Bond is white, male and British.
007 can be anyone - it's just a code name.
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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Compromise, he stays white and male but it has to stay in the period of the original books and the films are all in black and white.
Second compromise, he stays white and male but he dresses fabulous snap snap and he talks Jive.
I ain't handin' ova no gun and license, honkey. Sheeeeeiiiit.
The purists may grumble, but i would watch the shit out of this.
Well they say a good compromise leaves everyone a little unhappy, so I'm sensing this isn't a very good compromise because it sounds delightful
There’s not really a good option, in our current culture of endless remakes of the same crap.
Keep James Bond white and male: allows the writers to show specifically how his race and gender interact with the way that Western imperial espionage operates, and there’s an “authenticity” bonus there too. But this effectively prevents non-white/non-male viewpoints from emerging into the scene.
Change James Bond to non-white and/or non-male: gives a head-start to a minority-voiced character, but pretends that the race/gender of the previous iterations didn’t have any practical implications (basically an “I don’t see race” stance from the franchise).
Really, the question is: why are these the only two options? Why not a new character and/or franchise?
Why do we have to reuse an existing character who’s steeped in problematic context, and either perpetuate that (or use it as an excuse to specifically address it, which would be cool but maybe not that great for a popcorn action thriller?) or pretend it was never there?
Really, the question is: why are these the only two options? Why not a new character and/or franchise?
There are new characters and franchises being created every two seconds. What does this mean?
I'm all for staying with the essence of a character, and there's definitely arguments to be made that a cishet white male is fundamental to the original Bond from the books. Because that is true; a spy in that setting that isn't a white male that can at least pretend to be hetero is going to be so unusual in the locations Bond typically works in that he'd never be able to be covert.
That being said, it has been a very minor portion of the movies that sticks with any kind of realism. The Daniel Craig movies did to a degree, and the earliest ones were fairly close to the books.
But they keep him in modern times, and have for decades now. In this world, trying to argue that Bond has to be exactly like the books, or even like any given era of the movies is silly. There's absolutely no reason Bond couldn't be other than white. It would change aspects of what stories can be told (can't send a black Bond into a Russian military base undercover and expect it to be believable, as an example), but the real defining aspect of Bond isn't race, or gender. It's nationality.
Bond is British. Change that and you fuck the story up. That's about the only thing you can't change without breaking the scenario. You can even change his Eton going background, what military branch he served in, any of the secondary character building points and still have him be Bond, as long as he's still British.
That goes for making him her, as well. It would come with its own set of difficulties to build a story for; but a female Bond, a female British spy is well within bounds of the concept. It would change the character more, but not so far as to insult the spirit of the history of the character.
Again, nothing wrong with sticking to the spirit of a character, which includes social factors like race, gender, religion, sexual orientation is fine. But you can't pretend that Bond in specific has always stayed true to that spirit over the decades of movies.
I will add that it's really about casting more than anything else. Most fans would have been on board with Ildris Elba because the man is a fantastic actor and would have been perfect for the role when his name was first circulating. So if they wanted to have a non traditional Bond, they have to find the right actor. Hell, it isn't easy to cast Bond at all
Bond wasn't British until Connery played the role. In the novels he was English and had an incipid racist dislike of the Scots and Welsh. He was also a misogynist and a homohobe. He was also pretty much a cowardly assassin. He was supposed to look like the American songwriter Hoagy Carmichael. Initially the tv series Danger Man was going to be an Ian Fleming-weitten Bond TV series at the end of the 1950s with Patrick McGoohan as Bond until McGoohan seemed to politically object to playing the character. Bond's characterisation has always altered. (A good book to read about all this is John Higgs' excellent Love and Let Die.)
Today Bond has the ability to be reshaped by the current dominant culture to try and reflect how the UK sees itself. There's no surprise that because we struggle to define what British is, defining a contemporary Bond is equally difficult. Becomes part of the culture wars.
A solution (possibly cop-out) I'd like to see is for a new Bond movie (or TV series) to be set immediately after World War Two and present him in much the way he's depicted in the Casino Royale and Live and Let Die novels: late thirties, scar across his cheek, cruel mouth, skin grafts and all. I thought the recent Ripley adaptation was good and they way I'd like to see Bond go.
I'm hoping Daniel Craig returns as a cyborg rebuilt from the nanonots in his body. The first scene should be him as a skeleton sailing a speedboat out of the nuclear explosion at the end of the last movie, with the nanobots rebuilding his muscles and flesh drinking a martini. After that the producers can just borrow the idea of the Bloodshot comic character. They could throw in the ability of the nanobots to alter his appearance so multiple actors can play the role in the same movie. Then have flying sharks with golden teeth, a plot by a polar bear with a Russian oligarch's brain to turn the world into a bee hive and clones of Bonds dead loves brought back to life for him to fight and have sex with (at the same time!) - with the twist that they have radioactive genitals. Amazon, if you're reading this, I'm available for scriptwriting hire.
I like the James Bond movies, never was a massive fan, wouldn't know much or any trivia about them, but I never got why this is such a big topic all of the time. Surely there are thousands of actors to choose from without bringing up all of the bullshit every few months. Andrew Koji would be good I think, and more believable with some of the physical activities he would need to be able to do.
But, as I said... IDK anything about James Bond really.
james bond should stay white and male but he should have an existential crisis where he realizes who he's been working for all along, becomes a depressed alcoholic, ends up embracing shia islam, gets back on his feet, travels to iran and joins the fight on the side of iran.
I dont know why people feel the need to change the James Bond character. The Bond franchise is a proven success commercially and changing race/gender of an already established main character rarely has box office success. It could work, but there are so many other stories to tell. Just to name a few: Alex Cross, Ezekiel Rawlins, or reboot Shaft; Red Sparrow, Kim Possible, or Laura Kroft for the ladies. The Bond formula can be to any of these.
Debbie McWilliams, who cast the previous 14 Bond films, said Ian Fleming “wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays”.
IIRC bond don’t look like Connery and he have a scar … so she failed right off the bat
Also this article is shit on paper. 4/5 are a nothing piece about MGM searching a new Bond and being acquired by Amazon
Haven't they made enough of these already anyways
Imaginaryremoved spy should be white, I agree.
Since James Bond is just Rassilon, they can choose whatever face they want for their next regeneration.
Rassilon? I thought he was something else.
You see, Doctor and Master are both titles you get with degrees, but there are two more: Associate and Bachelor.
I don't know who the Associate would be, but if anyone would carry the name, "The Bachelor", it would be James Bond.
Absolutely, "Rassilon" is his "real" name, he's simply not as cagey about it as ~~Theta~~ the Doctor and ~~Koschei~~ the Master.
Oh, so he's not the same Rassilon that founded the Time Lords; he just has the same name?
I don't follow. Why wouldn't he be the same? He just has a name (which he usually prefers to go by) and also an academic title. In addition to his super secret Earth identity, of course.
They just don't seem like the same person to me.
Regeneration - it's a lottery
Finally some sense
What? Staying true to the source material in this day an age? That's a bold move!
It should be Idris Elba.
I hate to say it... But I think he might be too old for it now
Why not David Gyasi? I'd love to see the steam coming out right wing shit lords in the U.S. when a black man speaks and acts 100% like a traditional English Gentleman.
He's only 53 and is in great shape.
So he’s 5 years younger than Moore when he retired from the role. The Same age as Connery when he came back for Never Say Never Again. 4 years older than Brosnan when he was seriously injured during his final film.
Sold!
I've always said this as well. Elba himself agrees that he is too old.
He played a retired spymaster you can work for in Cyberpunk 2077, in which your character is voiced by Asuna from Sword Art Online (unless you picked the dude) and you're sorta possessed by a rare evil Keanu Reeves, so if you're also a sci-fi nut, it's even better.
And when I say he played the character, I don't mean he did the voice. He did, but the character was also modeled after him, so you will see Idris Elba in your game. Same with Keanu Reeves and his character. Of course, the player character can look like whatever you want her to. (Again, or you could choose a dude if that's your thing.)
Heeeey Johnny isn't evil! He's disillusioned and depressed and hurt and I can totally fix him!!!!
Now excuse me, I have to get back to finding the ideal angle and poses for him and my V in photo mode....