Iron lady to old lady: the neutering of James Bond’s M

Abstract

This paper contradicts interpretations of James Bond’s M, played by Judi Dench, as a feminist triumph. Through a focus on aging, it argues that the initially powerful M is ultimately reinscribed into patriarchy. In Dench’s eight films, M undergoes two processes of age-based reconfiguration: “post-sexualization” and “domestication.” Drawing on Mulvey’s and Butler’s psychoanalytic theories, this paper shows that, early on, M is post-sexualized as she is distanced from youthful femininity and aligned with phallic masculinity. Following this, and contrary to consensus that M’s domestication began in the Daniel Craig era, this paper contends that by the middle of the Pierce Brosnan era, M’s power is already exposed as a façade and she consequently enters the maternal realm. Expanding on Tasker’s writing on women in action films, this paper details how M’s authority not only shifts entirely into the maternal sphere but is also systematically stripped until she becomes a peculiar mother-child. Finally, this paper identifies an emerging pattern within popular media of turning Ma’ams to Moms to martyrs. Evidence is taken from Dench’s final Bond films and other contemporary action film series (Star Wars, The Hunger Games, and Divergent). This paper concludes that age has become a post-feminist strategy to neuter powerful women and return them to patriarchal and heteronormative frameworks.

Keywords:

• Film
• aging
• gender
• motherhood
• James Bond
• post-feminism
• women in popular culture

Acknowledgements

I thank Cilia Willem, Frederik Dhaenens, Iolanda Tortajada, and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the earlier version of this paper. I would also like to express my gratitude to Mie Hiramoto for her mentorship and our continued collaboration on the James Bond films.

Notes

1. Concurrent to the Bond franchise’s decision to play up M’s agedness in Skyfall, Dench was enjoying celebrity as an (unlikely) icon for a youth-oriented urban fashion brand helmed by English rapper Lethal Bizzle. Lethal Bizzle noted that Dench’s endorsement massively boosted sale numbers. Given this, popular media appears to be at odds with facets of wider culture such as fashion, where aging femininities have supposedly come to be celebrated. See Deborah Jermyn and Su Holmes 2015, Hannah Marriot 2015, Melanie Jermyn 2015.

2. There is emerging scholarship addressing the intersections of aging and gender, class, sexuality, or race within popular media. See C. Lee Harrington, Denise D. Bielby, and Anthony R. Bardo 2014, and Norma Jones and Bob Batchelor 2015.