporting woman who just looks good or is there for laughs?
Perhaps with time maybe the more recent Bond girls will grow on me. Because the films have been pushed to be more like Fleming- which is what a lot of audiences have wanted for a long time- it feels like it would wrong to try and have a looser, cinematic Bond girl.
Also, while I have not a problem with strong, Pussy Galore-like heroines, but how far do you go before the character becomes rigid that they don't really appeal on a level that would make people want to go to see the film, or to put it simply, a superficial level?
But what is wrong with the girls that often get regarded as 'bimbos'? Is the problem really in the fact that the film around them is terrible?
With regards to, say, Stacey Sutton, I rather like A View To A Kill for the few merits that it has.
What got me thinking about this issue was not James Bond, but Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom. Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) was knocked for being not as brittle and intelligent as say, Marion in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but Spielberg actually wanted Willie Scott to be this way, judging by the making-of featurette that I saw on Temple Of Doom. Willie is a singer/showgirl who hates getting dirty and flaps and screams at the sight of spiders and monkey heads, which is a sort of running joke in the film.
In turn this got me thinking about often-knocked Bond girls like Stacey Sutton and Mary Goodnight, and when you compare that with the girls of the Daniel Craig era which are all bad pasts etc, and I think, do you go to the cinema to see a Bond girl who is deep and complex, or do you prefer a supporting woman who just looks good or is there for laughs?
Perhaps with time maybe the more recent Bond girls will grow on me. Because the films have been pushed to be more like Fleming- which is what a lot of audiences have wanted for a long time- it feels like it would wrong to try and have a looser, cinematic Bond girl.
Also, while I have not a problem with strong, Pussy Galore-like heroines, but how far do you go before the character becomes rigid that they don't really appeal on a level that would make people want to go to see the film, or to put it simply, a superficial level?
Comments
The problem of Wilie Scott maybe that she just wasn't funny, it needed a Lucille Ball type to do that stuff, Kate Capshaw was a bore and a joke on repeat that ain't funny can kill a movie.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Ditzy heroines in the movies are a distraction for me. And not in a good way. M would never send a klutz like Britt Ekland's Goodnight to work with Bond. What's he trying to do, kill him? As for Stacey Sutton and AVTAK, that whole film was a disappointment. I would far rather have seen Mary Ann Russell from the Fleming short story and a movie built around that storyline than the mess that was Moore's final film.
The world is filled with idiots as it is, both men and women. And they are not funny. I know. I have to deal with idiots on a daily basis. At best they are inconvenient, at worst dangerous.
Whether it's redneck lawmen like J.W. Pepper,, beaureaucratic nincompoops like the Felix Leiter of DAF, or or ditzes like the filmic Goodnight,, Stacey, Tiffany, Plenty O'Toole, Rosie Carver, I for one, would rather not deal with them.
Tough, smart and competent is far more appealing than cute and clueless any day. Fleming knew that. Sexist, he certainly was, in many ways. So was Bond. That didn't stop Fleming, or his character from apprecxiating brains as well as beauty.
Absolutely right. It's always a case of poor casting. I mean, couldn't they have cast Denise Richards as someone other than a nuclear physisist? There must have been a mid to late thirties atractive, smart-looking woman who could act the part somewhere out there...
Sometimes the ditsy ones are ok, if only as an appetiser to Bond's later, more substantial conquest...
http://apbateman.com
Fleming liked "strong", "fiesty" girls but girls who also kept their feminity. The problems with Wai Lin and Jinx (although the former wasn't as annoying as the latter IMO) was that they were both too masculine.
I suppose thats how times have changed
Now, I'm not in any means a feminist.... however, as I am partial to a few ditzy moments too....it's one of the things I dislike or get irritated about myself the most. And I don't want to see it in a Bond film.
Even as an 'appetiser' - I loved Jill Masterton's character - and she wasn't ditzy in the slightest....
Give me a sexy, strong (but subtle), feminine but feisty, any day.... with a touch of vulnerability thrown in, just to prove that Bond is needed.... and you've got a great heroine.
As mentioned previously, recently the Bond girl roles have been written differently, the Bond girl is expected to be able to handle herself in a tough situation while also being sexy and providing Bond some romance. The characters that have balanced this best have been Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell) in LTK and Tracy Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg) in OHMSS.
I am starting to get really tired of Bond girls who are supposed to be Bond's "equal". In my opinion the very best Bond girls are interesting and hot, like Tracy in OHMSS or Vesper in CR. The worst are the most stupid and helpless bimbos in some Moore movies. There is one type who are only slightly less bad, smart characters who are played by actresses who are unconvincing as smart. The obvious example is Dr. Christmas Jones.
You think Fields was ditzy??? Crickey, then my interpretation of what ditzy is waaaaaay off
I thought Fields was smart and precise..... and she did what she had to do.... get Bond 'back in the saddle' so to speak, after Vesper.... and then make him feel dam guilty when she was killed - just like Solange in CR - but I would never define her as ditzy.....
If you watch her in the scene where she "welcomes" Bond and Mathis to Bogota and the Green Planet party scene ("oh my gosh!") she comes across as ditzy to me. But perhaps I have misunderstood the word, english isn't my first language.
"Ditzy" basically means dumb and not particularly intelligent. I wouldn't call Fields ditzy (she tripped the man on purpose), however she was underused.
I stand corrected. I thought it ment something more like fun, lightharted, playfull etc. ;%
I'm new here and I just felt that I'd give my two cents
That's the way I see things too, as it happens I rarely watch the movies (save the 1960s ones as I've always liked them) as I'm more of a fan of the books and The Daily Express strips...
Oddly as it happens that is how I like my women to be in real life (i.e. like a PROPER Bond Girl) and if they're not (or aspire to be and make a good effort) then I just break up with them as I'm a bit like Bond, as I don't suffer fools gladly and I still like girls to be feminine yet capable of standing up for themselves when need be!
Of course I don't mind protecting a girl (or rather helping her out as I'm not a 00, and even if I was I'd be forbidden to tell you all about it) and as for the answer to your question as far as I'm concerned I don't mind 'ditzy' heroines as I know a few girls like that and we get on very well (one of whom I've just started to get together with) just not as James Bond girls!
However that said I do rather like the silver screen's Goodnight (although I much prefer the one from the books in fact she's MY perfect woman!) for the sake of her charm, and so thus fitted in well with the Moore films style.
The way I see things with regards to the Moore films, is that they are (for the most part) 'action comedy's' and if more people saw things that way then they'd have a far better time watching them.
But still they are not the way one should do Bond if you are trying to do it properly, not then, not ever.
Anyway I've got to go now as my GF has just mistaken the self destruct button for the lipstick switch on Q's new 'Beauty Tron 2000'...
I love the girls of the Craig era such as Vesper and Camille. I feel it has contributed to the eras succedss especially coming after some of the worst Bond girls of the Brosnan era ie Jinx, Wai Lin etc.
Flemings heroines were beautiful but they always had some flaw or background that made them interesting. They were two dimensional characters ie Honeys murder of the man who tried to rape her, Dominos grief over her brothers death or Tracys more or less nervous breakdown until 007 comes along. Even the smaller ones such as Judy Havelock, Liz Krest or Tiffany Case had something in their past or present which affected their motivation or personalites. Often it was integral to the story.
There have only been a couple of film heroines who have been depicted as bimbos in my opinion. There have been bimbos playing nuclear scientists- but Tiffany Case and Mary Goodnight really do qualify. On paper Stacey Sutton isnt a bimbo shes a state geologist with a career and part of the plot but the way Tanya Roberts plays her does dumb her down a little. Tiffany Case is a worse crime. The books Tiffany was a tough messed up operator who had a been brfought up in a "cathouse" and was emotionally damaged. Bond finds he wants to help her - she brings out a side to him while confusing the hell out of him. Shes a fascinating character. Mankiewicz wrote the films Tiffany as a wisecracking broad in a bikini. But DAF had to go for comedy after the pereived failure of OHMSS. And I think Jill St John makes her an absolute pleasure.
Mary Goodnight on the other hand..
Britt was probably wrong for the part but does her best. Its written as light relief but the character in the book is written as light relief ("she put on her best Joyce Grenfell voice) TMWTGG is a male story about two powerful men chasing each other and the only girl is the victim ie Andrea. Goodnight wasnt needed and it shows. What can you do with her except go for comedy?
There are only a couple of bikini wearing bimbos in Bond and most of these happen in the Mankiewicz era.They are outnumbered by the fascinating emotionally rounded women like Vesper Lynd, Melina Havelock, Kara Milovy, Teresea d'Ampezzo, Tatiana Romanova and believe it or not ...Octopussy...