Why James Bond Is Okay

Have you ever read any James Bond books? Because the movies can be pretty racist and misogynistic but believe me, until you see the source material, you have no idea.

They're fun though. I enjoy reading them. And for a while I was like, "Is this okay? Should I feel guilty about it? Do I need to justify myself?" Eventually I decided: No.

Racism and misogyny are bad. Any kind of hatred or disdain or contempt for any arbitrary group of people is bad. No need to belabour that point here. But if that's true, then how can I give Bond not only a pass, but an fairly enthusiastic thumbs-up? Wouldn't it be better to renounce him and all his works?

James Bond is not the devil though; James Bond is a perspective. A very particular white, straight, male perspective. The problem isn't that this perspective exists. There are as many perspectives as there are people, and not all stories need to give us characters we like and empathize with.

The problem comes in when that perspective is mistaken for the whole picture -- when we start to accept that white, straight, and male is some kind of baseline. Because then whitestraightmale becomes "normal," which makes everything else... not.

As Carla Bruce-Eddings says:

At 17, I was cloistered so securely within my most obvious box — society’s conception of “black” — that I assumed any character lacking visual details was white. I didn’t protest that I often only encountered white characters with multi-dimensionality. White seemed to be the standard, from which an author could then build a more detailed identity. Any identity other than white was almost singularly defined by non-whiteness. My understanding of the world was firmly rooted in the reality of my otherness, and aside from occasional annoyance, I accepted this as an utterly immutable fact.

Nobody should be other. We should all have assumed Hermione was black to begin with. Idris Elba should play James Bond. Read what you want, just remember to think about it afterward.

RECIPE: Decadent Chocolate Cake. This has been my father's birthday cake for as long as I can remember; my mother bakes it every year, without fail. For much of that time, I would eat the cake first, saving all the frosting for last.