Andre Millard, author of
Equipping James Bond: Guns, Gadgets, and Technological Enthusiasm, offers a piece on Bond
and the threat of technology at Smithsonian.com.
Ian Fleming’s James Bond
novels have been enjoyed by a global audience since the 1950s, and the films
constitute the longest running and most profitable franchise in the history of
the movies. This fictional character is a global icon admired by millions.
What explains 007’s
enduring appeal?
Adventure, guns, and girls,
surely. But Bond’s long-standing popularity can’t be separated from our
relationship with technology. The Bond character consistently embodies our
ever-changing fears about the threat of new technology and assuages our
anxieties about the decline of human agency in a world increasingly run by
machines.
Ian Fleming made Bond a
modernizing hero, and the centrality of his gadgets in the films have
established Bond, armed with watches capable of creating magnetic fields or
Aston Martins with hidden guns, as a master of technology, a practitioner of
high-tech equipment in the service of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence
Service. But the reason why we, the audience, admire him and follow his
never-ending career is to be found in his inevitable conflict with the machine.
You can read the rest of
the piece via the below link:
You can also read my Crime Beat
column on Ian Fleming and his iconic character James Bond via the below link:
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