Remodelling James Bond: GoldenEye and Casino Royale : an enquiry into socio-cultural values

• Main Author: Landman, Johannes
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10539/10908

M.A. Faculty of Humanties, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 === This dissertation will argue that two James Bond films, GoldenEye (Martin Campbell, 1995) and Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, 2006), reflect the socio-cultural values of the decades in which they were made. It begins by contextualising ‘the figure of James Bond’ as a popular hero and a ‘mobile signifier’ whose representations and connotations exist in a fluid-but-fixed relationship. This allows Bond to be remodelled to maintain a resonance with popular ideologies or socio-cultural values held about his associations. The subsequent research demonstrates this. In order to do so the dissertation is divided into two sections: Part One focuses on women and Part Two on masculinity, conflict and geopolitics. Each part investigates the dominant socio-cultural values – or zeitgeist – of its focus topics in the 1990s and 2000s. Part One draws on feminist history and discourse as well as articles from the legal, financial and generally socio-corporate environments. Part Two turns to economics, politics, recent military history, its perceptions and sociology. Each section, having determined the socio-cultural values regarding the topic it focused on, demonstrates how these values are communicated in popular films of the 1990s and 2000s to further substantiate its argument and findings. With the zeitgeist determined each section conducts an in-depth analysis of the two James Bond case studies. Both analyses demonstrate that these films clearly reflect the sociocultural values of the decades in which they were made.