Giles Coren, Sexism in Bond and Why We're Not All 'Sheep-Faced Critics'.

Spoiler Warning: Please be aware that this article contains discussion of several important plot points from Skyfall and links to other articles which have the same.

If you follow this site on twitter, or one of the five-hundred plus other accounts who have retweeted it since 1st November, then you may have come across this piece by Giles Coren, which makes the argument that Skyfall is a sexist, misogynist dinosaur and that everyone involved with it should be ashamed of themselves.

There are a lot of words out there on the Internet. Comparatively few of them are worth reading. Giles Coren's article is worth reading.

Apart from the bit where it claims to be 'the piece they tried to ban', which sounds, to paraphrase Shakespeare, like a load of horseshit.

Coren's points are interesting, not solely because they go against the grain of many writer's words on the subject, but because they present a valid argument for the contrarian's viewpoint. Unlike, say, Armond White - who takes the opposing view of popular opinion for the sake of it, blindly blustering, whilst saying little - Coren articulates his views, mainly based on a single conviction (Skyfall is sexist) and comes to a partially-understandable conclusion based on them.

This is troubling to someone who thought Skyfall was quite good - and not only because Coren labels anyone who liked the film a 'sheep-faced critic' - but then again, so are the bits that don't appear to make much sense.

It is easier to dissect the problems with Coren's argument than it is to start down a route in danger of back-tracking over this site's own four-star review of Skyfall.

Coren's argument fixated on Judi Dench's M is demonstrably flawed.

'I am ashamed, as a man, that women are still compelled in the 21st century to watch movies in which the three female outcomes are:

1) Judi Dench’s ‘M’ dies, and is replaced by a man;'

M in the character's Dench guise was introduced in Goldeneye as both an intriguing character in her own right and as a very specific weapon against the perceived misogyny of the franchise, and introduced during a sequence which sees her label Bond the same in no uncertain terms, flawed only, if you agree with The Incredible Suit's excellently informed input on the subject, by the cop-out line at the end.

M's position as head of MI:6 through the last seven Bond films has slowly grown in stature, to the point where Mendes clearly felt Skyfall needed no major female interest for Bond, based on the prevalence of M. Under the stewardship of Judi Dench, M has become a strong female character in what is perceived as (rightly or wrongly), a man's world, and has been for some time. Her removal from the franchise at the end of Skyfall is nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman and is rather to do with the same reasons why, eventually, Connery, Moore, Brosnan and the others finally had to bid the series goodbye. To frame M's departure from Bond to being solely due to her sex is reductive and narrow-visioned, excluding all the things she has done in the franchise to date.

Coren also calls into question a scene where Silva (Javier Bardem) shoots Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe).

'she is later tied up with a glass of whisky on her head in a hilarious William Tell spoof, and shot dead in a game devised by the baddie. We knew already knew [sic] the baddie was bad, so there was no plot developing element here.'

Coren's claim here that 'we already knew the baddie was bad' falls foul of the fact that we haven't actually, at this point, seen him do anything. In fact, Silva had been introduced on screen mere moments before, in the film's best scene, and has spent a serious amount of time suggesting that he can accomplish everything with merely his vast arrays of computers. Sévérine's death is the first time we see Silva achieve physical victory and is therefore an important step in 'knowing the baddie is bad'.

The final flaw in Coren's argument is his assertion that the three female outcomes in the film and the inclusion of the above scene, make Skyfall a bad film, something which he does whilst insulting anyone who enjoyed it.

'I am ashamed, as a journalist, of the five star ratings this film garnered across the board from sheep-like critics afraid or unable to look through the hype, to its rotten soul'

Assuming, for a second, that you agree with everything in Coren's piece, he does not pause to give us his consideration on the performances, the direction, the overall tone, the success of the story, the squareness of Bond's jaw, the film's place in Bond's history, the cinematography, the editing, the performance of the best grip, Daniel Craig's stylist's suit choices, the contextual idea of the enemy coming from a mistreated place within or the thematic resonance of M's distraction by countless, perhaps pointless, enquiries.

Coren labels the film as 'bad', because he believes it to be sexist, to have sexist elements or to feature a sexist character (I'm not sure which). On that logic a drastic reassessment is required of nearly all of the 'good' films Hollywood has produced over the decades. Sexism is a prevalent, distasteful flaw, yes, but one which signals the certitude of incompetence? I'm not so sure.

And so, to Coren's argument's successes, which by now you would be forgiven for thinking were never coming.

'there is a young woman in this film whom Bond correctly identifies as a sex-worker... She gives no sign of being sexually interested in Bond, merely of being incredibly scared and unhappy. So he creeps uninvited into her hotel shower cubicle later that night... and silently screws her because he is bored'

There's more to that in the full article, which I encourage you to read, heavily edited as it is here only for the purposes of not reproducing Coren's piece wholesale and because I have no desire to see this site feature a Jimmy Saville 'joke'.

Is there any need to have Sévérine as a victim of abuse? No, and the film handles it badly, mentioning it as if the passing call of its name absolves it of any other crimes it may or may not commit against the female sex, or of the necessity to explore it fully and properly. It's a messy and mucky afterthought that adds nothing and deserves to be perforated by Coren's argument.

Similarly, the film has already included its minimum quota of having Bond sleep with at least one woman (the nameless lady on the beach during his 'recovery' from being shot) so is the scene with Sévérine in the shower needed at all? A nearly-chaste Bond, interested primarily in repairing and maintaining his relationship with M, could have been even more refreshing than Skyfall already feels.

But then, of course, there are problems if you are a woman and remain chaste in a Bond film...

'3) The pretty girl who manages to remain chaste despite Bond’s ‘charms’ is rewarded at the end with a job as his secretary.'

Coren here refers to Eve (Naomie Harris), who not only rejects Bond's charms but actually bloody shoots him at one point, surely representing the harshest brush-off the spy has ever fallen foul to. Her reveal as Moneypenny in the film's finale is a messy piece of pandering to heritage, hardly required and calling to mind the previous films where yes, of course, all these powerful men could call, from the very office shown at the end, on female servants to do their bidding. Is that how Moneypenny will be portrayed in the next film? Sans gun but now with added typewriter? It, perhaps sadly, looks likely.

'I am ashamed, as a British person, that this film will be mistaken abroad for an example of prevailing values here'

Coren's final paragraph includes the above, which he was attacked for perhaps more than any other piece of the article in the comments. Of course, this is partially a typical sensationalist close (as is his personal attack on Sam Mendes... and his claim that the film is 'reactionary', to what exactly, he never makes plain) but he does also have a point, proven by articles which have focused on Bond's Britishness. We are aligned with Bond as a piece and product of our culture and, therefore, if you wish to look deeply enough (and some will), aligned with his moral standpoint. If his moral standpoint is one of sexism and misogyny, what becomes of us? Dangerous times, 007.

Whatever you think of Bond by this point - and I maintain that Skyfall is a good, if flawed film - hopefully you do think something about Bond and his sexism, or lack thereof. The point of this is perhaps not entirely to sway you against Coren's argument, which obviously I have clear problems with, but to point out that, in a world where headlines like this about the next Star Wars film increasingly pass for copy worth publishing, there are still some intelligent articles about film out there, able to make you think, reconsider and interact in a passionate but mostly polite way. I disagree with Coren's article. But I'm glad that, in the end, nobody succeeded in banning it.

(With thanks to The Incredible Suit, who read this through before publication and did not immediately label me a complete idiot. He also pointed me towards this by Andrew Ellard which I had seen publicised on twitter but had not read and which similarly criticises Coren and has excellent insight on the film as a whole.)