"...because I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War, who's boyish charms, though wasted on me, obviously appealed to the young lady I sent out to evaluate you."

March 8, 2011 8:12 AM

James Bond star Daniel Craig in drag for International Women's Day. Daniel Craig wears women's clothes for a short film about sexual inequality for International Women's Day, narrated by Judi Dench, who plays M in the 007 films.

"He's bedded, rescued, loved and lost his fair share of women over more than half a century, but has James Bond ever paused to consider the rates of sexual assault of young girls going to school in the developing world?

That's one of a number of startling questions posed by a new short film by the artist and director Sam Taylor-Wood, released to coincide with International Women's Day and starring Bond actors Daniel Craig and Judi Dench." Via: The Guardian

posted by Fizz (56 comments total)

Existing mancrush INCREASING
posted by ORthey at 8:27 AM on March 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

what.
posted by Aizkolari at 8:30 AM on March 8, 2011

Better than I expected, though I thought the addition of Daniel Craig detracted from the facts.
posted by seanyboy at 8:31 AM on March 8, 2011

Welcome to the beefcake.
posted by orme at 8:32 AM on March 8, 2011

He's even hot in a dress.

I did just about manage to absorb the dialogue though. Some of those stats were pretty shocking (e.g. two thirds of the work versus one per cent of property).
posted by londonmark at 8:33 AM on March 8, 2011 [5 favorites]

He's got a license to equalize the discrepancies between genders in deaths-on-the-job and life expectancy, I guess.
posted by codswallop at 8:33 AM on March 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Judy Dench is a badass, but James Bond has a lot of baggage that I think detracted from the message
posted by Blasdelb at 8:33 AM on March 8, 2011

Yeah, count me on Team "I don't understand how or why Daniel Craig standing there looking hot, in full James Bond dress, gets the point across?"
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:33 AM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, count me on Team "I don't understand how or why Daniel Craig standing there looking hot, in full James Bond dress, gets the point across?"

Well, chances are it would not have been posted here on the blue and you'd never have seen it, otherwise. For good or bad, the fact that it was Judi Dench and Craig as Bond in the video will mean it gets far, far more play and publicity.
posted by alaijmw at 8:35 AM on March 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Suprising that Barbara Broccoli was behind this.

I can't imagine George Lucas endorsing a spot that went "Has Indiana Jones ever considered the cultural impoverishment caused by western looting of eastern artifacts?"
posted by Joe Beese at 8:36 AM on March 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

I thought bringing the baggage of James Bond was part of the point, which was to put a man in a woman's position and see the (statistical) effect on his life. That's it's the most manly manliest mantastic man of totally mysoginistic mancake highlighted the distance.
posted by fatbird at 8:37 AM on March 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

...James Bond ever paused to consider the rates of sexual assault of young girls going to school in the developing world?

Since Bond is a well-known misogynist, I think we'd be lucky if he merely failed to think about young school girls.

Yeah, count me on Team "I don't understand how or why Daniel Craig standing there looking hot, in full James Bond dress, gets the point across?"

Because it gets the ad posted to MetaFilter.
posted by DU at 8:37 AM on March 8, 2011

You can focus on how the message gets lost because of the presentation, but sadly, would the message be out there at all if not for the attention grabbing stars/concept/dress.

And while something else might have made for a better fit, it got posted here -- and for a large part, we're the proverbial choir being preached to. Which I never mind, but certainly much less when I get to look at Daniel Craig and listen to Judy Dench.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:43 AM on March 8, 2011

Well, chances are it would not have been posted here on the blue and you'd never have seen it, otherwise.

That's funny, because I'd already seen this elsewhere several times and nearly all the commentary was "wow, he's so cute." Anyway, carry on!
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:50 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, count me on Team "I don't understand how or why Daniel Craig standing there looking hot, in full James Bond dress, gets the point across?"

It's the very subtle (British!) moment where he removes the wig, and then the earrings, with a certain resignation: James Bond is not man enough to be a woman.
posted by availablelight at 8:51 AM on March 8, 2011 [19 favorites]

It's the very subtle (British!) moment where he removes the wig, and then the earrings, with a certain resignation: James Bond is not man enough to be a woman.

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?
posted by Threeway Handshake at 8:53 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Should have linked to http://www.weareequals.org/ for main link and Guardian for the via ... /thosewhousesfilterstosortandsavelinks
posted by mrgrimm at 8:53 AM on March 8, 2011

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?

As long as he takes his skirt off, I don't care.
posted by londonmark at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, count me on Team "I don't understand how or why Daniel Craig standing there looking hot, in full James Bond dress, gets the point across?"
posted by Threeway Handshake at 4:33 PM on March 8

"Hey, did you see this video with James Bond in a dress?"

*watches video*.


Something like that?
posted by Decani at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

He looks a bit like Edie Falco.

Or Sarah Jessica Parker's trans brother.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:55 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Do you expect me to strut?

No, Mr Bond, I expect you to ... actually, yes, that would be pretty cool.
posted by zippy at 8:56 AM on March 8, 2011 [27 favorites]

Yeah, count me on Team "I don't understand how or why Daniel Craig standing there looking hot, in full James Bond dress, gets the point across?"

Tere's definitely a subtext there, aside from the "is the toughest man strong enough to be a woman?" question. Instead of M, consider Bond's relationship with Moneypenny or his hookups, and how he has treated women through his films.

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?

I'm guessing slightly more enlightened, yes. Why not? (I admit I haven't seen any of the Craig Bond films, so I have no clue how the character has evolved since ... Timothy Dalton, who, if I remember, was an evil Bond who hated everyone, including women.)
posted by mrgrimm at 9:01 AM on March 8, 2011

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?

What next movie? The craziest thing about this PSA is that, given MGM's financial woes, this could very well be Craig's last performance as 007.
posted by Ian A.T. at 9:04 AM on March 8, 2011

I'm wondering if this is all a big scam. This was the audition tape that Craig used to snag the 007 role.
posted by Fizz at 9:11 AM on March 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Here's my attempt at understanding it.

James Bond is the epitome of cool. He stands there, looking awesome and quintessentially male. You hear all these facts about how hard women have it, at the same time as you (subconsciously? Unintentionally?) judge James Bond as SuperAwesomePowerfulMaleFigureOfCoolness.

Then he walks away. The facts continue. Suddenly, you see the same person, but this time, specifically not cool. And female. The same person who had just been judging as SuperAwesomePowerfulFigureOfCoolness now seems like WeirdFreakyAwkwardAndRidiculous. And he was previously quintessentially male, and now he's dressed up like a woman.

Your own unintentional, uncontrollable, knee-jerk interpretations of the desirability and awesomeness of James Bond are being used to reinforce the message about how women are under-appreciated. The same person is seen, when presenting himself as male, as powerful and cool and, when presenting himself as female, weird and awkward. Couple this drastic shift in how one views Daniel Craig with facts about how much money women make compared to men, etc, and the audience is put in a position to consider their own visceral responses to others. More than just "Yeah, that statistic is sucky," you get a chance to appreciate, on some level, how your own basic, uncontrollable judgments about men and women are part of the problem.

It's asking you to think about not only the unfairness in society, but the unfairness in even how you, as an individual, think about men or women.

Or, at least, that's the best I can do.
posted by meese at 9:16 AM on March 8, 2011 [8 favorites]

After that scene in Casino Royale, I guess this shouldn't surprise me too much....
posted by schmod at 9:18 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

"There is more to be learned from wearing a dress for a day, than there is from wearing a suit for a lifetime." -Larry Mitchell, The Faggots And Their Friends Between Revolutions
posted by hippybear at 9:19 AM on March 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

He looks pretty shaky walking in those heals.
posted by octothorpe at 9:22 AM on March 8, 2011

That's quite an ugly dress, Mr. Bond. Are you sure you wouldn't want to slip into something more comfortable?
posted by Panjandrum at 9:23 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Has anyone ever changed his/her ways due to a celebrity PSA? Studio wanking.
posted by Ideefixe at 9:25 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's the very subtle (British!) moment where he removes the wig, and then the earrings, with a certain resignation: James Bond is not man enough to be a woman.

I was actually surprised at how affective I found the ad, and I think it's because of Craig's facial expressions. There's a shallow attempt to pretend to know, but the facts go on and the social perversions grow deeper.
posted by cyphill at 9:39 AM on March 8, 2011

To me as an old school Bond fan, in addition to tension/contrast between Bond the hawt and macho and Daniel Craig all resigned and awkward in drag (not tough enough to be a woman), there's also something to be gotten from Dame Judi's voiceover. Dench's M has always been about the tension between Bond as chauvinist/misogynist and Bond as hero. There's something about him standing there in a dress listening to her read him something like the riot act about his gender that was satisfying to me.
posted by immlass at 9:43 AM on March 8, 2011 [9 favorites]

For what James Bond was doing there- he's often, for good or ill, held up to be the ultimate ideal of masculinity. So it's not only meese's point, that he's being used as a symbol that if you want to aspire to "real" manhood, you better sure as hell agree with Mr. Bond because he believes his fellow female British spies deserve equal pay for equal work and maternity leave with an expectation of a return to work afterwards.

Not surprising, public servants of all kinds seem to be in a position to lead the vanguard for equality. ;)
posted by Phalene at 9:43 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

We are equal... unless we're deaf or hard of hearing.

We have to click from the Guardian page (no captioning) through to the source website (no captioning) and then over to YouTube to rely on the well meaning but often gibberish captioning offered by YouTube. Example: "...the somali such a fondness for women". Wot?
posted by ceri richard at 9:49 AM on March 8, 2011 [4 favorites]

Put me firmly in the camp that sees this as being ineffective. Also: worst dressed Bond ever.
posted by bfranklin at 9:53 AM on March 8, 2011

And I mean in the suit. Just realized that could have been taken as meaning in the dress.
posted by bfranklin at 9:53 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?

To be fair the two Craig Bond films have shown a tiny bit of a progression in Bond's attitude towards women, at least recognizing that his cavalier, love-'em-and-leave-'em approach is both emotionally and physically dangerous for the women in question. Quantum of Solace actually featured a strong female character that Bond didn't sleep with. So that's some kind of progress.
posted by jedicus at 9:55 AM on March 8, 2011

Further evidence that he's cool, in addition to this.
posted by you're a kitty! at 10:03 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Has anyone ever changed his/her ways due to a celebrity PSA?

I know people who honestly changed their minds after watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and/or An Inconvenient Truth. Not much difference.

ymmv.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:11 AM on March 8, 2011

Has anyone ever changed his/her ways due to a celebrity PSA? Studio wanking.

Maybe. Seems worth doing if there's the possibility.
posted by josher71 at 10:11 AM on March 8, 2011

Has anyone ever changed his/her ways due to a celebrity PSA?

MC Hammer convinced me not to drop out of high school.
posted by Joe Beese at 10:16 AM on March 8, 2011

I doubt that anyone watches a single PSA and has a road to Damascus moment because of it.

But by speaking truth and continuing to speak it, it enters the public consciousness. Over time, repeated exposure to those truths can make a difference, both in individuals and in society at large.

In 1984, when Zelda Rubenstein did this condom-use awareness poster to help prevent the spread of HIV, it was charming but didn't have much effect. But a full decade or two of similar campaigns, featuring celebrities or not, coming from many different sources, and much of the world knows about using condoms to prevent AIDS. (That they aren't acting on it is something else entirely, but the information is widely known.)

What is the shame here isn't that this is somehow studio wanking. What is the shame is that there aren't a hundred thousand of variations being made and we aren't having our daily lives filled with the facts about how society continues to remain unequal and unjust to half the population on the planet.

One PSA won't change the world. But it's at least a step in the right direction.
posted by hippybear at 10:21 AM on March 8, 2011 [6 favorites]

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?

Might already be? One of the best arguments I've heard about Bond recently is:

"In CASINO ROYALE, James Bond is the Bond girl. Look at the way they even show him emerging from the ocean like Ursula Andress. Sexual torture, too, if less creepy-glam than being stripped and painted gold. Vesper Lynd is Bond: never not in control, never without a plan, seducing to further her goals. She has to die so Bond can become her." - Warren Ellis

posted by mhoye at 10:27 AM on March 8, 2011 [14 favorites]

He looks pretty shaky walking in those heals.
posted by octothorpe at 5:22 PM on March 8

Heal probably get better.
posted by Decani at 10:46 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Has anyone ever changed his/her ways due to a celebrity PSA? Studio wanking.


I stopped being a racist after hearing Ebony and Ivory.
posted by gyc at 10:54 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

Is it sexist that I want to be his Panties? I hope he had lace panties on under that dress, and not just his regular tightie-whities.
posted by QueerAngel28 at 11:14 AM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

What is it about the links that makes this thread an attractive place to share burning desires to have sex with this person?
posted by Blasdelb at 11:54 AM on March 8, 2011

What is it about the links that makes this thread an attractive place to share burning desires to have sex with this person Jazz?

Fixed that for you.
posted by mhoye at 12:44 PM on March 8, 2011

Why does everything have to be a video these days? Just show the pics. You have to wait like a minute to see him in a dress.

Although that said, it's hilarious to see him walk in one. He does look like a woman but he doesn't move like one at all.
posted by delmoi at 1:02 PM on March 8, 2011

Oh I had the sound off by the way. I listened to a little bit and found it pretty 'meh'.
posted by delmoi at 1:05 PM on March 8, 2011

But by speaking truth and continuing to speak it, it enters the public consciousness.

Maybe when movie stars were remote and unapproachable and told us to buy War Bonds, but I think the constant drum-beat by the great 'n' famous to recyle, buy green, be nice to people and stop smoking has had zero effect on the collective consciousness. If anything, I think most people automatically tune out the stars.

If Craig really wants to show that us girls are all cool, he'd demand that Kathryn Bigelow direct the next Bond block-buster.

And two blockbuster docs aren't PSAs. Far from it. There's a momentum to go see a film at a theater, but a PSA--no buzz.
posted by Ideefixe at 1:12 PM on March 8, 2011

I'm wondering if this is all a big scam. This was the audition tape that Craig used to snag the 007 role.

No, I think this was.

Oh ok, so in his next movie, he will be an enlightened feminist?

I hope not but it'd be nice if he at least stopped running through women like kleenex. I've seen Craig's first two outings as Bond and the character does seem to be going in that direction.

What is it about the links that makes this thread an attractive place to share burning desires to have sex with this person?

I know, right?
posted by fuse theorem at 1:30 PM on March 8, 2011

Add me to the group that think both Craig and Dench are ultra cool, not least because they care about this topic enough to work a PSA about it.

But, speaking as a total feminist, I found this PSA downright annoying. Yes, things remain bad for women. Yes, we would view even super male Craig as a lesser being if he were a she. But the preachiness of the message overwhelmed the PSA's effectiveness for me. And if I, the already convinced type person, didn't like it, then to whom will it appeal?
posted by bearwife at 2:42 PM on March 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I thought it was great, mainly because I agree that it was definitely implied that Bond was not strong enough to be a woman in the scene where he removes the wig and earrings. I might also be biased because I would probably believe anything Dame Judi Dench cared to tell me. Something about her voice (and not just the British accent) makes me uncharacteristically credulous.
posted by Go Banana at 4:03 PM on March 8, 2011

And if I, the already convinced type person, didn't like it, then to whom will it appeal?

Apparently some of the people in this thread. I'm a feminist, also already convinced, and I'm one of them.
posted by immlass at 4:08 PM on March 8, 2011

Can anyone provide cites for these statistics?

"Women are responsible for 2/3 of the work done worldwide, yet earn only 10% of the total income and own 1% of the property."

Not that I doubt them, but I'd like something more reliable than hearsay to show to others. I've seen some low-key grumbling about International Women's Day on my Facebook feed, and I'd like to say "hey guys, IWD isn't about bashing men; it's about bringing some attention to facts like these". I don't think the PSA is that great, and I know that these particular Facebook friends would (quite rightly) ask for citations before accepting any statistics at face value.
posted by ixohoxi at 7:32 AM on March 9, 2011