The Next James Bond Is You

Spy movies (and fiction) often reflect how we feel about our government and the international order.

James Bond is an anachronism, as many folks have pointed out: a boozing, womanizing, possibly-sociopathic symbol of imperialism, gleefully wrecking his way through a variety of exotic locations.

Apologists insist that Ian Fleming, his literary creator, was a creature of his times; the cinematic incarnation of the character has attempted, with varying degrees of success, to evolve into the mindset of each successive era (Daniel Craig’s version chucked the chain-smoking, and the most recent movies’ scripts frame much of his bad behavior as pathological). But even so, Bond’s “old” DNA remains firmly in place; he’s not going to become a vegan pacifist.

In the early days, Bond was seen as possessor of the moral high ground. “Shaken, not stirred,” Sean Connery murmured in the first movies — a phrase that not only described his martini preference, but the solidifying 1960s super-spy aesthetic: unflappable under fire, emotionally cool, utterly assured of the ethical superiority of his purpose.

By the turn of the century, though, you had to pity Bond’s lack of evolution. While he was off playing with an increasingly ludicrous series of gadgets — invisible cars…