The future of actresses in the James Bond franchise

James Bond. 007. What does the franchise represent? Masculinity, nice cars and beautiful women. It’s a typical 'damsel in distress' situation.

Courageous man narrowly escapes death with no regard for his own wellbeing and gets rewarded by sleeping with an erotic, sensual, wide-eyed woman.

It screams ‘male gaze’ cinematography and a ‘girls on film’ scenario. I mean God-forbid if a woman directed one of these films, let alone replaced the iconic 007 himself, right?

Actresses in the James Bond franchise have been subjected to years of sexual exploitation. If you were an actress in the classic Bond films, 9 times out of 10 your character was there solely to be eye-candy. While the newer films are better, with females taking on important roles in MI6 such as Dame Judy Dench as M and a new female 007 agent in No Time to Die, played by Lashana Lynch, - is this too little too late?

In my opinion, yes.

The films have followed their sexist roots for far too long, and it is time for the franchise to start acknowledging powerful female spies whose lives are not a sexual fantasy created by men, but simply work as usual.

I would love nothing more than for the next James Bond to be a woman, but I know that the organisation places more value on revenue than on equality. The level of uproar when the franchise announced that 007 would be a woman is something I will never forget. I would expect this level of disrespect last century, but definitely not in 2021. A female Bond would 'shake' up the franchise, and pour it into the modern-day; something that I am all here for.

People claim that making James Bond a woman would ruin the films, but I say that it is this kind of closeted sexism that is preventing us from moving forward as a society.

As far as we know, the franchise remains unshaken, and most definitely not stirred. Rather a mouldy martini that has been sat at the same bar for the last 58 years.

Edited by Hannah Youds