Unit 11: Essay

Should James Bond be a Woman?

Within this essay I will be exploring the debate around whether a franchises' main character can be changed when being adapted for the screen. I will be looking at a variety of examples including the debate of whether the character 'James Bond' should always be cast as a white male. Another case I shall discuss is the predicament that Scarlett Johansson found herself in when withdrawing from a transgender role.

The first case study I shall be exploring is the Scarlett Johansson situation. Scarlett Johansson, most known for her role in 'The Avengers' as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow had withdrawn from a role in the upcoming movie 'Rub and Tug'. She had the role of the transgender male Dante Gill a.k.a Tex. The movie was based on a true film about how he ran a string of massage parlors in the 1970s and 80s which became fronts for prostitute dens. The reason Scarlett Johansson withdrew from the role is because of the backlash that she received from people, mostly from transgender actors. Some people have argued that casting a non-transgender to play a transgender role is offensive but others say the best actor should be prioritized over them being transgender. Transgender actress Trace Lysette says that Scarlett Johansson stepping down was a move in the right direction as she also believes that non-transgenders shouldn't play transgender roles. She said that she hoped a transgender man plays the role like intended.                                     
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/movies/scarlett-johansson-rub-and-tug-transgender.html


Another case study that is slightly different is the controversy that was caused by actress Noma Dumezweni, who is black, was cast as Hermoine Granger in the theatrical adaptation of Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. Even though she had previously won awards for her acting some fans objected her being casted and say that the characters identity has been changed. The reason this case study interested me a lot is because it picks up on some of the most debatable points of my subject point. The author of any book has created an identity for their characters so why should it change when being adapted. Although in this case the author of Harry Potter, J.K Rowling hadn't specified a specific race for Hermoine I think the fans were mostly objecting because of the previous Hermoine Granger being so prominent on screen and now she had become part of Hermoine's identity. Emma Watson played Hermoine Granger in all the Harry Potter movies from 2001 till 2011. So for the fans to see a main character that a actress has played for 10 years change race is maybe something that they weren't expecting since they had become so familiar with Emma Watson portraying her. You could also argue that the main reason people adapting books to screen don't change any aspect of the character is not just to keep it accurate but so the fans of that book are not angry and they do not tarnish the reputation of the book.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-07/new-harry-potter-play-causes-excitement-and-controversy


A case that also interested me was the case where books called 'Witcher' was being developed into a show by Lauren S. Hissrich. The show-runner had cast a main character Ciri who was originally a white woman in the books and in the video game the same. So you can imagine the shock from the loyal fans when the actress casted to play the originally white female character is Asian. Some could see this as racism but the real reason that this casting angered the fans is that they had a real commitment to the story and to see someone just disregard their commitment, they felt disrespected as fans. The backlash was so bad that the show-runner Lauren S. Hissrich coming off of twitter, which is where most of the backlash came from. This brings me to the point of this subject that the fans are the most important factor of these cases. The fans are the ones who have fell in love with the stories of their favorite characters and for them to hear that it's being changed from what they are used to can cause backlash as we've seen in some of these cases. Most cases of casting backlash is caused by the actor/actress that has been casted not suiting or matching a character or real life persons description based on the fact that fictional created characters when being adapted to screen change or the fact that an actor/actress playing a well known public figure who has since past and not being remotely connected to them in terms of their identity. This leads me on to my next case study.
https://www.themarysue.com/the-witcher-ciri-backlash/


The case study I will discuss next is the case where Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson received backlash for casting himself in the upcoming 'John Henry and The Statesman' as John Henry himself. He received massive backlash for not casting an actual African American to play the role of John Henry as John Henry was African American himself. John Henry worked as a steel-driving man, a man who's job it was to hammer a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives. According to legend he died racing a steam-powered rock drilling machine . A race that he won. The main reason Dwayne gave for casting himself as John Henry is that he was excited to play his childhood hero.  Most were disappointed to not see a dark skinned black man play a dark skinned black man who worked himself to death. In this case the main reason it stood out to me is that it was quite different to the other ones in the fact that the fans or public were showing discontent not because the wrong actor was casted to play a long lived favorite character of theirs from a book but they are discontent with the accuracy of the casting. I think that in some cases characters should be cast accurately to their race but only when it's a true story or a film/series based on a real person. It's then that it is important to show who they really are.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dwayne-johnson-faces-backlash-after-casting-himself-as-john-henry-in-new-netflix-movie/



The main case study of this essay is the title of this essay. Should James Bond be a woman? James Bond is the main character in the book series 'James Bond' written by Ian Fleming. The first James Bond novel appeared in 1953 'Casino Royale' and have since then been adapted into films, the most recent being 'Spectre' which starred Daniel Craig as James Bond. Since this franchise has been around for so long it makes sense that hardcore fans of the franchise will be frustrated at the fact that their favorite main character's gender will be changed the next time they see them. A particular fan of the franchise Chips O'Toole wrote an online article about the situation arguing that a female playing a Bond spy is just a way of getting a woman into a position of empowerment by giving them a big roll on the big screen where in fact he sees it as bastardizing a traditional and classic character dating back more than half a century ago. Even Academy Award-winning Rachel Weizs, who is also married to Daniel Craig, came out and pointed out that Ian Fleming had devoted a lot of time to create this character and how he is particularly male so why would they try and jump on the back of the fame of James Bond rather than trying to create something new for a female actress to be. Fans of James Bond particularly point out the fact that changing his gender to female takes away a lot of things that makes James Bond a character they love, like how he is a womanizer or an awesome spy. Some say it's a great idea to have a female spy similar to bond, but to make her own standalone series instead of leeching off of the success of Bond already.
https://www.dmarge.com/2018/05/female-james-bond.html


Overall in my opinion I feel that fan adored characters from established franchises, books or films can be changed but only in the sense where the whole character has been changed. For example changing the original spider-man (Peter Parker) to a new spider-man (Miles Morales). In this case they changed the character but they made a new one instead of the character being very similar to the other. They have similarities but they are not the same in ways where the audience would be upset. Also when it comes to casting I feel that if you are going to cast a character completely different to how they are written then it would only make sense to do that to the other characters in the story, otherwise there's only one character that has changed and the others are all the same instead of all the characters changing then we know the story has changed in some way as all the characters are different in some way.