Trad wives, anti-diversity and the future of James Bond: can we ever expect a progressive take on the franchise?

Posted On February 23, 2025February 23, 2025

Recently, everything is starting to feel the same as it used to. Feminism and anti-racism were once seen as the bare minimum requisite for human decency, but now, people on the internet are complaining about the apparent injustice of owning a credit card. The White House is posting ASMR videos of mass deportations, while hate symbols are being sold on T-shirts by celebrities. Democracy is collapsing all around us, and some people have become so burnt out by resistance that they’ve chosen to wholeheartedly embrace their oppression—glamourising old-fashioned values and retreating into right-wing ideology.

Corporations have revealed the shallow intentions behind their so-called progressive values, with companies like Google removing Pride and Black History Month from their calendar and leaning into Trump’s anti-diversity scheme. It’s no longer cool to be kind or even pretend to have liberal leanings. Instead, people are unashamedly expressing bigoted ideas and abandoning the pursuit of equality, leaving us in a precarious and dangerous state.

The James Bond franchise has typically encapsulated the core of many of these dated ideas, existing as a testament to the values of the past and the delusional male fantasy that so many people grew up with. James Bond is irresistible to women, immune to emotional vulnerability and physically indestructible, leaping from crumbling buildings and coming away with less than a scratch before embarking on his next mission. The character was once the ultimate reflection of masculinity, with Bond achieving the standards that were pushed onto many men, expected to be strong and unfeeling with little room to be genuinely human.

However, after Daniel Craig signed on to play the character in 2006, there was a definitive shift in the franchise as it started to move away from these values. Slowly, the franchise evolved with the times as Criag added depth to the previously one-dimensional character that showed the damaging limitations of this ideal. In No Time To Die, the final instalment to this chapter released in 2021, it shows James Bond completely rejecting the image that previously defined him and finally accepting love and vulnerability into his life, with the final shot showing Bond letting go of this life as he sacrifices himself for his newly-discovered family, clutching his daughter’s teddy bear as he says goodbye forever. 

The final shot is surprisingly moving, capturing the end of an era as the franchise seemingly acknowledges the fact that the story is somewhat obsolete within the changing values of a modern world, leaving us on a cliffhanger as the future of Bond remains uncertain. This ending seemed to allude to the fact that if the story was rebooted, then it would stray from the binaries that had previously influenced it, perhaps signifying a finally modern adaptation of the story that would reflect the world we live in now instead of upholding the ideals of the past.

In the years since, fans of the franchise have patiently waited for an update on which actor could reclaim this iconic role, with rumours circulating about everyone from Aaron Taylor Johnson to Regé-Jean Page starring as the secret agent. The Broccoli family have famously maintained creative control over the story since its inception, fiercely protecting the beloved character from the clutches of greedy studios who wanted to squeeze it into their content machine and create an endless slough of spinoffs and money-grabbing sequels. The Broccoli family released a statement that seemingly confirmed the idea that they were exploring the idea of diversifying and opening up the franchise, saying that ‘whiteness was not a prerequisite’ when casting the next James Bond.

However, disaster struck this week in a shock announcement from the British media dynasty that, after long discussions, they will be handing over full creative control of the series to Amazon Studios. Amazon has famously never cared about progressive values and high-quality art, with Bezos viewing filmmaking as little more than a money-making machine that can boost his billions and cement his status as one of the greediest people to ever walk this planet. The fate of the franchise was already treading thin ice, but when combining this with the growing intolerance towards previously ‘modern’ values and forward-thinking, it seems as though after Amazon’s acquisition of the series, any chance of reinvention died with Daniel Craig on that bloody island. 

It’s hard not to suspect that Amazon’s rendition of the secret agent story will regurgitate the troubling ideas that have previously defined the franchise and currently plague each corner of our waking lives. People are once again becoming brainwashed into thinking that women belong in the kitchen and men on the battlefield, and given Amazon’s disregard for substantial, nuanced or creative storytelling, it’s hard to imagine a reboot that will take a risk and stand against these backward concepts.

Amazon’s control over the franchise resembles a sad shift towards increasingly sanitised stories and corporate control over creativity. We are living in a time when we most need bold art to awaken us from the rise of regressive thinking that pushes us towards damaging and restrictive ideas about gender and a wave of hostility towards diversity/inclusion. A modern adaptation of such a widely loved franchise held the potential to advocate for these values and showcase the power of progress and diversity instead of adhering to archaic ideals, proving how antiquated they truly are.

There is no doubt that Amazon’s version of James Bond will not take such a leap, and they will prefer to play it safe and revert to what once was, bringing everyone backwards in the process and reiterating the idea that if the old James Bond is back, then so are the values he represents.

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