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As Bond scholarship has shown, men’s magazines played a crucial role in shaping images of masculinity that circulated around James Bond from the 1960s onwards (Hines, 2018). More generally, critics have charged both the Bond film franchise and men’s magazines with perpetuating sexist imagery that upholds patriarchal values or erodes the gains of feminism. Yet close readings of men’s magazines and Bond films can produce a more complex picture of masculinity and gender relations, especially since the mid-1990s saw not only the return of James Bond to the screen following a six-year production break, but also scholarly and media attention to masculinity and significant growth in the men’s magazine market, including the rise of lad mags. This research will analyse magazine content relating to Bond in British men’s magazines during the Pierce Brosnan era, beginning with the launch of the 1995 film GoldenEye, to examine the interrelationship between James Bond as a longstanding male icon, and contemporary models of masculinity characterised by this publishing phenomenon. It will argue that these men’s magazines become an important site for (re)negotiating James Bond’s culturally loaded masculinity throughout the Brosnan years.

This chapter focuses on spy action as a way to answer the question: where can we find queer female action heroes? The chapter will identify three films – D.E.B.S. (Advocate, 2005), Atomic Blonde (David Leitch, 2017) and The Spy Who Dumped Me (Susanna Fogel, 2018) – worth attention to highlight the potential and problems of the queer female hero in spy action. This chapter examines how each of these spy action films contributes to the ongoing yet uneven development of the female hero as a queer figure in post-millennial action cinema. The chapter will consider to what extent these queer female-led action films may pose a challenge to some of the dominant standards and conventions associated with the action hero, gender roles and the representation of sexuality, but also reinforce others. Some comparisons will be made to James Bond in recognition that the Bond franchise has played an important role in the spy action genre.

The character of Miss Moneypenny, whilst minor, is a staple in the cinematic universe of the James Bond film franchise, and she has been portrayed by various actresses throughout the years. Her character forms an indispensable part of the MI6 office. However, Miss Moneypenny remains sexually unattainable and the one woman that James Bond has not managed to bed: ‘The muffled eroticism of Moneypenny and Bond has survived for over [fifty] years, forming the longest unconsummated screen relationship’ (Brabazon, 1999). Fans of the James Bond film franchise, however, may feel differently about the relationship between 007 and Miss Moneypenny, hoping for a romantic conclusion to the banter and flirting that has continued throughout the film franchise. This chapter will analyse comments made on two fan-made YouTube videos that are supercuts of all the scenes between James Bond and Miss Moneypenny, in order to understand fans’ opinions of the relationship between the two characters. This chapter will make use of fan studies and participatory culture in order to understand the manner in which fans perceive the relationship between James Bond and Miss Moneypenny, and how these two characters will always be in the ‘friend-zone’.

From Dr No in 1962 to Spectre in 2015 the opening themes for James Bond movies have always played an important role in marketing, audience expectation and reception. Whether instrumental or sung, brassy or orchestral, upbeat or mellow, the music and/or lyrics, alongside innovative title sequences, function as key signifiers of gender representation in the ongoing series of spy adventures. Bond’s suave machismo, for example, is immediately set out in the opening titles for Dr No created by Maurice Binder. The iconic image of Bond viewed through a gun barrel as a shot rings out, is punctuated by Monty Norman’s theme music with its swinging brass and the tough, machine-gun like sound of electric guitar being played fiercely with a plectrum. Although this theme became synonymous with the character, there was a shift towards songs written specifically to tie-in with subsequent film titles although the lyrics rarely had anything to do with the narratives of the film. The title sequences themselves also became more provocative, invariably focussing on silhouetted, naked or semi-naked female bodies or their component parts alongside gun barrels and bullets, albeit in a highly stylised and artistic manner. This chapter, then, will consider how the theme music functions with the opening credits sequences in relation to the representation of women, race and the image of Bond himself and how the character has changed over time.

This study is a comparison of male and female delinquent behaviors utilizing a large sample in a test of social control theory.

A sample of 8,363 adolescent 10th graders was drawn from the U.S. National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS). The sample consisted of 3,774 males and 4,589 females. This work utilized logistic regression and ordinary least squares to determine whether adolescent behaviors such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, using marijuana, and other delinquent behaviors are linked to weak social bonds.

The findings of this study provide limited substantiation of social control theory for both sexes. Females who were found to have strong social bonds were less likely to engage in delinquent behaviors than males. For both sexes, the strongest element of the social bond was the element of belief.

These results may be specific to the United States.

Understanding contributing factors to adolescent substance use and delinquency will assist in developing social policy that will support families.

This study provides insight into the differentiated nature of the social bond for males and females. Knowing that belief is an integral component in determining the strength of the social bond will aid in the development of social policies.

This chapter aims to discuss the changes that are happening in the heart of the James Bond films especially with how women are described and treated in the newest versions of the movie franchise. For that, this chapter focusses on Miss Moneypenny, a recurrent presence since the very first movie, Dr. No (1962), and one that also appeared in Ian Fleming’s novels. Fleming based Moneypenny on four different women he knew, and she can be described as an intelligent, brave and beautiful person. Unfortunately, the original movie Moneypenny was painted as almost a comic relief, but since she was portrayed by the actress Naomie Harris in Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015), Eve Moneypenny (as she was not called) had an upgrade, becoming an action-oriented woman who provided a new base for the so-called ‘Bond Girls’ of the films.

The chapter explores the image of the Soviet female spy in a variety of Bond films. Representations of Soviet women in these films are as intense as they are stereotypical. Tatiana Romanova (From Russia With Love, 1963), Anya ­Amasova (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977), Pola Ivanova (A View to a Kill, 1985), the murderous dominatrix Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye, 1995) and ­Natalya ­Simonova (GoldenEye) embody a combination of contradictory qualities. They are tough, strong, intellectual, successful and dangerous yet also feminine, ­sexual, beautiful and exotic. The presence of the dangerous communist seductress in Bond films petered out after the end of the Soviet Union.

This chapter also examines the origins of each of the stereotypes which seem to be a curious mixture of fantasy and reality of the fear and desire of the Western male gaze yet combined with elements of the Soviet ideology (for instance, the war on gender stereotypes in the Soviet Union and the heavy ideological emphasis on gender equality).