"Shaken, not stirred?" : James Bond, Playboy and changing gender roles in the 1960s

Hines, Claire (2004) "Shaken, not stirred?" : James Bond, Playboy and changing gender roles in the 1960s. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This thesis will investigate the first cycle of Bond films - Dr No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967) - made by producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman and starring Sean Connery in the role of 007, within the framework of contemporary debates about shifting trends in the film industry and changing social attitudes and behaviour. Although this international popularity has been explained by various writers, attention has tended to focus on the durability of the Bond persona, charting the diverse and changing forms in which the figure of 007 has circulated. This synchronic study contextualises the origins of the resilient franchise in the cultural history of the late 1950s and 1960s, with particular reference to the connections made between James Bond and the US lifestyle magazine Playboy, launched in 1953 by Hugh Hefner with a view to re-styling the American man.

I demonstrate that James Bond and Playboy found cultural resonance in both Britain and America during the 1960s by condensing and articulating a range of key cultural preoccupations. The work is organised thematically; the Bond series is located within the context of 1960s British cinema, examining the re-invention of post-war masculinity characteristic of the period. This also establishes the dialogue between British and American cultures to which subsequent chapters refer. James Bond’s association with Playboy during the 1960s is then analysed in detail, moving from its early publication of Ian Fleming’s fiction to explore how Connery’s Bond was seen as expressive of the magazine’s masculine ideal. My work on the Playmate and the Bond girl further examines this playboy version of the sexual revolution, revealing both its pleasures and its inconsistencies. Finally, the cinematic Bond girl is reassessed and sexual liberation. In conclusion, the early Bond films are seen to bring contemporary discourses about the playboy bachelor, the single girl and cultural change together, containing moments wherein these debates were negotiated, but not necessarily settled.

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