Britt's Daily Heil rant

Britt's Daily Heil rant

Britt Ekland has slammed the decision to make James Bond a dad in No Time To Die

You can read her full tirade here (For Bond Fans Only will not be held accountable for any poor grammar or editing by Daily Mail).

James Bond is many things, but a father? What an absolutely dreadful idea. Unthinkable, really. How would that even work?

Can you imagine him swinging from a helicopter, skiing down a mountainside, rescuing a beautiful girl from being crushed under a car, then heading home to put on his sweatpants and do bath-time?

Can you picture him saying, 'Hello dearie' to his wife, and, 'How is my little girl? Here, I've brought you some Jelly Babies from my trip' to his child? Of course you can't.

The whole idea is hideous and to even start imagining the sort of father Bond would be is to head down a route we should avoid. For a plot involving a child of Bond's to work, he'd either have to be a terrible father, which would not be a good look for our greatest screen hero, or a hands-on dad. I can't decide which option would be more catastrophic.

There are such high expectations about the new Bond film because it has been delayed for so long, but personally, if I look up at that enormous screen and see James Bond pushing a stroller with a child in it I will shout: 'What?!'

There are things you don't want to see, and Bond doing bath-time or changing nappies is up there. The horror of thinking about him getting up at 3am to do a night feed. No, no and no! If Bond is getting up at 3am it has to be to take a call from Q saying that he needs to be on a certain train, and there will be a gun hidden in the next carriage.

How could he even do the school run anyway? A child in the mix would make him a target. People are always plotting to murder him.

He'd be terrible at feeding, too: James Bond doesn't even pour his own coffee, for goodness' sake. He has someone to do it for him.

You are laughing. Of course you are. You see! That's the problem here. The minute you try to imagine James Bond as a father, you have to imagine him in a domestic setting, which you simply can't, because that's not how he was designed.

Because he has a glamorous, exotic life which involves dangling from helicopters and sleeping with legions of beautiful women. Men want to be him because he doesn't have a nine-to-five job and doesn't have to factor in how to do the school pick-up.

Men want to escape their responsibilities, not be reminded of them on screen. James Bond can have the life they can't have, and they can live the dream through him.

Obviously, society has moved on since the days when Ian Fleming created Bond. I am old enough to remember my father reading the books in the 1950s, but I'm not a complete stick-in-the-mud. I have accepted a lot of the changes I have seen in the films since I was a Bond Girl.

We don't have Bond Girls any more — they are women, and multi-layered characters in their own right, not accessories. OK, maybe I am a bit of a stick-in-the-mud on this point: I will always be a Bond Girl, and proud to be so — but that's just me. I can see that for the Bond films to remain fresh and relatable, he has to evolve.

Daniel Craig plays him very differently to his predecessors, and they've been very clever about that. Bond hasn't always treated women well, which isn't acceptable to today's audiences, so maybe it's OK to allow him to be a little nicer and empathetic — while still being devilishly handsome and able to shoot his way out of a burning building. But there should be a limit to it.

James Bond doesn't have a human side, that's not who he is. He is untouchable and that's the attraction. Yes, they did have him marrying at one stage — Diana Rigg married to George Lazenby's Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969 — but she was killed before they'd even gone on their honeymoon.

Ultimately, no one can ever 'get' James Bond, that's what makes him so attractive. He must have no ties, he must be free — to do all the things we can't do — and he must be everyone's fantasy man, for ever.

Copyright © 2021 J W Emery Ltd. All rights reserved.

Joe Emery

Joe is Editor of For Bond Fans Only and a writer by trade. When he's not watching Bond, he can be found listening to The Beatles and worrying about West Ham. You can find him on Twitter @joeemerywrites

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