007

An Image, Blurred

The character  of  ‘Bond, James Bond’  and its creative background are open to interpretation  but what it interests me about is what it stands for, Existentially speaking.

Fleming’s creature is of no little importance. He is a  ‘distorted image’ of no less a personage  than  the Being itself.  The  Sublime Personality, filtered out in the degradational  process of the New Program of Creation is thus  being imaged, despite all its negative aspects (like being  in service of an espionage agency and ...)  into a somewhat brilliant charater of a handsome, virile yet gentlemanly, self-confident, woman loving, energetic, dedicated,  honest  and  occasionally cruel yet just  character of ‘Bond, James Bond’.

PS: For truly grasping the  character of Fleming's Bond one should read the books . The character is different -better- than what you see in the movies.

007

"Imperial War College". PsyOps. You either get it or you don't. If you do, remember we can make movies too .... ;)

gol-dust joon

Bravo my good sir.

As I was reading your wonderful sermon against Western racism, my eyes filled with tears; my throat was choked, I could hear the sad violin solo in the background. I was so moved I went out and bought a pictures of arch racists Bush and Fleming to use as dart boards.

So, thank you my good man, you've helped to open the eyes of those of us living in "wonderland" (wherever that is...!).

Yes indeed, let's keep bitching and moaning about Western racism as the root of all evil and cause of all the problem in the World. Let's keep looking for the slightest signs of racism in every nook and cranny we find and bleat on about it all the time.

Above all, let's always play the victim and never take responsibility for our own attitudes and actions and refuse to face reality that we, more than anyone else, are the authors of our own destiny. But hey, it’s always easier to blame someone else, right? So let’s keep doing that.

Wonderful Article Mr. Khorsandi! You tell the privileged!

I thouroughly enjoyed your article! Mr. "John" and some others are attacking Payvand through their own narrow, privileged and clogged prism! They live in a wonderland! British occupation of Iran and their treatment of Iranians was totally the indicative of a racist culture! Their policy towards the middle east today is yet another racist policy! They looked upon our ancestors as dogs! Anglo racism is still alive, if you care to see it! What has changed is they have learned to keep it under cover, since it is politcally incoorect to say it publically!

You don't need to see the white racism when a million iraqis get killed and there are no protests against the war, but a few americans and brits get killed they become anti war! When people are dying in africa, and india, there is no help and intervention from the anglos, since they got no oil! However, there are many good, decent, caring and non-racist westerners who are not racists today!

You don't need to go far to see racism in america, when you see the black tragedy all around you! Witnessing it, you would never know that there are very rich whites living only blocks away from them who have no knowlege of them and no contacts. I can bring many examples of racism in America. However, I should add that there have been much improvement, but much more needed! Osama is the result of majority's frustration with Bush and change of attitude in democrats! Republicans are the most racists of all! Good luck to obama with republicans! 

He also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang We Love You

Don't forget a Black Felix Leiter

played by Bernie Casey in Never Say Never Again opposite Sean Connery and Kim Bassinger:

//www.imdb.com/name/nm0143378/

Just as I was getting tired

Just as I was getting tired of reading repetitive articles and blogs something interesting comes along. Thank you.

The thing about James Bond is that he is really a “nobody”. He gets credit for what others have done for him. He is the classic white male!

His cool gadgets come from the old geezer and his office flirts come from the receptionist. Without these 2, none of his stories would even begin! At least McIvre (spelling?) made his own gadgets!

His exotic locations and many of the “bad guys” come from other places where they speak with “weird” accents and have exotic customs. The places he goes do not belong to him but he rampages through them as if he owns everything he touches.

And what makes him Bond, James Bond? The women! Oh yes the women, the women, the women. And then some more women! The women in his movies are very interesting characters. He isn’t. The ladies make him interesting. Even Pussy Galore is who she is because of her name, not because of Ghazan, Ghazanfar. Sifir Sifir Yeddi is nothing without a lady on his arm. Which I don’t get: he’s old, hairy, obnoxious, workaholic, irresponsible, smokes, drinks (bad breath anyone?) and probably has VD. I can’t even call him a bad boy because he doesn’t do anything bad! Or at least he doesn’t do anything bad well enough!

Others have to step in and make things interesting for him. Bache nanast.

Most importantly, he has to save the world from one dimensional villains who are out to destroy everything (sounds like Georgie Boy to me). No one ever wonders if the villain is part of a legitimate resistance movement!

He has nothing of his own. From your brief description of the author’s family and his place in the clan, and from what we know of the British Empire, the exhibition in your report sounds boring but very accurate! Bond, never had anything but the people around him. Take all of them away, and he is nothing. He is nothing more than the musings of a rich spoiled brat…

As far as racism goes, yeah sure we've had Mr T (don't do drugs and stay in school) but in koja oon koja. You can jump on sefid poost band wagon anytime you want but to deny what James Bond represents is like saying Khomeini was sexy.

Cheers

Don't sweat it, John

Mr. Khorsandi, as part of his mostly anti-western mindset, sees white racism and prejudice everywhere.

He could go to a thousand exhibitions like this and the only things will laser in on, regardless of how insignificant and irrelevant they maybe, are those aspects of the display, which will help to feed his ever critical and cynical view of the racist West.

We have no shortage of internationally famous black and talented actors, like Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Samuel L Jackson, Jamie Fox, Wesley Snipes, Morgan Freeman etc etc who have portrayed many heroic characters over the years and our Mr. Khorsandi is still moaning, because he hasn't had his "black James bond" yet; bless him.

Just another sad, woe-is-me whine

It must be tough seeing the world through down-trodden eyes, finding conspiracies and discrimination everywhere, including where there is none.

"‎an oil painting featured on the cover of ‎Live And Let Die depicting a restrained and ‎half-naked 007 looking on powerlessly as ‎two or three black men held a Barbarella-‎style blond captive – a sure indicator that ‎Bond is the product of a racist colonial ‎mindset."

In no way is the artist's conception "a sure indicator" of anything other than this particular artist's idea of what will make an interesting and sellable painting.  Bond is a product of the post World War II iron curtain and cold war climate of fear, and is the overtly masculine and sexual creation of a third-rate novelist.  To correlate Ian Fleming's writings with a painting made decades after the fact by someone unconnected to Fleming is absurd.

And from your web site comes a revealing glimpse at your neuroses: "There was also a wedding. Everyone in the wedding was white. I wondered if the bride and groom knew any members of an ethnic minority".

You must have incredible insight to be able to look at a group of people and immediately discern that they might be racist.  Heaven forbid that the bride should wear a white gown, or have white skin, or have white-skinned family members and friends.  Maybe some of these people were white-skinned ethnics, of which there are many to choose from in any modern society.

I've had more than my fill of modern man's (and woman's, just so that I won't be accused of misogyny) preoccupation with assigning blame, demanding guilt and apologies from alleged oppressors, and feeling like victims.  Indeed, there are real victims in this world without having to invent others who have no concept of what victimization really is.

Here is an interesting angle.

The producers of original James Bond movie, Dr. No, briefly considered Cary Grant for the role of Bond. This I think was primarily on the strength of Grant's two films in the '50s for Hitchcock, To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest where he plays a lady-killer who can duke it out with the bad guys in some very exotic locales.  His turn in Notorious (Hitchcock’s again with Ingrid Bergman as female lead) also could have been a factor.  Hitchcock made a series of what we may call political thrillers these days back in the '30s.  These films were either adaptations of writers like John Buchan (The 39 Steps) or inspired by Joseph Conrad's work, specifically The Secret Agent (superb book by the way). Both Conrad and Buchan loved to set their adventures in the colonial settings and in Conrad's case actually were considered writers of colonialism.  Fleming belongs in this line of British writers. 

Shaft...

He's a mean mother... bite your tongue. Man, I loved Shaft, the TV series when I was a kid watching it on Iranian TV.

Also ... I Spy BIll Crosby Robert Culp

White Meets Black in I Spy series :

What About SHAFT ? ...

Shaft His Name, Shaft His Game ...

If you want to See Shaft Ask your Mom ! ;0)

And the Cool Music Score