Is female bonding really necessary?

The recent news that James Bond will remain just that and not morph into Jamie, Jemima, Jamuna or Jamila does not come as a total surprise.

Producer Barbara Broccoli has been asserting precisely that for several years but, inexplicably, to no avail as a female Bond continues to be touted as a possibility.

A female 007 — but not Bond — is set to debut in No Time to Die, and that is evidently about as far as Broccoli is willing to go.


Whether a ‘woke’ Bond in response to the prevailing mores in our time will be less of a departure from the chauvinistic, philandering original created by Ian Fleming than a female Bond is moot, so Broccoli not budging on James remaining James is par for the course.


Less understandable is the fact that repeated assertions by one of the most powerful women producers in Hollywood about the gender immutability of James Bond have been consistently ignored. Sexism is obviously not confined to unreconstructed superspies.

However, Broccoli has now conceded that Bond may be of any colour although the character will remain male. That brightens the chances of a Jamshed Bandookwala or a Jing Bo succeeding the blonde-blue-eyed Daniel Craig.

But as supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld played by seven actors has appeared in nine Bond movies including the latest one, it may be worthwhile to consider an Ernestine first.