The North Koreans really don’t get it, do they? It seems that some of them, along with associate liberals in Seoul, are protesting against the latest James Bond movie, “Die Another Day.” I am afraid to point out that the North Koreans can’t see a compliment when they get one.
Before anyone threatens torture, I have a confession to make. I fell onto the bedroom sofa the other day, with a heavy viral cold oozing out of every orifice of the body. When all your senses have turned into a gooey jelly, what do you do? Turn on television, of course. The first channel that I could see through my unemotional tears was telecasting a pirated version of the latest Bond film. The sound was a bit incoherent (unless my ears were also blocked), which was a pity, since some of the dialogue in any Bond movie is classy, particularly if its spirit is borrowed from Ian Fleming.
Now, even the spirit of an authentic genius like Fleming is not so expansive as to stretch into 20 movies, each block a bigger buster than before. So clearly some additional spiritual sustenance is required. The makers of the Bond films are more intelligent than they let on. They build on Fleming, in much the way that Fleming built on his own experiences in wartime intelligence work. They decorate the original with the icing of a post-modern imagination; they do not abandon it.
For instance, in deference to gender equality, M, the crusty admiral who was Bond’s chief, has sex-morphed into a woman, although in all fairness I must admit that Dame Judi Dench looks as close to a man as a woman can get. I do not think that this compromise would have appeased Ian Fleming, but since he is dead, we cannot consult him on the matter. In an even more startling transformation, Bond’s salty weapons-instructor and exotic-gadget provider, Q, has been converted into John Cleese. To convert a man into a woman is one thing; but to convert a man into John Cleese is totally wild. It’s post-post-modern.
Since I am into this heavy confessional mode, I will admit that I did not see Q in this particular pirated version, as I caught only the end, but I did see M; and I am glad to report that a sentence that has appeared in every Bond movie is still around (“Any news from James yet?” asks M, as in some faraway land the hero is battling to save his life and the world — the two, naturally, are synonymous). Almost everything one needed to know about “Die Another Day” was there at the time of near-death. A sparkling-teeth villain who found his father unworthy of real hatred against the enemy. A missile frozen midair. Life teetering against death, on a wide-bodied airliner, and this time as a tandem show: Bond vs Cruelly Handsome Villain, and Halle Berry vs Cruelly Luscious Korean (could this be a WWF derivative?). Halle Berry survives fair and square; James, with his traditional bit of last-minute luck. World is saved. Bye, and thanks for your money.
So why are the North Koreans upset? If I were a North Korean, I would deem it an honor to be considered powerful enough to take on the combined forces of the Western world, and then work them up into such a sweat that they had to send for James Bond. It is not easy to wind the superpowers to such a degree that they have to throw in their last resource. Once upon a time, when the Cold War was young and the British still powerful, only the Soviet Union was considered a foe worthy of Bond’s talents. “From Russia With Love” is my preferred classic, and full marks to the hard Soviet spymistress Rosa who almost got James with her poisoned heels. In other adventures, seemingly freelance world-conquerors, like Hugo Drax in “Moonraker,” were really controlled by SMERSH, the Soviet organization created to destroy the West.
Ian Fleming died when the Soviet Union was still able to chill the heart of an Englishman. But as Soviet power began to ebb, the inheritors of the Bond saga needed fresh catchment points for the enemy. Once the Russians became subsistence seekers from the World Bank they could hardly also simultaneously finance Goldfinger. (It may be a coincidence, but Goldfinger’s hatchet man, Oddjob, was a Korean.) An attempt was made to find sufficient villainy in China, but it petered out. China does not quite fit the bill for Bond. It is true that China wants mastery of the world, but it wants to do so by mass-producing discount-price teddy bears in sweat shops. James Bond cannot have a life-and-death struggle with someone stuffing teddy bears. Non-national villains, who were also tried, did not have lasting power. There is no substitute for state power. Bond represents Her Majesty’s Government and Her Majesty’s Uncle Sam. It doesn’t seem quite equal if all he has to do is test wills against someone who represents three fourths of iron ore on the globe.
You see the point, don’t you. You have to be a world-class superpower to frighten Western civilization into summoning James Bond. How many nations can lay claim to such status? This latest Bond is therefore a tribute to North Korea. Hollywood has acknowledged its world-class superpower capabilities.
As an Indian I feel hard done by. Why has India never been considered worthy of taking on the might of the Western powers? Hollywood refuses to take India seriously despite the fact that we have been a nuclear power for 20 years, and one really wonders what more we have to do to enter the script. I mean, I want to be invaded by Halle Berry too.
The only time James Bond came to India, early in the 1990s, in the shape of Roger Moore, he was defeated by an autorickshaw in Udaipur. Disaster on both sides. Bond, because he lost his quip. India, because an imbalanced three-wheeler hurtling past cows through narrow streets became the prevailing symbol of modern Indian technology.
It could be an image problem. It is possible that the Indian looks too friendly, or occasionally too greasy, to be a fiend. Our role-model villains belong to the Narada school of doublespeak, rather than the master-race types. Moreover, our villains would ideally destroy what we cherish most, which is the joint family. The world is too far for us. (Does that sound like the title of a Bond movie? A title does not have to actually mean anything; it only has to sound like a haiku written by someone who does not know Japanese.) Bond’s villains are exceptional scientists who have dedicated their lives to a single purpose, which if it succeeds will shatter the earth, obviously literally. Indian villains, on the other hand, fantasize about shattering the peace between sisters-in-law. This is what makes them ideal material for television soaps, which is not quite the kind of epic Scaramanga or Dr. No would prefer to interfere with. One does not want to get judgmental. The grand and spectacular Moonraker rocket may in fact be less complicated to construct than a subtle and careful quarrel between relatives ogling the dividends in a family business. I was faintly heartened when the villain-son killed the villain-father in “Die Another Day.” This seemed more like the sort of thing that would work on soap. But the guy went back to normal after he had electrocuted his father. There was no remorse. Without remorse you can’t carry the plot forward to the next episode.
It is also true that when we Indians do try and create an ogre of Bondian proportions, we make a terrible mess of it. Mogambo would be laughed out of the hall at any serious conference of world-destroyers, unless someone hired him as a court jester. Hollywood could easily be deterred from basing the next Bond film in India by the thought that it might have to offer Amrish Puri the chance to demolish the known world.
India’s loss has been North Korea’s gain.
Now that my cold has improved a bit, I can’t help wondering what the North Koreans are actually protesting about. Do they think WTO will never let them in because they were so villainous in a Bond movie? Or that large parts of Sudan, which never suspected them of having nuclear weapons, will now break relations with Pyongyang? Relax, pal. It’s fun. And it’s better to be a villain than to be ignored. Ask me. I’m an Indian.
Arab News Opinion 22 December 2002
