Tuesday

There is a problem of class in James Bond for modern viewers. For the original audience the upper society that Bond mixed with was exciting, was the ideal to which people aspired. They played in casinos, travelled around the world and stayed in expensive hotels. However, as I was saying to friends before seeing Casino Royale, modern cinema-goers do not aspire to this sort of thing anymore. Celebrities are our idols, not the upper class, and no one goes to casinos. An interesting way of explaining this is by looking at the original novel: James Bond, at one point, eats an avocado. For readers at the time this is quite exotic and expensive - a sign of class. Nowadays, of course, eating an avocado amounts to nothing more than a healthy lifestyle. So, Bond needs to update himself. I think they were halfway there with Casino Royale, but they need to go further. He needs to be working class (they did hint at this in the film), but able to convince everyone he can be anything. He needs to be rough, cheeky, an upstart and a rogue. He needs to be a celebrity himself.