The most recent movie you discuss at any length is more than 20 years old, and the man who made it was in his 60s. I thought you academics were supposed to be 'cutting edge' and all that. Is James Bond the best you can come up with?
22
Misogyny stems from the male's fear of their own psycho-sexuality where they enter triumphantly, leave diminished and fear they'll be devoured like a male preying mantis.
2
O.k., so it turns out Bond is a flawed person.
But doesn't that make him...more complex...and therefore...more interesting...and as a result...more attractive?
12
I understand why this has to be talked and analyzed to death, but let's make it simple:
Women are people.
For better or for worse.
Dan Kravitz
3
Objectification of women is a problem across the globe and hardly confined to select countries. These kinds of discussion are much needed. Keep them going. The US needs to look in the mirror via its attitudes toward women, minorities, young children, love with guns, non-Christians, non-Caucasians and more. In a sense, our civil rights fight is just beginning and has just started. MLK Jr. simply provided the first spark albeit a large spark. The fire needs to be rekindled every so often in order to level a rotting forest.
However, as is the wont with most academic philosophers to unearth meaning where there is often none, I found it interesting that there is a need to embrace the celluloid philosophy of Clint Eastwood who made his movies more with a bent of telling a good story as opposed to making a social statement. We don't see Eastwood's movies because they make a social statement of a certain sort. We see them because they are well made. Period. It is somewhat like trying to dissect the social philosophy of Stanley Kubrik. There is none. He simply made great movies.
4
Some people seem very threatened by suggesting that James Bond and his ilk of character in media is anything less than an idealized form. As a 40-year-old male raised predominantly by a progressive mother in a progressive part of the country, I will say that I can enjoy James Bond movies and films on one level, and also COMPLETELY agree that the James Bond persona is... awful. Oh my god. Horrible. It does make me feel that as more old people die, us younger people will have an opportunity to change things -- including the kinds of male (and female) characters our media holds up as icons.
7
I feel as the "maternal body" has not been recognized by what is perceived as the feminist movement.
Instead, in their effort to advance women's cause, feminists have advanced the cause of a "sexual (wo)man" body without a care in the world. Real women, however, can get pregnant; and a Matriarch would not dismiss a baby in the womb as colateral. No, a Matriarch would celebrate the "maternal body" and would take utmost responsibility for it, and for those it protects. Just a thought.
9
There is a episode of Married With Children in which Peggy Bundy has to go to mother / daughter day at Kelly, her daughter's high school. In one scene Peggy is bored so she says to Kelly " Lets put on some short skirts & dress real sexy ( I'm paraphrasing) We'll walk by some construction sites and make them whoop like jackals " ............. Now that's woman's empowerment.
6
I didn't even need to read this insipid polemic--just the off-putting title and the highly entertaining comments. I started the Ian Fleming books when I was in junior high school and read all the way through The Man With the Golden Gun. Sean Connery was, and remains, the best actor who ever portrayed Bond and most of the movies depart from the intelligent conventions of the books, starting with "shaken not stirred": It's exactly the opposite! Bond's zeitgeist was the postwar/Cold War era, not the trendy "woke" 20-teens and even the movies were classic 1960s (remember Jane Fonda in "Barbarella"?). Bond's women were intelligent, highly skilled at the arts of weaponry, war and espionage and even ruthless; the sexual attraction was mutual and the names were deliberately satirical. All this is quite clear in the books. The ignoramuses who wrote this absurd paean to anti-intellectual militant feminism should read the passages in Fleming's works describing in graphic detail the methods of torture used by Bond's arch-enemies on him before they casually throw around words like "wimp".
22
Yes, always felt sorry for James Bond. Oh, he gets to grab and use what he wants, alright. Most cool -- when you're nine. Later on I appreciated his profound if somewhat amoral sensuality, as an antidote to the excesses of lifelong monogamy I saw extolled all over, if honored a lot less often.
I kept on hoping he would find a woman as powerfully driven by this sensuality as he was. Even more, when I learned about her much greater capacity! But alas, it was not to be. James Bond, dig it, never had good sex.
3
Interesting take on the power dynamics of heterosexual relations. For the mysogonist, the attraction is not his partner, but his power over her. Wow.
2
The sexual ethics of men seem nonexistent. Men continue to rape, harass, murder, cat-calling, beat, grope and demand sexual favors from women over whom they hold economic or other power. Men have created a world where prostitution of girls and women is considered normal; and where porn, which is filmed prostitution, is considered a male right. Men justify their sexual exploitation of women, ignoring that most prostitutes and porn performers were raped or molested as children.
Men continue to spout their beliefs in male supremacy and act entitled to all the privileges of malesness and persist in viewing women as inferior objects that exist only to serve as domestic servants and for male titillation and gratification.
Pornhead men and patriarchal men are incapable of true love or ecstatic sexual union, states which are only available to those who see the partner as the beloved, as a subject, rather than as an inferior and a subhuman object.
Kahlil Gibran wrote of ecstatic love: "To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving."
As Robert Browning wrote: Take away love and our earth is a tomb.
The men who substitute porn and power and domination and privilege for seeing women as whole free luminous human beings, such men are already in the tomb, dead to love, and love dead to them, their lives without bliss or meaning or ecstasy or resplendent joy. Dead wimps.
11
Ah, so when you find me a good Chris Hemsworth film where his shirt never comes off, you just let me know. Funny how he always has to take off his shirt in his films. Same with Connery in his Bond films. Women I knew became very interested in the Bond film Casino Royale when word got out about the torture scene where Daniel Craig is tied nude to a chair (or just the scene where he walks up on the beach out of the surf).
It's not men lining up to see the Fifty-Shades films.
When you get all that figured out, come back and talk to me about sexual ethics of men.
16
". . .each one of us must be given the ethical, moral and legal right to come to terms with our sexual being as we wish so as not to fall back into any notion of woman or women that reinforces heteronormative gender roles ."
Heteronormative gender roles are a big ship, Professor Cornell - some people's "as we wish" (even within the LGBTQ community) falls well inside its confines, but do not "fall back" into anything. You can't start by talking about ethical, moral and legal rights in terms of sexual being and judge a whole range of the same with the same breath.
3
A reminder that strict ideology, whether left or right, is blind to reality and therefore narcissistic by nature and incapable of providing any solutions.
7
Why do I feel like a false dilemma has been created: men either appreciate women while blind to any sexual attractiveness or men are afraid of women. That seems like a simplified analysis.
12
Why capitalize "Bell Hooks," if she prefers otherwise? Granting this sort of agency seems loosely related to the premise of the article...
4
I find Drucilla Cornell's explanation to be a very sophisticated oversimplification. The argument almost feels like trying to understand ethnicity through the lens of network advertising. If I'm going to essentialize the subject of gender, I prefer comedian Michelle Wolf's interpretation. I'm paraphrasing here but her general gist was something like this: Both men and women get off; they just get off to different things. The sooner everyone learns and respects this lesson, the better off everyone will be.
4
James Bond is old hat. Jason Bourne is the new hero. His films are more better and more exciting and just entertaining, but even Bond films are still entertaining.
What's with the faux (fake) feminists who define their 'liberation', freedom, by promiscuous sex. I am free! I am woman! I have sex with whoever I want! Just like men, who are also promiscuous and bring venereal disease home to their families. Where is the victory for womanhood when she is penetrated by a man? That's how American women define their "liberation", by having sex.
How about a woman hero who is liberated from sex?
4
"His films are more better" And more literate!
2
The riddle for us is, on the one hand culture shapes and channels our energies on gender and sex, but culture is itself an expression of human energies. This describes a circle.
Is not our problem with exploitive circles?
The vast array of human beings seem to always have expressed gender and sex, and the secrets of that are deep.
But those energies have also always been exploited.
Gender and sex are like looking at a palimpset -- a wax tablet common in the ancient world, where one writes down notes etc., but then smooths over the wax for the next day's notes.
Gender and sex echo with history. Such history is deep. I really enjoyed this interview, one of the best The Stone has got, seems to me. A closing sentence of the interview really got me:"...the price men pay for Man’s law is the inability to love, and that loss is truly tragic."
But yet love is written into the weave of the very thing we are speaking of. For deep in the wax of things, men have loved, and women have loved, and love has loved in general.
Oh, who can rid us of these meddlesome erotic barnacles? And what would such a love boat even look like?
Good luck everyone, and bon voyage
2
David Cannadine's essay “Ian Fleming and the Realities of Escapism” places Fleming as a late comer in the venerable tradition of English clubman fiction. John Buchan is now the best-known, and best writer in this genre, but there are numerous followers, like Dornford Yates and "Sapper"--H. C. McNeile. Fleming brought an amoral post-war sensibility, but he seems to have been amoral before the war.
But like his Edwardian predecessors, he didn't write women very well, a result of that English public school upbringing that left its victims with a suspicion, if not fear, of women.
2
Not really. Fleming wrote women about as well as he wrote men, which was well within the confines of his genre. Read Domino's description of her love affair with the sailor of the pack of Players cigarettes. Read Bond and Tiffany discussing what a relationship would look like between them. Read Vesper's suicide note.
When he needed it, Ian Fleming knew how to write and write well from a woman's voice.
6
James Bond is not a wimp. If anything, I wish MORE men would act like James Bond. 007 sleeps with a lot of women, yes, but he's also well-dressed, physically fit, and professional with a gun, unlike these right-wing wannabes who think they're Rambo because they can shoot some beer cans in their backyard. He's exceedingly courteous and polite. He would never behave like Louis C.K. or Harvey Weinstein. Correct me if I'm wrong, but has he ever gotten black-out drunk in any book or movie? I don't think so.
If a woman acted like James Bond, it would be considered female empowerment. Why can't feminists leave James Bond alone? Seriously. These days, there are few man in fiction that are actually "cool". Can't you let us have James Bond? Please?
7
I would say a low point in Bond's drinking came in the last film, SPECTRE, where he gets drunk and plays with his (loaded) gun aiming at a rat he sees in a hotel room. I prefer my Bond a little less soused.
I think in the novels, it came down to Bond drinking too much at a game of bridge one night and stupidly losing money, but this was between missions when he was bored and anxious.
How does a woman who has no understanding of men and their sexuality other than what she sees in movies get held up as an expert on the subject?
Womansplaning.
18
Cornell seems to work hard at transcending the culture's gender stereotypes, then can't wait to jump on board with calling Bond a "wimp." I'll take Fleming, thanks. More consistent. And entertaining.
12
I must be dreaming.
3
"male terror of the power of the female body to give and take away life. ... Female bodies must be turned into objects of pleasure that can never be imagined as a whole person because it would be too scary. ... foot men, breast men and rear-end men because an embodied woman with a face, a life and a voice is something they cannot face up to."
Really? And this doesn't objectify, stereotype men? Smug ideological nonsense, similar to women faking orgasms or telling men they are good in bed because "men's egos are so fragile". If the first woman hadn't said any of that, the man might not get that impression or care about it. A college girlfriend insisted on telling me who her best lover had been, even after I told her "I don't care - if you say me, I won't take it seriously and if you say someone else, it will bug me (just as it would a woman)". She told me it was me, to which I responded sarcastically, "terrific; now, can we get some lunch?"
Plenty of men get beyond the physical or the 'parts', and plenty of women get caught up in male physique and types also - let me guess: these women are victims of the patriarchy.
As for James Bond and other FICTION, which mature adults don't take seriously once they know better, except apparently this interviewee, the male characters often are attracted to strong female personalities, admire the feistiness.
Finally, plenty of women are guilty of perpetuating the old status quo. The Weinsteins are pigs but plenty of men are not.
14
The name's Bond…James Bond:
Iconic. Chauvinist. Womanizer. Smoker. Drinker. Playboy. Assassin.
Both Fleming and his creation, James Bond, gave new meaning to these words and brought a visible and tangible reality to the genre of 20th century spies and spy-craft novels.
So what is it about Bond that is so alluring and enticing? His personal characteristics and anti-social behavior are anything but enviable and worthy of emulation by our current standards, yet his magnetic draw continues to work its magic on viewers and readers, even decades after the last book was written.
Perhaps it is the Walter Mitty character in all of us - the temptation of an alter ego so diametrically opposite from our normal everyday personality - that “donning the mantle of Bond” boosts our sense of self-worth and feeds our imagination with a liberal dose of fantasy that we all so deeply crave.
On the other hand, could it be that Bond reinforces and validates those very un-PC attitudes we all secretly desire and gives us some form of justification for behaving the way we do…
Sociologists would have a field day with this in this self-indulgent climate of #MeToo-ism. Bond, like Fleming. was a product of his times…the 1950's. But unlike the wimped out #MeToo stereotypes who struggle to find their place, all Bond women and men were strong, equals to Bond, and treated as such - especially in the novels.
2
Surely, Ian Fleming wrote tongue in cheek? There's so much that simply reads like a deliberate attempt to create a comic-book world for boys who never grew up. And the names - really, Pussy Galore and Goldfinger and "The Man with the Golden Gun"... But then possibly most people don't catch parody or a straight-faced comic? There's also the touch of tenderness or humanity occasionally, like in Bond's attitude to his romantic interest in "Dr. No"...
1
Because many folks don't get, British humour!!! PS And it's often, hilarious cause of it's subtlety, which isn't understood by those without keen senses.
4
The Bond movies are hilarious. Comedy and a snapshot in time, with outstanding scenery. Lighten up.
13
Funny, but James Bond was never that big a deal to me in 60's America. The movies showed up and ran a week or two and that was it for a year. And on TV they'd run in syndication, and if you saw them 2 or 3 times you could see how cheap they looked.
But every week, for many weeks, and years, "The Avengers" was on, starring the glorious Diana Rigg as Emma Peel, only momentarily mastered and ultimately victorious. Her male counterpart, Patrick McNee as John Steed, delighted in her wit and strength and always treated her as a equal.
Now she was a big deal--ask any man in his 60's.
19
While I enjoyed "The Avengers" (not to be confused with anything in the Marvel universe!) and adored Diana Rigg as Emma Peel...the show was only on for 6 years and Emma Peel only a character for a mere TWO years. There wasn't any female partner in year one, and a DIFFERENT one in year 2 and year 3 -- Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale -- yes, she went on to be a Bond girl! So did Diana Rigg!
Rigg was so distinctive and original in her role, however, that it is she and the episodes she co-starred in that are what people remember of "The Avengers", even more so than the STAR, Patrick Macnee!
So you must weigh that -- a series of 6 years, with only two of those memorable or co-starring Diana Rigg -- with the Bond series that has run for almost 60 years. Not much of a contest.
1
On the verge of watching again the beautiful foreign film by an Hungarian director, nominated for an Oscar. 'On Body and Soul', stark, powerful and graphic in unexpected ways, it is probably not going to be accepted well by an American audience who will find the environment too bleak. A love story, a deeply spiritual one, one of tenderness and human nature to be found in a slaughter-house where the death of cattle is what it is after all.
In each man's way rests the shadow of a beast. The creator of the above is brilliant and she deserves to be recognized.
Sean Connery, my favorite James Bond, once gave an interview with Barbara Walters, or another famous female host on television, where he was asked about his personal behavior towards his wife, and he replied that if she gave him too much trouble, he found that a little slap was effective to restore harmony.
Somehow his career survived, but try that now. And rather than Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf, who can forget the passionate call of anguish for 'Stella'?
Thanking Dr. Yancy and Dr. Cornell for this exchange taking place during the #MeToo Movement, which appears to be gathering momentum, and for the record, this woman likes people and men too.
3
Amazing how she can generalize about 50% of the world's population.
39
Please tell me Drucilla Cornell will never be in a position of power. If misogyny and the patriarchy are things sorely overdue for rectification, she sounds like the type that would push the pendulum even farther in the other direction. Placing men in cages and letting them out only when a female of childbearing age needed a transfusion of sperm to fertilize her eggs. Probably wouldn't even allow the sex act to occur, just extraction followed by artificial insemination. One pissed off lesbian. The opposite of a voice of reason needed for societal healing.
George Yancy doesn't sound much better, he understands her all to well.
I wonder how many minds she's poisoned at Rutgers. I'm a progressive who has always understood why universities need academic departments representing minorities. Women's studies, African-American studies, Latino studies, Native-American studies. Then I read an article like this and shudder.
54
In midst of this metoo movement I’ve been wondering when someone would bring up James Bond.
And Goldfinger is a great place to start, with Bond affectionately slapping a woman in the behind, and wrestling another to the ground so he can kiss her (and yes, both woman appeared to enjoy it).
Would that fly today? To be provocative and maybe truthful, let me just say, I think so.
13
But, let's salute more progressive content:
"One surprising place we can find counter-narratives of what women want and desire is in a [film about] a serial murderer, Jennifer Spencer, who is systematically murdering all of the men, and indeed one woman, who raped her and her sister."
5
"Growing up male in the 50s and 60s I always thought these Bond movies and the similar Playboy ethos were stupid and crass."
New millennium, dude. How dare you use the mere word "male."
50-60% seems at bit high for you. You sound more like 20-30% male.
8
Feminists preferring cuckold, emasculated John LeCarre master spy, George Smiley.
10
Girl, you ain’t never gonna get a man.
19
Ed, what a great laugh and thanks from an appreciative female.
1
I've admired Professor Cornell for years for her work at the intersection of deconstruction, feminism and the law. What a refreshing interview and thanks for such perceptive interpretations of Eastwood's direction and acceptance of the fullness of a woman's (mis)place in sexual relationships.
Perhaps he's still paying penance for "Play Misty for Me"...
11
CL,
That was one frightening movie and I believe it was one of Eastwood's first as a director. Little did I know that one day I would be stalked by a 'Misty' from Penn Station to Old Lyme, who thought her man was expecting a romantic visit from this stranger. In the meantime, Clint Eastwood remains much favored here among 'macho men' in Republican territory.
2
" But the men being named are symptoms of an even deeper one — male terror of the power of the female body to give and take away life."
What an absurd opener. Who makes this stuff up?
70
bell hooks is not capitalized. She does so in a conscious effort to subvert a grammar that actively props up racism and misogyny, and to demonstrate the inherent equality of letters as well as people. Please correct your article to reflect hooks’ ethical and intellectual stance, as well as her right to determine her own name and its spelling.
12
Bell Hooks is an intellectual lightweight. When the young women of Chibok, Nigeria were kidnapped by Boko Haram she was busily proclaiming that Beyonce--Yes, Beyonce!--was a terrorist. Why? Because she felt that Beyonce influence was "terrorizing" young girls and young women into accepting her sexual persona.
Yes, her "ethical and intellectual stance" is so high that she can't even make the distinction between a real terrorist organization and a booty-shaking mama.
23
Don't believe I've ever heard of her before, but the silliness of lowercasing her name in "a conscious effort to subvert a grammar that actively props up racism and misogyny" in what I surmise is a misguided belief anyone cares makes me think she's not worth taking seriously.
25
Cornell: "... hobby horses, a famous symbol of the penis ..."
Interpretation is always a matter of opinion, so Cornell is merely pontificating. Here is a completely contradictory interpretation:
"The hobby-horse signifies wanton femininity, the genital woman, woman as the site of her own absence ..."
"Shakespeare Without Women" by Dympna Callaghan.
21
Actually the horses on carousels are NOT hobby horses.
These carousel horses were crafted to resemble the Andalusian stallions of Spain. Think of Zorro’s horse Tornado.
I can’t think of a more beautiful stud than an Andalusian stallion. So yeah--pretty sexy animals--but NOT hobby horses!
I don’t get “confused” between riding a superb horse and my human relationships.
13
The Shakespeare reference is 'Loves Labor's Lost' "Cal'st thou my love Hobbi-horse?" Meaning slut or strumpet. I found that it can refer to a carousel horse, but I'm thinking that's unusual, certainly in this country, where it normally is some version of a horse head on a stick. I guess a vivid imagination could see various erotic things in the main gear and crank animations of a carousel, but I hope never to encounter such a person anywhere near happy children.
11
Or anywhere else, for that matter...
6
Cornell: "Her excuse [in "Sudden Impact"] for being there is to paint hobby horses, a famous symbol of the penis, on the merry-go-round in the amusement park in which she was raped."
These intellectualized symbol-seekers invariably overlook all the other possible "symbols". A merry-go-round is circular, so perhaps it is a vagina "symbol". And what does the activity of painting "symbolize"?
Anyway, the revenge-as-justified-killing theme can by found in various movies and TV shows.
8
Sometimes a hobby horse is just a hobby horse.
As for a merry-go-round, what about the donut?
14
So now they are lumping the quintessential James Bond played by Sean Connery with pornography! Never saw it that way when I was younger or now! Connery played the master spy with a flair for tongue and cheek, and always treated the ladies with the respect of the times! And the gals were attracted to him! The name Pussy Galore was intended to be sort of a joke! The character she played certainly was no pussy. She was a pilot and ran a female flight school! Not my pornography!!!
28
That would be tongue in cheek. Or foot in mouth.
2
I have to admit the names of the female characters in the Bond oeuvre are pretty dreadful -- jokey, sexual -- but that was pure Ian Fleming and most come directly from the novels. And you must remember that the books were written long before the films -- early 50s -- and aimed at male readers. Fleming was really into porn anyhow, and I think went for the most extreme sort of stripper names. But this was never intended to be feminist literature! nor for an audience of rigid, doctrinaire feminist intellectuals to analyze!
1
James Bond is a wimp?
Has the level of discussion of sexual misconduct really sunk this low?
Who do we go after next? Captain Kirk? Philip Marlowe?
Perhaps it's time for us to realize that reproductive success is perhaps the strongest driver of male behavior. Hard wired. Mother Nature herself. Perhaps it's time for women to either stop displaying their secondary sexual characteristics (with the intent of being sexually attractive) or shut up when men notice and follow their DNA. I would prefer the latter, being unashamed of my appreciation of female secondary sexual characteristics, but I could live with the former. Empower women yes, but don't attempt to emasculate men.
49
This may be “deep” thinking but it’s so laughably narrow that it reads as parody. The myriad influences biological and otherwise that brought us to the current state of humanity are beyond such blinkered explanations. The horrific abuse of masculine power that is the misogynist imaginary...... Oy Gevalt!
36
Oy Gevalt, indeed! Be aware, lest you utter this in the sacred precincts of a department of philosophy, as the expression is considered dangerously relevant, and is therefore banned. You might be driven off on a hobby horse, possibly as far as the department of literature, where the absurd metaphor between your legs would dissipate.
12
Growing up male in the 50s and 60s I always thought these Bond movies and the similar Playboy ethos were stupid and crass. But I don't believe anybody, straight or otherwise, gets to choose what turns them on in their "imaginary".
7
James Bond out. . .Alex Leama in. Is that what you want?
1
So if men are guilty of fetishizing female anatomy rather than appreciating women as equal human beings, what about the fashion industry that celebrates the objectification of women with apparel that is designed to make women more sexually attractive? Is fashion also driven by white guys who are into legs, bosoms or bottoms?
25
And they wear it! Wonder why?!
2
Driven by gay men. It's why fashion's ideal female model body is without curves, the opposite of what most hetero men desire.
6
It seems odd given the range of popular romantic and sexual relationships depicted on screen over the past 100 years that the two participants focus in on three movies by Clint Eastwood, none of which created any kind of iconic cinematic moment in popular culture.
8
Two things: The archaic notion that women have "the power of the female body to give and take away life" is meaningless. The female body neither gives life nor takes it away. The female body is life. The male body, also, is life. Both are essential to the propagation of new life. The old line "A women needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" would leave us with lots of two wheeled herrings with handlebars.
To an artist it's completely legitimate to think of the body as an object. The David of Michaelangelo is an object, as is the Venus de Milo. Society and civilization is the process by which we learn to regard these object in more complex ways. But I think it's important to recognize that the viewer of pornography is looking at objects, not people. That may be one of the things wrong with pornography, but it's no different when I view a painting, which is also an object. If we are to move forward we must learn to make the distinction when dealing with a live person., but denying the distinction serves no one.
36
Bond makes a good hook, congrats. However, this imitation academic extrapolation is muddy and lightweight. It is possible that a few intellectually disabled folk expect moral, social, and life-changing truths from action flicks, but the rest of us,male and female can tell the difference. The same holds for the potential damage of horrific video games and anime. The authors would better spend attention to realities like a disturbing predator in the White House, and how that, by force of position, can be doing actual perversion among the entire population. If a kid thinks that the Commander in Chief can do anything to any woman and also, like fictional Bond, shoot anyone on Fifth Avenue without consequence, then this country is far beyond salvation from journal articles.
19
As a system of practical reason, how does this vocabulary and viewpoint improve on a worldview that emphasizes our common humanity, is guided by maxims such as the golden rule and “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” and observes that responsibility and authority must be in harmonious balance?
Do you view Mark Sanford’s extramarital affair (“hiking the Appalachian trail”) as you view The Bridges of Madison County?
A discussion of birth control and abortion follows the phrase “... attempts to control the power of women to give life and death.”
As to birth control, how do we know that prohibiting birth control and forcing young men to fight wars do not proceed from a common source?
As to abortion, does this worldview analyze elective abortion, even after the early stages and in the absence of rape, incest, serious birth defects, or risk to the life or health of the pregnant woman, in the context of power dynamics and the gender wars? If not, please clarify. If so, own it, and we might should talk about that. A question of power?
Do we all have a right to expect straightforward truthful communication in either worldview?
5
I understand that this is a philosophy column, so I should not expect to understand too much. But this is way over the top. And James Bond is a "lackey of the British government". Ha Ha. I should have majored in philosophy. Sounds like so much fun!
23
Mark, it is fun, at least until you notice that they're taking this stuff quite seriously, which is depressing. I lasted about a year in such a major, until I returned to physics, which was less embarrassing. I had at least some dignity.
18
Hail to all of our fine female Bonded and Austin Powered cinematic heroines !
Pussy Galore, Alotta Fagina, Octopussy, Holly Goodhead, etc.
All timeless classics.
28
For heaven’s sake. Apart from the tedious attempt to impose a coinable term on the English language, the “masculine imaginary”, Ms. Cornell’s arguments sound like a dialectician’s attempt to explain away self-perceptions of an empty life but for the satisfactions of an endless kvetch.
I know Clint Eastwood’s movies well. The first cited, the Dirty Harry Callahan vehicle “Sudden Impact” wasn’t much more than a career platform (not a very successful one) for Eastwood’s squeeze of the moment, Sondra Locke. The second, “Bridges of Madison County”, was hardly that for Meryl Streep who didn’t need it, but a jewel of directorial and acting brilliance that permanently dispelled the notion that a Republican, even one as moderate as Eastwood, couldn't also have depths to him not screamingly obvious in the roles he played in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. He’s one of our best directors, and NOBODY would have predicted that from his acting career. Both pictures plumbed the depths of women very effectively, women with all the independent “power, voice, and lives” one could wish for.
But James Bond a “wimp”? Casus Belli! Methinks Ms. Cornell fantasizes about being the strong, self-confidently competent Honor Blackmun (Pussy Galore), who gave off about as much feminist mystique in “Goldfinger” as Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman) did in 1974’s “Young Frankenstein” – only to surrender to Bond’s contemptuous, masculine self-confidence.
In life, even one’s fantasies should be attainable.
36
James Bond is a fictional character created in the early Fifties by Ian Flemming. The films began a decade later, and initially they bore some semblance to the person portrayed in Fleming's books. But as time passed, even such an iconic figure as Bond evolved. The Sean Connery Bond of "Goldfinger" is not the Bond portrayed by Daniel Craig, nor should he be. Were James Bond actually a real person, one assumes he, like us, would have changed, grown, adapted to the advancements of society. We could say the same of other characters of fiction; Madman Don Draper, Dirty Harry Callahan et al. If they didn't change, they'd be irrelevant, like Trump.
Men like Trump, who fancied himself a combination of Hugh Hefner meets James Bond (how do we know? He told us so), are now considered a joke, dinosaurs, fossils from a bygone era. Many men of Trump's generation, and even some younger than him, who aspire to his outdated version of machismo, are stuck in a time warp. They are relics who cannot understand that progress is passing them by. The days of powerful White Men ruling the roost is now laughable, and that reality bothers them greatly. They have been emasculated and they don't like it. But there is absolutely there is nothing they can do about it. And that, is a very good thing.
DD
Manhattan
48
Thoughtful remarks about our sexuality, left wanting as you said, in this 'macho' society of ours where 'some' tend to consider women as objects of pleasure, interchangeable, and as we men age, the pursuit of younger ones to feed our misogynous fantasies of control (abuse). Fortunately, albeit too slow for justice to show, things are changing for the better as women have braved all this by telling us 'Enough already'! How do we recover the eroticism that makes us, sexual beings, find sexual relations pleasurable again, and where the woman-man duality, sexual opposites, becomes fully complementary and consensual to the core? It seems we have to relearn to love, to open up and feel completely vulnerable towards our partner, which may be scarier than anticipated, as we were used to 'being in control'. And yet, trying to lose our ego by becoming one with nature, and with each other, is one of indescribable joy. The question is, can we be redeemed in time, earn our place at the table, and share the rewards as equals, as it should? Love ought to be all encompassing, and our fear of women unfounded, if we share the beauty of life together, as it was always meant to be. Our stupidity in trying to dominate is indeed an unmistakable sign of fear and insecurity that we men should consider a nuisance to be disposed of. Shall we grow up, mature, and enjoy each other, as intended?
6
James Bond doesn’t have time to fall in love. He’s busy saving the world from impending doom.
39
you obviously did not see the recent Casino Royale with daniel craig as bond.
6
In the novel, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he does fall in love and marry, to Contessa Teresa, only to have Ernst Blofeld kill her. I read all of the Bond novels as a young teenager, and still see Bond as dangerous to his enemies yet devilishly romantic with women, fulfillment their own erotic desires, quite risqué at the time.
33
If life, in this case, sexual relations, is so complicated, how can anyone expect the average person to understand and deal with it successfully? Sigmund Freud may have been able to psychoanalyze himself, but the rest of us can't even begin to figure out why we do or say anything; we just do stuff, then, as Nietzsche claims, rationalize it: "I hit her because she deserved it"; "I quit my job because I couldn't take it anymore"; "I hate him because he's mean." Etc.
Moreover, we seem determined; free will is an illusion, according to Sam Harris and others. So while talking about our human condition is very interesting -- all is vanity -- the course of events seems unchangeable: Humans will be human, a rational animal guided by instincts and thoughts that come from god knows where.
We probably were better off in the Garden and living by faith in our feelings. Thinking about them and trying to control them makes us miserable, if more civilized. We are indeed cursed: We can't go back, and moving forward is necessarily painful. Becoming fully aware is to become more confused and makes us confront the fact that universal, sustained happiness is impossible.
6
James Bond is a wimp? Who knew progressives were film critics too. What's the next brilliant insight? The franchise is predominantly a patriarchal power trip that puts down women. Wow! James Bond is a fantasy heroic figure loved by millions of people all over the world...especially working class people...not that should concern the left. Where's the harm? Why do leftists always drags us into culture wars we can't win. Why is the left so self-righteous, denunciatory, & obsessed with trivial issues. This is politically disastrous & just plays into the hands of Fox News. Remember when we stood for the dignity of hard work, family, faith & coming together around basic "kitchen table issues? Sadly, over the past 10 years the DP has abandoned those core values in a desperate attempt to please the strident & disrespectful advocates of the far left, who find it easier to insult mainstream Americans. Progressives never stop mocking these people. You're bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You're bad for speaking the language of micro-aggression, patriarchy, & cultural appropriation. Now you are bad for liking James Bond? Are you kidding me? Democrats can't & won't win over working class swing voters if they persist in ridiculing their cultural values. The coming battle will be between the working class & the leftist elites who purport to posture as their will on earth. That's a fight I will pay good money to see if SKY Fall 2 isn't playing.
73
Two academics having a conversation hardly constitutes "the left" or Democrats or whatever.
10
"Who knew progressives were film critics too."
Cornell is described as an "influential feminist philosopher and ethicist". After ignoring the boasting and bias in that description, the nub is that Cornell is a philosopher, and philosophers love popular culture. See:
* "Introducing philosophy through pop culture : from Socrates to South Park, Hume to House" ed. by Irwin & Johnson.
* "Terminator and philosophy : I'll be back, therefore I am" ed. by Brown & evin S. Decker.
* "Science fiction and philosophy : from time travel to superintelligence" ed. by Schneider.
* "Louis C.K. and philosophy : you don't get to be bored" ed. by Ralkowski.
For more examples, do a web search for "Popular culture and philosophy".
7
Answering all comments. Philosophers love popular culture? I would amend that to academic philosophers love popular culture. Great opportunity for them to teach pop-culturally progressive lectures with syllabi dedicated to Harry Potter, Pokémon Go, Beyoncé...you know the important stuff. Just what the world needs right now. Universities offering courses that turn students into pop-culture scholars. Is this a pathetic joke or what? I guess this is why the majority of people have absolute contempt for the people who teach philosophy. Remember when it was the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Georgetown actually teaches a credit course called Philosophy and Star Trek. And we wonder why student debt is so high. We've really lost our way in academia yes?. And for Ken's comment" Two academics having a conversation hardly constitutes "the left" or Democrats or whatever." That's exactly what it it constitutes... the left wing of the Democrats which is driving the party into the ditch. This toxic thinking finds it's way into speeches, party platforms and a a cacophony of white papers that no one with any common sense ever sees, reads, or listens too. This is a scandal. We should be calling these people out. Too often the public is fed errors, misunderstandings, & fabrications by progressive academics who have an agenda. Enough. When does the James Bond marathon on AMC come on?
6
Wow. Thanks to the Times for sharing this.
2
I am a physician who majored in psychology and I have no idea what these two are talking about. Something about men being terrified of female power and the erotic transformation of women being necessary for something? Does the NYT really think this article is intelligible to any man outside of women's study accademic departments?
One thing I did understand is that the authors don't like men very much. I ask the NYT to print at least one article a year that says maybe, just maybe, there could be one or two decent, kind and strong men out tbere. You could invite Camile Paglia to write it.
120
I do not think women's study academic departments require their articles to be intelligible. I've read texts from their leaders that seem to imply that legibility is a conspiracy of the white patriarchy.
19
I believe men are just as intelligent as women, I'm sure you can understand it if you try.
1
My first task as the new entertainment editor of Raleigh News & Observer was to review Goldfinger. James Bond had no charms for me, and I predicted this movie had no legs. So much for my clairvoyance. This sexist movie series has run its course, I hope.
1
I’m going out on a limb, but I think that pornography was created to make money, not start a communist revolution. Maybe I should read deeper to find Stalin’s funding of the business, and by that I mean the industry.
8
An eye-opening discussion of the weakness concealed by men's apparent power to shape our culture and the laws that govern us.
Professor Cornell's position on one issue that she discusses only briefly, however, remains open to challenge. She treats efforts to limit or prohibit abortion as an example of men's attempts to control a woman's body. I fully agree that this motive helps explain the political right's campaign to ban abortions as well as contraception. But it is unfair to portray all opponents of abortion as champions of male supremacy.
The members of this movement, which after all includes large numbers of women, claim that they seek to protect the lives of unborn children. While in some cases this assertion serves to cloak less defensible motives, it is pernicious to dismiss the arguments of millions of people as if those ideas formed part of a conspiracy to oppress women.
The abortion debate in this country remains deadlocked in part because each side refuses to consider seriously the arguments of their opponents. The "right-to-lifers" dismiss with contempt the demand of women that the government recognize their right to control their own bodies. The latter, in turn, refuse to debate their adversaries' claim that a fetus is a human being.
I belong to the feminist camp on this issue, but not in its disdain for the other side. We need a reasoned debate, not an exchange of insults.
28
@ James Lee You are incorrect when you state that a fetus is a human being. The pregnant girl or woman is the human being in this scenario; the fetus is capable of developing into a human being. That's a crucial distinction. There is no debate among people who understand basic biology.
28
Excellent article! I can relate to one commenter’s point about it being too intellectualized and esoteric to resonate with the average person. But when reading certain parts again I find that watering or dumbing it down would certainly dilute its power.
As a long time educator I feel confident that anyone who is able to read will come away with an understanding of the points made here. And it would and should lead to one seeking out the sources, films and books mentioned by Dr. Cornell.
20
Thoughtful academic conversation between two thoughtful people. And while interesting, would mystify vast majority of people trying to find their way forward in this culture of excessive violence, sexual stimulation, misogyny and confusion about gender etc. Great for Philosophers and academics, how would you translate this to make it accessible to many more?
18
No, don’t dumb it down. Thoughtful, intelligent, analytical, deep is sometimes simply and necessarily inaccessible to some or many. It has already been simplified and greatly abridged to make it into the NYT; this fine article’s just a tempting peep through a keyhole into a vast repository of knowledge and churning thought that cannot be further popularized without it becoming a troll-vulnerable set of tweets and losing its essence and any meaning.
41
Very true, Dan.
My academic background (psychology, sociology, political science) drives my interest in these types of discussions/debates--but I recognize all too well what a massive loud yawn most people would give to the theoretical constructs discussed here.
Maybe what it all comes down to stems from the old Yiddish admonition to be a mensch--take responsibility for your actions, and treat others, no matter what identity they may have, as you would want to be treated, with respect and compassion.
69
Like a professional aerialist with a rookie.
Rookie: Now what do I do?
Aerialist: Let go.
Rookie: But I'll fall.
Aerialist: You'll learn.
Rookie: But I'll be killed.
Aerialist: Something new will be born called Freedom. Pervasive freedom.
I think it is possible to make this clear, and imperative that we should...for all of us.
1