A Hero's Helpers

James Bond is a character of prodigious charm and wit, a man that can rely on only these traits to carry the day. Yet, for all of his panache and moxy, Bond still has a Q department to lend a hand. Steven L. Goldman asserts in “Images of Technology in Popular Films”, that “In the Bond series, victory is never determined by the super-duper gadgetry with which Bond is invariably invested” (279). True, Bond must be stripped of his gadgets and gizmos, as he is in “Goldfinger” and matched against the arch villain, to show his true abilities. But the use of the gadgets should not be so easily shrugged off. They are the aid to the hero of the story, just as so many heroes have been helped throughout the ages.
Q represents a significant character in the mythos of the hero adventure. In folk narrative, a supernatural helper typically comes to the aid of the hero. “The hero to whom such a helper appears is typically one who has responded to the call” (Hero, pg. 61). Since Bond has hailed the call for Queen and country, help will be provided.
According to Joseph Campbell, the “hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself” (Power of Myth, 151). By this definition, James Bond is definitely a hero. He has given up much of his personal life to ‘the job’, as he calls it, and has lost many things because of it, as well. In the end, it is his devotion to ‘the job’ that gets him back to it. Not until he is put on another assignment does he get over the death of his wife in “You Only Live Twice,” for instance.
One particular scene comes to mind, one from “You Only Live Twice,” in which Bond is piloting Little Nellie, a small hand-built gyrocopter through the airspace above a mostly unpopulated island. Suddenly, the air is filled with helicopters on the attack. Double-0 Seven is able to defeat the invading helicopters with the much smaller and awkward looking Little Nellie, presumably because it is so soundly engineered and equipped, and because he is James Bond. The gizmos he is entrusted with do not bring final victory to the story, but they do keep the hero, Bond, alive long enough to save the world.
Q Branch is able to channel the creative energy of their engineers into a channel that is making the world a safer place. This avenue is a way for a capitalist society to make viable gains in the fight against evil. In this light, Q Branch is in contrast with Goldman, when he states:
Even as their technical knowledge increased in sophistication, and even as that knowledge became increasingly indispensable to the conduct of industrial capitalism, engineers individually and as groups held less and less power over the conduct, policies, and values of the industrial enterprises made possible by their expertise. (Goldman 283)
The operators of the government organization of MI-6 have seen fit to produce a branch that will help its agents in their most dire of needs, when it may be quite literally the agent against the world.


Works Cited
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: Joseph Campbell Foundation, 2008
Campbell, Joseph, and Bill Moyers. The Power of Myth. New York: Random House, 1988.
Fleming, Ian. You Only Live Twice. New York: Penguin Books, 1964.
“Goldfinger.” Dir. Guy Hamilton. Perf. Sean Connery. 9 January 1965
Goldman, Steven L. Images of Technology in Popular Films: Discussion and Filmography. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Summer, 1989), pp.275-301. 23 March 2009.

Presentation: Cold War Bond

Our group presentation is on the links between the Cold War Era and James Bond. Temporally and aesthetically the two match. At the core of the James Bond story is a fight between good and evil, where the good and the evil are painted both by the perceptions of the author and the perceptions of the reading public. If not for the views of the public at the time, James Bond could not have existed with such success. Our presentation about all we could fit in to a thirty-minute presentation about these topics and others that derive from these basic theses.
What I have done in the group is attempt to paint a picture of what the Soviets (Russians) are and what the perception of them was. Much of what we are taught in schools or in the movies is either exaggerated or completely untrue. Much like what happened to the Germans after Hitler and the Nazis, the Russian people were held to believe in all the doctrines and dogmas of their leaders. This just is not true. Fear held them under the control of the leading ranks, and dissension against the upper echelon meant interrogation for you, sometimes for those around you, time in the camps (Gulag), and possibly death. “Suddenly she remembered. What about the spoon she had stolen? Was it that? Government property!” (Pg. 71) Here Tatiana is trying to figure out why she has been summoned to the apartment of the head of the Department of Interrogation and Execution, or referred to by her as the Department of Torture and Death.
The Soviets instituted a program of propaganda to help prop up the legitimacy of their leaders beliefs. I have brought in some examples of this, mostly from World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets and now Russians refer to it. As a people, the Soviets are constantly portrayed as the enemy, and I think this is key to the James Bond/ Cold War connection. The stories play up the fact that the Russians are evil. “The are hard people. With them, what you don’t get from strength, you won’t get from mercy. They are all the same, the Russians.” (Pg. 176) Not only are the Russians demonized, but they are all lumped together, removing individuals from the equation.
The Russians were made to play a part in the Cold War Era. Not to say that all of the information is dishonest and untrue, but more designed to illicit a certain reaction. The Terrors and the Five Year Plans and the Gulag are all true, but they were actions taken against the people of the Soviet states, not designed by them. The leaders terrorized them.
Work Cited
Fleming, Ian. From Russia with Love. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.