HELP! James Bond Dissertation!!

Surrie · October 2011

Hello,

I'm creating this topic to see if you guys can recommend any informative/academic style books or writings on the Women of James Bond. My dissertation topic is how feminism is represented in James Bond movies. So I need to do a lot of background reading, any suggestions you can give me would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!!

Higgins · October 2011

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+james+bond+girls&x=0&y=0

more informative than academic, I guess ;%

Hardyboy · October 2011

Surely your university library subscribes to the MLA International Bibliography--or an equivalent? You'd get most of the academic information you need by typing "James Bond + women" into the search box.

Surrie · October 2011

I've looked on the university library catalogue and got out the available books, which are scarce to say the least! So wondered if anybody on here had ever read anything that I haven't been able to obtain!

zaphod · October 2011

Surrie wrote:

Hello,

I'm creating this topic to see if you guys can recommend any informative/academic style books or writings on the Women of James Bond. My dissertation topic is how feminism is represented in James Bond movies. So I need to do a lot of background reading, any suggestions you can give me would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!!

There is very little direct Accademic work published on the subject. My wife is a FIlm Major who specialised in Feminism and a Bond fan so I will ask her advice. Our friend Prof James chapman has touched upon this area tangentially but not as a main function. I just 'googled' ' James Bond & Feminism and came across a very good feminist reading of Dr No ( the film) by Amy Madore which might be useful.
you may have to specify, or at least acknowledge the differing treatments/ readings possible for the Novels and the Films. Women of are often polarised in Bond by being both sources of both the threat of danger (deadlier than the mail) and the promise of pleasure/reward. In the films since Goldeneye the female can be seen as authority and or Mother figure with a propensity to try to control Bond. in the article Bond is seen as forcing women into submission and back towards congenital stereotypes and roles. There is a rich seam to mine, but you may have to rely on generic discussions of the role of Hero Archetypes and work back from there. still the advantage of very little literature is the benefit of a small Bibliography.

Surrie · October 2011

zaphod wrote:

Surrie wrote:

Hello,

I'm creating this topic to see if you guys can recommend any informative/academic style books or writings on the Women of James Bond. My dissertation topic is how feminism is represented in James Bond movies. So I need to do a lot of background reading, any suggestions you can give me would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!!

There is very little direct Accademic work published on the subject. My wife is a FIlm Major who specialised in Feminism and a Bond fan so I will ask her advice. Our friend Prof James chapman has touched upon this area tangentially but not as a main function. I just 'googled' ' James Bond & Feminism and came across a very good feminist reading of Dr No ( the film) by Amy Madore which might be useful.
you may have to specify, or at least acknowledge the differing treatments/ readings possible for the Novels and the Films. Women of are often polarised in Bond by being both sources of both the threat of danger (deadlier than the mail) and the promise of pleasure/reward. In the films since Goldeneye the female can be seen as authority and or Mother figure with a propensity to try to control Bond. in the article Bond is seen as forcing women into submission and back towards congenital stereotypes and roles. There is a rich seam to mine, but you may have to rely on generic discussions of the role of Hero Archetypes and work back from there. still the advantage of very little literature is the benefit of a small Bibliography.

I didn't think there was much academic writing on the subject, which in some respects can be a benefit to my dissertation as it shows a gap in the topic which my dissertation/research can try to add to. Thank you for offering to ask your wife, I appreciate all of this help! I will google the reading of Dr No now! Many thanks.

P.s I had considered the differences between the books and the films, but I've only got 8,000-10,000 words I can used. So I'm having to just concentrate mostly on the films however I will probably draw on some points with the novels.

chrisno1 · October 2011

These are not academic books (and you probably have them already):

Bond Girls Are Forever - Maryam D'Abo and John Cook
The Cultural Politics of James Bond - Watt & Willman
Questions are Forever: James Bond and Philospohy - South and Held
License to Thrill - James Chapman

I can't promise they contain any information which would be useful to you. You could also try the various biographies / autobiographies of teh actresses concerned to consider how they perceived the role at the time.

Peppermill · October 2011

My 2 cents....
James Bond The Legacy by John Cork gives a nice overview of all the movies and the impact they had on popular culture etc.
The man with the golden touch by Sinclair McKay touches on a lot of subjects, one of them being feminism.

Surrie · November 2011

Thank you for all of your input guys, it has been very helpful! Regarding the post about John Corks 'The Legacy', I already have this book and have found it to be very informative, so thanks again for the posts!

Surrie · December 2011

Another aspect of my dissertation is to recognise and discuss 'Images FOR women' within the films if there are any?! If anyone has any opinions or input on this, it will be greatly received. I'm looking at the 1990's/2000's for this particular chapter. The 1960's early 70's films will cover 'Sexual liberation for the woman' and the 1970's/80's films with cover 'race' within the films, focusing mainly on the black Bond girls.

Thanks again, everyone!

HELP! James Bond Dissertation!!

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