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While watching some James Bond movies, I noticed that James Bond sometimes has borderline behaviour with women (co-workers, bad-guy women, James Bond girls...) and even some behaviour were accepted in old movies they might be judged as sexual aggression or harassment nowadays.

I wonder if any woman has ever pressed charges on him (via HR or legal justice), or threatened to do, or even implied. It could be in any movie and a book backup could be accepted too.

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    While I hope this topic isn't going to explode right into our faces, that's quite an interesting question actually. The sexism and machismo of these films is both an important and equally controversial aspect to them, the development of which in newer films is also quite interesting. Hopefully the answers to this will delve into these topics beyond just listing an example scene or giving a plain "no".
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Jun 21, 2019 at 9:57
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    I never saw the Bond franchise focusing much on the HR angle... That would be interesting to add to the next movie!
    – Luciano
    Jun 21, 2019 at 9:57
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    I know times have moved on a long way since Thunderball et al, but I always got the feeling 'Mish Munnehpenneh' wouldn't have turned down any advances... nor probably have known what 'HR' even meant ;) I do recall Dame Judy taking a much sterner approach to his 'known foibles'.
    – Tetsujin
    Jun 21, 2019 at 11:00

2 Answers 2

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I wonder if any woman has ever pressed charges on him (via HR or legal justice), or threatened to do, or even implied. It could be in any movie and a book backup could be accepted too.

Not really

The closest the movies come to it is M describing Bond as....

“a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War.”

M to Bond (Pierce Brosnan) in Goldeneye

or Vesper Lynd where he's described as

“maladjusted young men” of MI6 “with easy smiles and expensive watches.”

and

“Now, having just met you, I wouldn’t go so far as calling you a cold-hearted bastard… but it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine you think of women as disposable pleasures rather than meaningful pursuits.”

Vesper Lynd to Bond in Casino Royale.

Neither of these are actual action but it's not a stretch to imagine that they could have resulted in a report to HR.


Of course, whether Bond would care, or HR could actually take any action against a highly successful SECRET agent with a Licence to Kill is questionable.

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Most of the initial James Bond movies were written, filmed, and distributed to the theaters during a time in our (social) history when men were often extremely disparaging to women. The very women who spent WWII roofing new homes were told they weren't capable of doing work like that after the war ended. Suddenly restricted to (Secretarial, Clerical, Nursing and Waitressing) "pink collar jobs", and motherhood. Women had been devalued. Fast forward a decade or two and large numbers of those same women began re-entering the work force. The economic forecast had shifted. Our population discovered that dual income families could live a better lifestyle than one income. Women didn't particularly like working all day and coming home to all of their "wifely" duties. And they got vocal about it. Men, mostly, weren't happy about that turn of events.

Enter Dr. No (1962), the first of the James Bond movies, whose smooth talking main character personified wealthy debonair celebrities like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Even though it was all a facade, Bond treated women to glamour and dreams of love. [He should probably get credit for introducing us all to the "one night stand".] It made sense to the story line. He was undercover, unable to form relationships, and many of his conquests were tied to his job. A far cry from misogynistic . None of the films from that era indicated that Bond looked down on women. He seduced them, then ran off to an action scene and killed the bad guys. Gotta love him.

So, no... I don't think it would fly for his character to have charges pressed for his actions. Honestly, I can't think of any part in his films where the women weren't "into" him. But then again... they are just stories with actors/actresses playing parts that we've come to accept.

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