When watching Casino Royale by Martin Campbell, I was filled with the uncomfortable feelings about how they are building, and even using, the female leading character in the movie. After watching, I immediately did some research and some online browsing, what I have found is that most people are very happy about the female character building in the movie. Casino Royale,as the first Bond movie of the Daniel Craig era, was well-received among public that critics were even referring to it as the one Bond movie that is deconstructing the concept of “Bond Girl”. However, in my opinion, Vesper Lynd's impressive character setting is more likely to be a commercial compromise than a real deconstruction of Bond Girl because the female gaze that generally exists in movies still exists in the narrative, character building, visual representation, and character ending of Casino Royale (2006). Following will be the attempt to prove the above based on the film itself. Scenes from the film, narratives of the screenplay, and character building, as well as the plot will be analyzed and discussed in order to provide solid proves toward the arguments.
Before we start, we shall first understand what exactly is the concept of “Bond Girl”, or, more precisely, what exactly is the stereotypical female character in a traditional Hollywood movie. In From “figurative males” to action heroines: further thoughts on active women in the cinema (Hills, 1999) , Elizabeth Hills stated that “cinematic genre codes and cultural gender codes position female characters as the passive, immobile and peripheral characters of Hollywood action cinema” We can see from a lot of Hollywood movies have this kind of stereotypical female character. There're too many examples like Rachael (Sean Young) in Blade Runner (1982) , Claire (Emmanuelle Béart) in Mission: Impossible(1996), all female characters in the Fast and Furious series, Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) in the Matrix (1999) , Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) in Spider-man (2002), Deborah (Lily James) in Baby Driver (2017) , or some more recent characters such as Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) in Tenet(2020)…They are passive characters, who has actions happen toward them instead of acting as a motive to push the plot forward. They are all more or less a sexual symbol, they usually are, or will be, the protagonist's lover, Acting as a fuel to the hero's journey. They were either waiting to be rescued or causing trouble to the hero's mission. Another kind of female character stereotype is Femme Fatale. In the book Femme Fatales , Mary Ann Doane stated that “”her most striking characteristics, perhaps, is e fact that she never really is what she seems to be. She barbers a threat which is not entirely legible, predictable, or manageable.” (Doane, 1991). Take Wonderly (Mary Aster) in The Maltese Falcon(1941) as an example. She shows up being a mysterious woman, beautiful, gorgeous, but full of secrets. She carries a gun. She smokes. She's a liar. She's dangerous. She plays with the protagonist and brings trouble to the situation . And of course, she develops romantic relationship with the protagonist. Femme Fatale is a symbol of love and mystery, lies and danger, and she has to be beautiful and seducing. It's very common and even too common in the Hays Code era and still sometimes appears in the contemporary cinema world.
In Casino Royale,Vesper Lynd shows up with an all-black costume, trousers, blazer, and belt, “a slightly masculine clothing”, as Bond stated, instead of sexy dinner dress with large amount of nudity, but still looks gorgeous. She's confident, aggressive, sarcastic, and acting professional while Bond is trying to flirt with her. After a conversation of “contest” between the Bond and Lynd, we can see that each of made a profile of the other. Lynd didn't lose the “contest”, instead, she won it. Some might take this as a very positive sign of the female character building, as female is now taking over the power, or at least has the same level of power with the male this time. It is true. This is a huge progress of the film industry to at least show some respect to female characters. However, there're some hidden points that suggest the opposite.In this “power competition”, Lynd took it very seriously that she wanted to win it so badly, she tried her best to get the power over Bond. She was using a aggressive attitude toward the whole conversation. As for Bond, he is the one that is actually taking control of the whole conversation, he was relaxed and was playing with this whole situation. He was arose the interest in Vesper as she was trying so hard to act “masculine”. From the last shot of this scene, we see Bond showing a smile on his face that tells the audience that he tasing actually having fun with the “contest” with Vesper. He didn't take the whole thing seriously. He took it as an interesting game to see how a woman try to be intimidating. This is a silent point that we need to take a closer look to find out.There is a distain toward female hiding behind the seemingly innovated female character setting scene.
In the approximately middle of the film, there's a main action scene that Bond strangled a man in front of Lynd. This is probably the most obvious part in the whole movie that shows the distain toward female. It is true that female character in this scene finally act as a helping hand to the male character of an action scene, deceiving the audience of a powerful female figure. The aftermath of this scene in the film is somehow more important in my interpretation. As Bond professionally done his job and still have the spare power to confront Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) back in the casino, Lynd clearly got shocked by the fact that a man was killed in front of her, especially when strangle is a really brutal way to kill one person. Back in the room, Lynd for the first time showed her vulnerability, showing symptoms of PTSD,sitting in the corner of the wall in the shower with a blank stare. Bond showed up, licked and sucked her fingers, comforted her and eventually held her in his arms telling her everything is alright. First of all, the bathroom scene is very obviously sexually suggestive, especially with the finger licking and sucking. This is a substitute of the traditional sex scene that usually happens between Bond girls and Bond., there's no innovation here. Secondly, the female character, even though acting as this intimidating and aggressive, still need the comfort from a man. This scene sarcastically shows how ridiculous the female character is.the bathroom scene is very obviously sexual suggestive, especially with the finger licking and sucking. This is a substitute of the traditional sex scene that usually happens between Bond girls and Bond., there's no innovation here. Secondly, the female character, even though acting as this intimidating and aggressive, still need the comfort from a man. This scene sarcastically shows how ridiculous the female character is.the bathroom scene is very obviously sexual suggestive, especially with the finger licking and sucking. This is a substitute of the traditional sex scene that usually happens between Bond girls and Bond., there's no innovation here. Secondly, the female character, even though acting as this intimidating and aggressive, still need the comfort from a man. This scene sarcastically shows how ridiculous the female character is.
As the film approaching the end of the second act, a femme fatale appeared. Bond made a mistake that cost him the money he had, he needed more money to continue to play the game. He ask Lynd for help as she represented the treasurer, she refused, the conversation ended with Bond calling her an “bloody idiot” with Lynd leaving in her resolute. The narrative shaped her as a cold-blooded women who doesn't care about the innocent lives as she was just doing her job. She was causing trouble in the protagonist's mission. A femme fatale is born in this scene. And as the film keeps going on, we discovered that Lynd has her own secret that cheated Bond on purpose of her own. Another typical characteristic that femme fatale has.
The ending is also providing the irony of the female character. As Bond found out that he was cheated, he immediately moved on, calling her “the bitch”. As the female character, Lynd, she actually did her own work that she left a message for Bond to finish his mission. However, the female character was eventually waiting to be saved by Bond, a male character, and tried to “make everything up” by leaving a message. Familiar character building in traditional spy movies.
Some might argue as the male character is built in a radical way that is the deconstruction of the Bond girl symbol. In “Designing Character: Costume, Bond Girl, and Negotiating Representation” (Severson, 2015), the author stated that “these films present a change in the depiction of Bond form the subject of gaze (ie the active gazer) to the object of gaze (ie passive gazer); in Casino Royalehe takes over the traditionally exhibitionist ole of the Bond Girl.” I partially agree with this statement. The great amount of nudity of Bond and, probably the most obviously part, the interrogation scene with Bond being tied in a chair unnecessarily naked, are all suggesting this change. However, what I'm questioning is the motivation behind it. As was stated above, the character building and the narrative of Vesper Lynd clearly indicated the misogyny attitude. I see those nudity of male character as a commercial compromise to please the female audience. The film gives out a seemingly storage female character and a teasing male body and character because the creators realized the importance of female audience market in the contemporary entertainment industry, They are using this strategy in order to win over the box office. And it worked,Casino Royale was the most successful movie in that year and the highest-grossing Bond movie until Skyfall (2021).
In conclusion, Casino Royale is clearly overrated in the gender presentation. Vesper Lynd's impressive character setting is more likely to be a commercial compromise than a real deconstruction of Bond Girl because the female gaze that generally exists in movies still exists in the narrative, character building , and character ending.
View more about Casino Royale reviews
