James Bond’s Big Red Rocket

We’re getting spicy on Pop Culture Boner this week as we take a look James Bond’s nether-regions, and try to work out why so many bad guys keep trying to crush them. What is it about Bond villains and BDSM? Are Bond’s privates so perilously perfect that they must be part of your plan for world domination? And more importantly, do bad guys have more fun?

Visit the website for episode notes and a full transcript: www.popcultureboner.com

Visit the website for episode notes and a full transcript: www.popcultureboner.com

Transcript

I’m not gonna lie, 90% of this podcast is caused by me zoning out in the shower and then like… yelling something to myself. It’s one of the good things about living alone – you can accidentally blank and stare at the wall for 15 minutes and then yell “Mads Mikkelsen!” and there’s no one around to worry about it. If Alex yells Danish names in the shower and no one is around to hear it, does she really make a sound. Maybe… and apologies to my neighbours. 

Anyway, this aside is inspired by real events – namely that I had been struggling to think about what to write about for this week, so I looked at my content plan, and it just said “gay villains”, which like… yeah ok, but what’s the angle. Fortunately, I had just read the recent completely batshit interview with Mads Mikkelsen in Vulture. You’re probably familiar with Mikkelsen’s face, even if the name isn’t ringing a bell. He was Hannibal in the Hannibal series, he was the villain in Casino Royale, and perhaps my favourite, he was the bitch in Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money music video. He also plays a character in the notoriously odd video game Death Stranding, was in the film that won an Oscar for best international feature this year, and keeps accidentally going viral for doing things like cracking open a bottle of vodka in the middle of a press conference. 

He’s weird and I love him. He also plays a villain a lot. I think it’s something about his very severe face – he looks like he is full of secrets and also plotting my demise. And I like that in a man. Anyway, in the Vulture interview he said the thing that I have been saying about Casino Royale for years – namely that it is extremely gay. To refresh your memory, Mikkelsen’s villain strips Daniel Craig’s Bond naked, ties him to a chair and exacts several hours of cock and ball torture. If you’ve ever tried to talk to me about James Bond before, I have definitely yelled, “Casino Royale has an extended cock and ball torture scene and we don’t talk about it enough!” at you. It’s a super gay movie, and Mads Mikkelsen is a gay villain. Is this an angle for this podcast? Maybe. 

I’m Alex. This is Pop Culture Boner – the podcast edition – and today, I’m thinking about Bond villains. 

My general approach to watching movies is “Anything can be gay if you try hard enough.” And to be honest, I don’t often have to try that hard. Sometimes the subtext is just the text. Especially when it comes to villains. I think most of us are probably familiar with the idea that a lot of villains on our screens are pretty heavily queer-coded. This is a hangover from the Production Code in the late 20s and 30s. We’ve talked about it on the pod before, but the Motion Picture Association’s Production Code was essentially a list of things that you could and couldn’t show on film. One of the enduring big bads from this era was sexual perversion – which was a euphemistic way of saying “No Gays Allowed”. To get around this, your gays went subtextual – lots of longing glances and well-dressed men with sharp tongues. But there was still a lot of lingering anxiety about homosexuality, and a lot of those portrayals ended up being of untrustworthy or villainous characters. 

If you’re staring at the ceiling and struggling to think of a character example, welcome to the pod my heterosexual friends. Every gay knows what I’m talking about. Let me slide you a couple of quick gimmes. Basically, every Disney villain is gay, because we love to start kids early with this stuff. The best example is Ursula from the Little Mermaid, whose character design is literally based on iconic drag queen Divine. Almost every portrayal of the Devil is gay. It’s why Lil Nas X made that video. For a more specific recent example, think of Ewan McGregor playing Roman Sionis in Birds of Prey. He’s fussy, narcissistic and he definitely wants to make out with his homicidal right-hand man. Classic villain shit. 

But what’s that got to do with Mads Mikkelsen bashing a nude Daniel Craig’s dick with a big rope? Great question. James Bond is always kind of a lone wolf figure – the pinnacle of all things debonaire and masculine, only he can get the job done. Part of that job also inevitably involves at least one act of heterosexual seduction. Which means, like it or not, James Bond’s penis is basically a character in its own right in this franchise. Which also means that it’s frequently threatened by his nemeses, often very deliberately and explicitly. You can almost say, that many of the villains in the Bond franchise are as interested in his penis as he is. Which is kinda homoerotic, to be honest. So, I thought we could take a little look at what it actually takes to make a Bond villain. Are they all devious homosexuals trying to emasculate Bond both metaphorically through their insidious campness, and literally, sometimes with laser beams to the crotch? Or is there a little bit more nuance there? Does their fixation on his penis say something about the prevailing attitude toward homosexuality, or is it more of a reflection on Bond? And most importantly, why does no one talk about the extended cock and ball torture seen in Casino Royale? These are all big questions. Let’s get into it shall we?

I think the best place to start looking at the evolution of Bond villains is to start looking at the evolution of James Bond himself. Bond is a kind of unique character in franchise cinema in that he is actor- agnostic, meaning he can be cycled in or out of the role as needed without it rebooting the sequence of the films. I can’t really think of another franchise that behaves in the same way. The closest I can possibly think of is like, superhero movies. But for most of these each of those retellings resets the story or the universe. Like, Spiderman for example. Peter Parker has been bitten by so many radioactive spiders. Uncle Ben has died so many times. But James Bond is essentially allowed to come and go as Hollywood dictates. Sean Connery, the first to play the role, (excluding David Niven in the original Casino Royale who I’m just not counting because I don’t have to) made five Bond films before being switched out for George Lazenby, who was so poorly received by audiences, he made only one film before they switched out for Connery again. Timothy Dalton was considered too angsty, and was booted after two films for Peirce Brosnan. All told, 6 actors have played James Bond and each of them have brought something different to the role.

Connery laid the groundwork for the perception of Bond on screen – he has a particular physicality and brawniness, which, combined with the zingy wit throughout, blends the British snobbery with enough violence to make him a palatable character for the American market. Notably, Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, hated Connery – having wanted someone more debonaire for the role. But producer Albert Broccoli thought in order to actually meet the requirements of the character, they were better off taking someone unpolished but tough, like Connery, and teaching him to be a gentleman, than taking a gentleman and teach him to exude the kind of tough required for the role. More colourfully homophobic language was used, if I’m being honest, but I’ll spare you. Anyway, Connery made such a strong impression that it’s probably inevitable that Lazenby’s follow-up was a flop – he was an emotional and vulnerable Bond, who eventually found a wife only to have her murdered in front of him. So, they coaxed Connery back for one final run before Roger Moore was brought in to drag it back around to the loyal, sophisticated Bond image complete with zippy one-liners. Dalton, as mentioned, went dark and morally compromised, which went over like a lead balloon, so Brosnan brought back the slick sophisticate, but with additional skills and updated gadgetry. And then finally, Daniel Craig, who has managed to keep the masculine sheen, but blend a lot of the more complex elements previously dismissed in Lazenby and Dalton. 

All these changes in characterization are driven by shifting social values and the fluctuating symbolism of the action hero. A 1960s Bond doesn’t make sense for an 80s, 90s or 00s film. And because this is the case each incarnation of Bond must have a villain set up as a complete moral counterpoint to them – like a mirror image in evil. Connery’s Bond reflects something about the ideal of masculinity throughout the 1960s – he’s strong, capable and intelligent, but there is also an air of the playboy about him. He moves easily through rich and famous circles, while maintaining all the fighting smarts of the working class that come with Connery’s body building, Scottish roots. As such, Connery’s nemeses must exist as a counterpoint to that – if you think about the classic Goldfinger, for example, the titular character is wealthy, has to pay for the company of women (though apparently, he doesn’t sleep with them), he’s much less physically capable than Bond, and he obsessively accumulates gold because he’s fascinated by its shimmering colour. Even without the subtext of a man who cannot compete with Bond’s virility, Goldfinger is still a very obvious contrast to Bond. So, it should be no surprise then that his attempts to intimidate Bond take a turn for the psychosexual. First, he tries to scare Bond off by having a henchman knock him unconscious and encasing his female associate, who is paid to be seen and only seen with him and who Bond has just whisked away, in gold. Later, he straps Bond to a table in a prone position and points a very phallic laser at his crotch to slice him in half. Literally emasculating the perfect specimen of 1960s manhood with a big funky laser is exactly the kind of villainous behaviour you’d expect during a time when one of the great social concerns was the steady stream of women demanding equal rights in the home and in the workforce. Dick lasered off by some guy at work? Sudden upheaval from your masculine role of head of household? It’s the same thing baby! 

But compare this example to Daniel Craig in Casino Royale – as a masculine figure, he’s more complex, at least partially because he exists in a much longer lineage of both action movies and Bond films. One of the oft-talked about scenes is his emergence, shirtless and dripping wet, from the ocean in his swimming trunks. It’s a direct reference to the iconic scene Dr. No, the first of the Connery lead Bond films, where Bond observes Honey Ryder emerging from the ocean in her white bikini. Except this time, Bond is the object, observed appraisingly, by both the Bond girl and her villainous lover. It’s an interesting choice, given that it moves Bond’s visual allegiance from the Connery lineage and aligns him with the various dead, mangled and emotionally scarred women that litter the Bond cinematic universe. Lisa Funnell, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma who writes a lot about James Bond, thinks that this so-called contradictory body, which is extremely physical and heroic in action, and then feminised through passivity to the gaze when out of those action scenarios, makes Craig’s Bond a hybrid Bond and Bond Girl. Which I’m inclined to agree with – plot-wise the film serves as the makings of a Bond. He earns his double 0 status at the beginning of the movie, and spends the next couple of hours struggling against emotion. He’s a Bond in flux, and given the heavily gendered nature of the Bond character, it makes sense to have that instability be represented by a blend with the feminine in the film. This more complex bond also aligns socially with our expectations for masculinity – they aren’t as rigid as they once were and the hard Bond who would just as quickly slap a woman as sleep with her is not something that we comfortably accept without explanation. 

But if that’s the case, we couldn’t possibly be working ourselves up into a gay panic then. Surely, we have something else to work with? Look, I know I keep saying cock and ball torture, and I promise that this is the last time, but the torture of Bond at the hands of Le Chiffre, played by Mads Mikkelsen, is so equal parts brutal and homoerotic, that according to Mikkelsen in that batshit interview I mentioned at the top, it almost didn’t make the cut. Essentially Le Chiffre kidnaps Bond and ties him to a hollowed-out wicker chair so that his penis is exposed. The first words out of his mouth when they’re alone are, “Wow! You’ve taken good care of your body! Such a waste!”, before smashing a heavy rope against his genitals. After some back and forth, Le Chiffre leans down and whispers “Will you yield?” and when Bond replies that he won’t he earns another whack with the rope. But rather than screaming in pain he starts to mockingly replying with sounds of pleasure, screaming “Yes” in an agonised voice that mimics ecstasy. It’s all very, very BDSM-y. Which is not to say that various Bonds haven’t encountered bondage scenarios before. If they’re tied up at all it’s often in ways that recall S&M scenes – in The World is Not Enough, for example, Bond is strapped to a wooden torture device with spread legs that is designed to slowly cut off his oxygen, while the villainess straddles him. But it’s rarely quite so explicit as screaming “yes, yes, yes!” while having your testicles pummelled, as your assailant cries a single tear of blood like some sort of haunted Virgin Mary statue. 

Lisa Funnell thinks this type of graphic torture is actually a way of showcasing Bond’s masculinity – he’s able to endure the torture, even as his penis is so extensively assaulted that he requires a long hospital stay afterward, and he’s later shown passionately boinking the Bond girl (presumably after his junk is fully recovered). Funnell argues that this aligns him with more contemporary action heroes and moves him away from a lover-type model that he might’ve had in earlier incarnations. If you think about this in comparison to Goldfinger, where the villain ties Bond up and goes to leave the room so that Bond can be alone with his complex emasculation machine, this torture requires a much more intimate type of interaction. Even at the peak of physical exertion and strategic advantage, Le Chiffre doesn’t have what it takes to break James Bond. It’s kind of the Bond equivalent of that scene in every action movie where the hero gets knocked with a headshot that makes his ears ring, or cops a bullet to some painful but not lethal part of his body, but then thinks of his daughter/ wife/ army buddies/ mail man and pulls it together at the last minute. It makes him a real hero, even in his new role as both Bond and Bond Girl.

Beyond that contrast I also think there’s something to be said for the villainous alignment with a sort of deviant sexuality in the Bond films. I’m not using deviant in the Production Code, ‘Homosexuals are perverts who should burn in hell’ type of way either. I’m using it in the sense that a lot of the erotic overtones of the Bond villains mingle sexual pleasure really closely with death or danger. In GoldenEye, the first of the Brosnan films, for example, the villainess, Xenia Onatopp, is a sadistic lust-driven killer who moans in ecstasy as she crushes men to death between her thighs and shoots up buildings. Turns out there’s a word for that – it’s erotophonophilia, in case you were wondering, and I will have once again destroyed my search algorithm, by trying to reverse engineer what I was trying to say through the power of Google.  Anyway, my point is, I was trying to think why so many Bond villains seem to align themselves with this particular paraphilia when it is exceedingly rare in real life and I think I’ve got it. Essentially, James Bond’s sexuality is also kind of deviant but in a conventional way. He’s promiscuous, adverse to love and pretty sexually aggressive if we’re being honest. None of those things are generally portrayed as especially charming traits in cinema – they’re usually problems to be overcome. Part of the reason that some elements of the older Bond films have aged so terribly is that they’re quite misogynistic, even for their time. But this is counteracted by linking the linking of sex, death and assault with the villains. Using, GoldenEye as an example again, there is a moment where Bond grabs his love interest and she struggles against him as they kiss before she eventually submits. Which would be much worse to watch, were it not for the fact that the male villain had tried the same move with his 15 minutes earlier in the film and she didn’t submit. It makes it much easier to negate the actual violence of the moment because the audience has been shown that she would fight back if she really was having a bad time. By aligning villains with sex and death, we’re better able to accept Bond as a hero even when he’s technically transgressing. 

All this is to say that the Bond villain’s preoccupation with James Bond’s big red rocket are overall less about some lingering fear of homosexuals, and more to do with the nature of Bond himself. While there are certainly persistent attempts to emasculate him, their meanings have changed over time. Sometimes getting your dick beaten up makes you even more of a tough guy.

Well, those were my Bond thoughts. I’ve gotten enough euphemisms for wangs in here to launch an erotic fiction career. If you’ve got thoughts about what my Bond girl-esque, double entendre erotic fiction pen name should be, talk to me about it next time you see me at the pub! Peace!