All I Want For Christmas Is…A Dress

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About a month ago I was in a shop with a friend waiting for her to return a dress. Somewhat curious I asked one of the staff what dress size they thought I might be. A 10 as it turns out. Still curious I thought, sod it, I’ll just try one on. So I did and I liked it and so did my friend. Then a little while after that I found myself trying another dress on and this time I shared the picture on Facebook and it went down well – y’know, plenty of likes and comments (the real stuff of self-affirmation). And now all I want from Father Christmas is a dress.

So why do I, as a guy, want to get a dress? Predominantly because I think life is too short not to. Dresses are brilliant and far more interesting than the often monochrome array of clothes on offer for men. I wore dresses when I little, as part of dressing up, and back then no one batted an eyelid. But then there came an age when I stopped wearing dresses and stuck to trousers and grey t-shirts  – in other words I adopted normalised masculinity and the idea of breaking this norm became increasingly hard to imagine. At school it didn’t even occur to me to wear a dress and if I had, imagine the ridicule, bullying and how stupid I’d look. Someone born with a penis, testicles and presumably a Y chromosome isn’t supposed to wear skirts after all.

But is that really it? A doctor saw my penis at birth and designated me a man and because of that I was put in certain clothes, certain schools and granted certain privileges. So many expectations and assumptions were attached to me just because I was a boy, including what clothes I should and should not wear. But I’m a little older now and less fearful of bullies (because I actually get to choose who I hang out with) and better at interrogating the expectations that others have of me, so maybe I can finally get that dress. Add to this what the sales assistant said to me as I asked for their opinion on the second dress I tried on – they said there are more important things to be worrying about at the moment than whether some random guy is wearing a dress. And I agreed. Even if other people do find it weird, if I look good in it, then why not!

And that’s really the main reason I want to get a dress for Christmas, because it suits me. I’m not making a comment about my gender (that’s for a different blog post) and I’m not trying to parody what it means to be a woman by wearing clothes that are typically sold to women. No. I just want to wear clothes that I like and it’s a sad state of affairs if other people have a problem with that. But it’s their problem, not mine. What we wear is a big deal and we express ourselves through our fashion but that still doesn’t mean we can be reduced to our clothes, there’s so much more to people than that, and nor should it mean that little boys who like to wear dresses should stop having to wear them because others can be too close-minded. Of course, there’s more to this than style, there are bigger questions to be asked of gender identities, roles and norms; the gender binary itself and what biological sex really is. But for now all I want is for Father Christmas to give me that dress and not another lump of coal.

Katniss v. Christmas

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You’re just your typical District 12 young woman, hanging out and shooting pigeon with your bow and arrow. Life’s tough and you work hard to get by but once in a while you’re given the gift of a lifetime – the chance to get your hands on the ultimate prize. So off you zoom and soon it’s showtime…

You walk into a large arena – it’s smelly, noisy and stuffy. There are other people nearby, you can see them and whilst they look friendly enough, you know you can’t trust them. These people will stab you in the back and step over your dead body to get what they want. You do your best to avoid eye contact and think of the prize. Ahead, not too far from anyone, is a large array of exciting, shiny objects. Some are big and pointy, others are small and discreet, lots are familiar but plenty are new and intriguing. You want them, you really want them. The catch – so does everybody else.

Game on! Everyone rushes forward in a crowded melee. People shove into you, try to trip you up, push you over as you all run for the scarce goods. It gets hot and frightening, you want to leave, but you can’t. Unseen security cameras are tracking your every move and making sure you don’t misbehave, if you do, alarms will go off and hungry dogs will be sent to get you. A big wall surrounds the arena – keeping any old riff-raff out but keeping you in. So you can’t give up, you keep running, eye on the prize and…YES…you’ve got it, as you grab the latest piece of kitchen ware, garden equipment or DIY tool (all handy murder weapons amongst other things). But the pushing and shoving continues, if anything it’s getting worse because people are armed, they’ve got what they came for and now all they want to do is get the hell out of there. Only one will make it home, forever changed and forever scared by the things they had to do to survive the arena.

So, just your typical Black Friday really…

Love (Is) Actually (For Rich White Men)

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I sat down to watch Love Actually last night, one of my favourite Christmas movies – y’know, the one where Hugh Grant plays the bumbly prime minister, Colin Firth plays some bumbly writer, Keira Knightley smiles a lot and a whole host of other famous British actors don’t deviate from their usual type-castings. All wholesome, British fun. At least that’s what I used to think but since then I’ve read Judith Butler and generally become more aware of the gross inequality in this country and the many problems of patriarchy. So, this year, I saw Love Actually a little differently and came to realise that it’s basically about rich, white men getting what they want. Spoilers ensue.

For starters, three of the central relationships are about middle-aged men with power (i.e. with important jobs – Alan Rickman (aka Snape) plays the CEO of a charity, Hugh Grant the PM and Colin Firth a wealthy writer) who attract much younger, women of ‘lower status’ – Snape’s secretary, the PM’s Cockney, ‘salt-of-the-earth’ type maid (played by Martine McCutcheon) and Firth’s Portuguese cleaner. The women go out of their way to attract the men whilst the guys just bumble around getting what they want without even trying. As for woman of power in the film…well, there aren’t m/any. Sure, there are plenty of female secretaries, there’s a put-upon wife (played magnificently by Emma Thompson), there’s a dead wife, there’s a nasty, younger wife who cheats on her husband (boo, we’re not supposed to like her), and a blushing bride (Knightley) but there aren’t many inspiring roles for women in this film. Add to that the often abysmal script that many brilliant female actors are forced to speak – Snape’s secretary tempts him to cheat on his wife with her saying cringe-worthy things about “dark corners” as she spreads her legs. She’s also forced to wear devil horns to the office party as women are literally demonised in this film. At least Emma Thompson gets to speak up for herself at the end after a bit of Oscar-worthy acting to the tunes of Joni Mitchell (see below) but I still feel Snape’s apology isn’t sincere enough.

Then there are the people of colour in the film, or lack of them. We’ve got a black DJ (who’s a joke), a not particularly nice black secretary (who is also forced to serve Grant’s PM), a black best friend (who gets the odd token line and manages to defy the laws of physics by being in two places at once) and a black husband (who plays second fiddle to Keira Knightley and that random, white guy from Teachers who is secretly in love with her, cue that awful scene in which it takes Knightley’s character far too long to figure out the Teachers guy is some weirdo who fantasises about her a little too much). But is any substantial role given to a person of colour…no. As for trans and queer characters – well, Emma Thompson makes a joke about a Barbie doll that looks like a transvestite and a few people are asked if they’re gay but then quickly and vehemently deny it. So zero points on the queer front.

And then there’s Colin Frissell – a young, bumbly white guy who never has much luck with the ladies. Perhaps because he calls women he doesn’t know beautiful and is generally inappropriate in the way he talks with women. We’re supposed to like him and his goofy antics but really his attitudes and behaviour are dire. But then he flies off to America and ends up with not one but three (maybe even four) busty American women who, thanks to the stellar script, are complete idiots. So, if at first you don’t succeed lads, just keep going until women relent. Oh, and there’s that plot line about Bilbo Baggins doing nude scenes with Tracey of Gavin & Tracey fame and naturally we get to see her breasts a lot but do we get to see his penis as a bit of nudity parity…nope. I’ve always wondered what a hobbit penis would look like.

As for the other plot lines, there’s one about a father (Liam Neeson) and son which would have been better if Neeson got to shoot some people; a nice enough bromance between an aging, male rock star and his male manager; and quite a sad office romance between an American woman and some French male model. And after all that what’s the moral of this heartwarming Yuletide story – if you want to live in London and fall in love you basically have to be rich, white and male. Happy Christmas.

My favourite scene…Emma Thompson capturing the MAMMOTH emotional repression and inability to communicate of the upper middle classes perfectly. She thought he was going to get her a necklace but he gave that to the nasty, devil secretary instead. Just watch as she tries to hold back those tears and maintain a stiff upper lip in front of the kids!

Another COP Out: Have We Run Out of Time?

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The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) happened in Paris last week as representatives from all the countries of the world came together to try and save it (y’know, climate change, carbon emissions etc). The results were predictably disappointing especially as the deal that 195 countries negotiated was voluntary – so, each country can say it will reduce emissions but there are no legal mechanisms in place to actually make them do it. An incentive to cut emissions? Cut corners more like. Now, before I bore you with another blog on why COP21 was such a cop-out I thought I’d get a little philosophical and write about time instead (that’s right, the stuff on clocks).

Back in 1992 the Rio Earth Summit (which got the COPs rolling) set out “to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. 20 years later, the clock’s still ticking, and what with another warmest year on record and a booming fossil fuel industry it kinda looks like we’ve failed. Or maybe some good will come out of the COP21 deal (or should that be “deal”) and there might be just enough time to change things. Or maybe it really is too late and all the deadlines have passed (goodbye Arctic, hello defrosting methane).

Well, I don’t like deadlines. Not only is the word ‘dead’ in them but they’re so pressureful – all that rushing about having to appear busy and that false sense of achievement once I’ve reached one only for another to appear. All that time slipping through my fingers. And maybe it’s not just deadlines that I don’t like but time itself. All those little lines etched on a clock face passing swiftly by, those digits on my Apple watch silently ticking, serving only to remind me that time doesn’t stand still for anyone, not even me (the cheek!). And when it comes to saving the planet, is it too late, have we run out of time?

Or maybe one could argue that we’ve never had enough time anyway – from the moment we set foot on the planet humans have gone about thinking up increasingly inventive ways to inflict violence on each other culminating in a war that will take down our planet as well as our enemies. Maybe our minutes were always numbered from the get go. Or maybe the time we tell is arbitrary – who gets to decide the time when something becomes a problem (why did it take until 1992 to start talking about climate change?), who sets the deadline, who watches the clock and who, if anyone, actually holds anyone to account if nothing has been done by zero hour? Is it a wealthy Western nation that hasn’t really had to experience the brunt of climate change or is it a small island state that faces submergence or someone who has struggled through desertification, increasingly extreme weather patterns and dislocation? Sure, some of us still have time but for many people it ran out long ago. Perhaps all this time telling is just arbitrary anyway.

But if you’re one of those people who really needs a deadline otherwise you won’t even get out of bed in the morning then you can have one, if you must, but not for me. I think caring for others and the planet makes sense without a ticking clock, it’s just a shame it doesn’t make sense to globalised business, the arms trade and belligerent nation states (and belligerent, aspiring nation states). We either ran out of time a long time ago or maybe we never had enough in the first place or maybe time is just a number, a number invented by humans to help us navigate the spaces in between day and night. Either way it’s still a great idea to be nice to one another, to cut down on meat consumption and start sticking it to the globalised military-industrial complex. We can be 100% renewably powered, we can keep fossil fuels in the ground and we can all get on. And there’s no time to waste because there’s no time anyway, so game on. Meanwhile, here’s Brandalism making poster-based mischief in Paris the other week as they brew up a mug of ‘say-it-like-it-is’…

We’ll Need More Than A Few Good Men

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“You want the truth?” asks Colonel Jessop, head of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and stupendously played by Jack Nicholson, at the iconic climax of the film A Few Good Men. “You can’t handle the truth” (big spoilers coming fyi). He then proceeds to tell the film’s hero Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) why – because America needs the Marines and America needs these Marines to be brutally trained to obey orders and if it just so happens that one of these marines turns out to be a pretty poor soldier and is accidentally killed when some of his fellow Marines try and teach him a non-leathal lesson (oops, spoilers), then that’s probably a good thing for national defence because that Marine was weak anyway. “We live in a world that has walls,” says Jessop,  “And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.” Well perhaps this is the truth, at least for the likes of Colonel Jessop and those who like walls, but as Britain joins the bombing of Syria I don’t think this can be the only truth.

The truth is bigger than bombs and men with guns, as big as those things are, because the truth also concerns a globalised system of commerce, finance, fossil fuels, arms, the enforcement of debt, an addiction to consumerism and, amongst many other things, a totally unsustainable dependence on economic growth.  The truth, in other words, is bigger than the false choice of ‘to bomb or not to bomb’, that really isn’t the only question. Having said this I could now write another blog on why bombing Syria is a terrible idea – how innocent people will die in Syria due to British attacks just as innocent people have died in Sana’a, Khan Bani Saad and Paris, due to the attacks of ISIS. But in these brief paragraphs that’s not what I want to write about, what I want to write about is how, now more than ever, we’re going to need a lot of imagination.

That globalised system of commerce, finance, fossil fuels, arms, debt, consumerism and economic growth is going to need an exceptionally imaginative response because we’re tearing each other and the world apart trying to keep this system alive. For starters, this response will include the prevention of anti-democratic trade deals (Stop TTIP to begin with), ethical banking (Triodos perhaps), lots of renewable energy (ecotricity maybe), unlitaral demilitarisation (certainly CND, amongst others), something beyond debt based economics (David Graeber makes a good point or two), consuming less stuff (the Story of Stuff has some tips) but being happier for it (Action For Happiness is nice) and more than just absolute or relative decoupling between economic growth and resource usage but transcendence of the whole growth paradigm anyway (here’s Tim Jackson with plenty of great ideas about ensuring Prosperity Without Growth).

The point I’m trying to make is that so many of the answers we’re looking for, or at least the possibilities of answers, already exist and are already happening. The alternatives are many, diverse and dispersed, and I reckon every criticism we make against the system needs to be allied with a suggestion of how we can get closer to peace (just pick your favourite from the list above or go find a new one). So Colonel Jessop’s truth only applies if our priority is maintaining the supremacy and walls of the capitalist, military-industrial complex, whereas if we want something different then those walls will need to come tumbling down to let a much bigger truth in.

London Spy: London Spoilers

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London Spy – a new 5 part series on BBC 2 stars Ben Whishaw. He plays Danny, a young guy living in London. He goes out one night, takes a load of drugs, goes clubbing and then the following morning bumps into an attractive jogger on Vauxhall bridge called Alex. To cut a long story short: they fall in love, have sex, Alex turns out to be a spy, then gets killed (stuffed in a trunk in an attic full of BDSM kit) and Danny is framed for the murder. Cue dim lighting, an untrustworthy ensemble cast and bucketfuls of suspicious glances, it’s all classic spy fare…or is it?

There’s a lot resting on London Spy (LS) because it’s the first TV spy thriller to be populated by predominantly gay characters. Danny is gay, Alex is/was gay (can we really be sure his was the body in the trunk!?) and Danny’s older male friend, Scottie, is gay. Then there’s the nasty drug dealer played by Mark Gatiss who addicts younger men to drugs and sleeps with them. And Edward Fox plays an unfriendly spy master who may well also be gay. Add to this themes of drug addiction, unsympathetic parents, lonely old men (Scottie) falling for disinterested younger men (Danny), institutionalised homophobia, HIV, prostitution, oh, and murder, and the picture LS paints of gay life in London is pretty grim. But we like a bit of grim, don’t we? I mean the Hunger Games is pretty grim. Perhaps these issues add a cold slap of gritty realism to LS and ground it in a seedy underworld that’s so fascinating to watch. But I think LS is up against a bigger problem than bodies in trunks.

Homophobia. Stories about straight men doing straight things and blowing stuff up have populated spy thrillers for decades. Heterosexuality saturates the genre and is considered normal which is why we would tend not to watch James Bond or a Le Carre as a straight film, just a film. However, gay characters going about doing gay things isn’t normal and so we watch them differently, because we’ve been conditioned to see gay characters as ‘other’. It was fellow blogger, Alex Gabriel, who reminded me of this (via Twitter). He offered numerous interpretations for why LS is so bleak: within the story itself we witness how the British spy establishment treats gay spies and gay patsies – very, very badly. In essence the establishment machine (think MI6, Whitehall & Big Money) will crush anyone it needs to and use whatever means necessary to frame them (e.g. attics full of sex toys, drugs and bondage gear – all of Danny’s past). This is a world where gay people are killed, they don’t come back to life in twists at the end (although I still think Alex might), and their lives are grim and unhappy. Meanwhile, in the non-fictional world of spy thrillers the fact that LS is so unique just reminds us how engrained and seemingly normalised the white, straight, male is in so much popular culture, especially the spy genre.

So, LS is pushing the boat out, populating a notoriously straight genre with more queer characters and reminding us that queer, spy lives can be just as dark as those of straight spies. Unfortunately though, whilst I still want to know what happens, I’m not sure LS is actually that good. Despite the title I just don’t find it that spy-y. Sure, Danny is a civilian caught up in a spider’s web of international political intrigue and corruption but it seems as if the creators of LS have watched a lot of spy programmes but not necessarily done much spying themselves (or at least interviewed spies). A lot of the time the intrigue comes from the fact that rooms aren’t very well-lit and no one (even innocent housekeepers) actually says anything explicitly, it’s all riddles and enigmas. Sure, this is the stuff of spy drama but sometimes it just seems as if they’re trying to stretch out a very thin story, do we really need 5 hours of Ben Whishaw looking forlorn and put-upon in dimly lit rooms? Hopefully though LS will open up the door for more queer spies and mysteries (ideally better ones).

What Morse And Lewis Teach Us About Love (Spoilers)

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After ten years the ITV murder mystery series Lewis finally came to an end and it has an important lesson to teach us about love. But to understand this we must go back to 1987 when the Inspector Morse series began.

Morse was a grumpy old man who liked classical music and alcohol, Lewis was his Geordie side kick who liked technology and his family. They worked at the Thames Valley Police and went around Oxford solving odd and overly academic murders. The relationship was often fraught but they always managed to catch the killer. This went on for 18 years until Morse died in the very final episode, The Remoserful Day. He’d suffered a huge heart attack and on his hospital deathbed he passed away. His final words to his boss, Chief Superintendent Strange, were “thank Lewis for me.” And so, after all that time, after all the arguments, the casual insults and the impatience it turns out that Morse was hugely indebted to his sidekick. Morse’s final moment captured his curmudgeonly character perfectly, the sort of man who could never quite admit to vulnerability or love, not even to those closest to him, and so he died without really having had the chance to thank those closest to him.

Five years later the Lewis series began. By this time Lewis had tragically lost his wife in a hit and run accident making him far grumpier and lonelier (like Morse). He also managed to lose his tech savinness (a little inconsistency of plot here perhaps). Fortunately though when it came to Lewis’ ending this year his was not quite as fatal as Morse’s. Instead he was faced with a choice: go on a six month trip to new Zealand with his new partner Laura Hobson (a pathologist who after many series Lewis finally hooked up with) or stay in Oxford working for the police to prevent them forgetting him and not renewing his contract. Lewis, after much agonising, opted for the latter. He feared losing purpose without a life dedicated to policing and would prefer to die on the job, much like his previous boss. However, he was forced to reconsider when his sidekick, Hathaway (now a Detective Inspector) said this:

“Do you love Laura? [dramatic pause] Then go. Show her that you love her, don’t assume that she knows. People make that assumption and it’s a mistake. Still, your decision.”

And so Lewis rethinks and decides to go abroad with the love of his life (and it turns out that he doesn’t have to worry about losing his job because Chief Superintendent Moody is very impressed at Lewis’ solving of the final case – something highly forgettable about parcel bombs, mercury and not particularly credible motives). So what does this teach us? That words and deeds are funny things. In Morse’s dying words he revealed something he had never really said before, that he cared deeply for Lewis. Whereas, it’s not words that prove Lewis loves Hobson, it’s his decision to go away with her. And we need both – we need both words and deeds to prove to those we love that indeed we love them. Sometimes actions, even though they’re enacted, need words to make them explicit, and sometimes words, however passionately said, need actions too. And the final lesson is that life is short, especially if you live in Oxford where people are grueseomely murdered on a regular basis. So don’t make Morse’s mistake and learn from Lewis instead – tell those you love that you love them and show ’em too. Cue cheesy but heartful Lewis theme song:

Queers On Sunset Boulevard

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I’ve been to the theatre twice in the last few days – once to the King’s Head in London to see Queers, six monologues about LGBT life, and also to the Oxford Playhouse to see Sunset Boulevard, a perhaps better known show all about an ageing film star who goes off the rails. Both were brilliant productions but for completely different reasons.

With Queers, young playwright Pat Cash has created six memorable LGBT characters who offer us brief and poignant glimpses into their lives. With Larry the Laydeez’ Lothario we witness how lad culture can suppress people’s sexualities out of fear and prejudice. In Queen Marsha F Star Star King Fabulous of Dalston we witness the fight for trans people to exist when she’s very bluntly told that she is not a woman. Each monologue was around ten minutes yet they all managed to pack a tear-jerking emotional punch. The most moving for me was the story of Old Tom who is sat at a gay bar in Soho recounting his younger days of activism to a bored, young bartender. Matthew Hodson’s portrayal of Tom is poetic and understated and he also puts on a great voice for the barman. Tom’s life is a lonely one as so many of his friends have died but as his story concludes the bartender, no longer checking his phone, puts his hand on Tom’s and calls him a friend. This simple idea that loneliness does not have to last forever is extremely touching. At £12 Queers is a bargain, on until 22nd November.

Queers

Now over to Sunset Boulevard – an exciting and exceptionally professional production from the self-professed “amateur” Oxford Operatic Society. A giant cast made for hectic and well-choreographed chorus moments and two strong leads meant the story of Norma and Joe played out with suitably dramatic highs and lows – Norma is a fascinating character as her addiction to her faded fame and external validation renders her a vulnerable and exceptionally fragile person whilst Joe’s desire to succeed often turns him into a selfish bully who, for some reason, women keep falling for. The show captures the fickle nature of showbiz and cast rivalries very astutely which couldn’t help but make me question the nature of the relationships of the actual cast members! Add to this a great spiral staircase, Norma’s epic wardrobe and a full-sized orchestra blasting out their melodies from the pit and you’re in for a good time. Two shows left today, go, go, go!

Sunset Boulevard

Yet as I watched Sunset Boulevard something jarred – something about the joke about not taking black friends to restaurants (apparently that’s a big no-no in 1950s screenplays) sung by a predominantly white cast, something about the token camp character (who we were encouraged to assume was homosexual) who was played for laughs, something also about the desperately stereotypical roles the leads took – past-it, fifty year old woman who goes mad and driven, sometimes selfish, young guy who ultimately gets shot in the back. I know that musicals don’t have to be informed by feminism or be diverse but I think it’s fun when they are. One could certainly interpret Sunset Boulevard through a feminist-Marxist lens and appreciate that the highly competitive and capitalistic world of film-making basically treats people very badly (apart from maybe the directors and producers) and makes us all into monsters but to do this one might also have to clutch at a few straws. It’s also somewhat of a bitter pill that whilst older, female actors are still being discriminated against in the various acting industries one of the major lead roles for an older woman in a musical is that of a faded, mad ex-actor!

This is where Queers has the edge because it’s unapologetically diverse and not necessarily because it’s trying to make a point about diversity but simply because it couldn’t but be. To meet the characters of Queers is to meet a brilliant panoply of different people whilst treading the boards of Sunset Boulevard seems to be a somewhat white and stereotyped experience. Normalising diversity in films, theatre, TV and musicals isn’t just a question of casting diverse people it also means writing inherently diverse scripts. So, I reckon that Sunset Boulevard (whilst a brilliant production) is a bit like Norma Desmond, stuck in the past, whilst Queers is ushering in a very different sort of sunrise.

We Need To Not Talk About Germaine Greer

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Germaine Greer has made her point – she doesn’t like trans people and she doesn’t like being no-platformed (as a petition has called for at Cardiff University). She’s made her point and so many of us are repeating it for her, amplifying her voice so it drowns out many others. But I think there’s something else we need to talk about.

Transphobia is the intense dislike of or prejudice against transsexual or transgender people. It takes many forms – from extreme violence including murder and assault through to hate speech and everyday-acts-of-prejudice (e.g. hostile stares, offensive comments). One particularly distressing case of transphobia occurred in May last year. Two trans women were assualted on a train in Atlanta, US, and one was stripped. Passengers on the train cheered, filmed the attack on their phones and posted it to social media. The terror of this event speaks for itself.

I think it is against this context that we must understand Germaine Greer’s comments. She is openly transphobic and for anyone who is part of or cares about the trans community this is deeply distressing. I can understand why people would want to no-platform her as her regressive views continue to dehumanise and disregard trans people. However, the problem is that this is the problem – whether or not Greer should be no-platformed, when really the graver issue is the amount of persecution the trans community faces.

Yes, we can debate no-platforming and yes we can try to understand why Germaine Greer holds such prejudiced, transphobic views. But before that we must realise that what she’s saying will not help alleiviate the suffering that the trans community faces. It’s such a shame that the voices in the media that talk about trans issues so often belong to transphobes, where are the trans voices and the voices of trans allies? I think it’s time to stop talking about Germaine Greer and start talking about something else – namely transphobia and what we can do to stop it.

P.S. I’m a cis guy and the opinions in this blog are only my own – I am not claiming to write on behalf of the cis male community, the trans community nor Germaine Greer. You might also mistake me for one of those desperate, over-educated, white middle class people who thinks they have something to say about everything and who really wants to appear right-on and progressive. Well, I’ll let you be the judge.

The Anatomy Of James Bond (Or Why Bond Votes Conservative)

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James Bond, you might have heard of him. They say men want to be him and women want to be with him – apparently. But what’s he really like? Underneath the ski gear, tuxedo and bullet proof vest who is he really? Time for some pop psychology that will lead me to conclude that he probably votes Tory.

First things first, James Bond is an affluent, English, white, straight male. According to the books he spent much of his early life jet setting around Europe with his parents as his father worked for an armaments company (I guess guns run in the family). He briefly went to Eton before being expelled for a dalliance with a maid and then went to Fettes College, a private school in Scotland. He also went to University in Geneva. So Bond’s background was one of privilege and wealth (ring any bells?). These things often make people feel quite entitled, as if they deserve them rather than just having acquired them through the accident of birth. However, a boarding school upbringing comes with other things. Namely, the repression of emotion.

At school Bond will have been bullied for crying and general displays of emotion (save anger and the joy of victory). He’ll have been told that emotions are what women do and the worst thing a man can do is appear like a woman. So classes in misogyny will have been taught alongside classes in the stiff upper lip, nationalism and tying cravats, usually by sexist, posh and snobbish teachers (or men trying desperately to appear posh by association). Thus, a general environment of racism, classism and discrimination will have percolated into Bond’s psychology. Naturally, he’ll grow up to become cold-hearted and sexist, and we see this in his general treatment of women throughout the films/books. They often wind up dead and when they do Bond hardly seems to care. “The b*tch is dead,” says Daniel Craig’s Bond when he discovers that his lover Vesper Lynd has died. Whilst we know he did love her he lives in such a world where confessing that would be tantamount to joining the communists. Add to this ingrained misogyny a big dose of self-loathing.

His posh lifestyle will have forced him to define himself apart from others – he’s not poor, not common, not badly educated, not homosexual etc – so he’ll have had little chance to explore what he actually is or could be because he’s been forced into a specific, chauvinist mould. Fortunately though he’s landed in the one job that lets him live out this warped masculine stereotype because he gets to kill and fight a lot whilst womanising without consequences. And it’s precisely this job that belies his political orientation – I mean he loves a command/control approach to work as he’s very good at taking orders (whilst treating his boss like some sort of warped father/mother figure who affirms his acts of mass violence), he upholds the values of the British establishment even when its complicit in the global corruption it’s alleging to tackle and he kills a lot of people from other countries – I mean, he must be a Tory.

So, underneath it all, who really is James Bond? Well, a mass of insecurities and brutal conditionings. He’s inherited a woeful bunch of concepts with which to make an identity from and the consequences prove alcoholic, violent and unfriendly. For someone to be so out of touch with their emotions, so lacking in sympathy and so callous, well, they can’t really have ever got much love. However, there is more to him than a mish mash of masculine clichés and stereotypes. Occasionally he’ll come out with something quite brilliant like when Daniel Craig put us straight: “But let’s not forget that he’s actually a misogynist. A lot of women are drawn to him chiefly because he embodies a certain kind of danger and never sticks around for too long.” Yup, even Bond is aware of his own conditioning and therein lies hope, hope that he could change to become someone who treats others well, who can challenge his repressive upbringing and tackle the root causes of global problems (such as the British government’s proliferation of the arms trade and dubious foreign policy). Maybe one day Bond might just vote for Labour, or at least the Liberal Democrats.

Yup, Monica Belluci is spot on, Bond is “obviously crazy”.