"Bond, James Bond." That phrase is officially the most quotable piece of Hollywood. Spanning four decades, the James Bond films have become the longest running franchise in cinema history, and is still finding viewers in the latest generation of moviegoers. In terms of our consumer-orientated society that embraces transitoryrepresentations of culture, Bond can be considered nothing less than a worldwide addiction. As the late Albert Broccoli, producer of the Bond series once estimated, "one half of the world's population has seen a James Bond movie." James Bond is the most commercially successful movie hero in history. Ian Fleming's novels combined with the United Artists films have made James Bond an enduring cultural icon.

Although Fleming and the filmmakers that followed him may not be considered geniuses of characterization and plot, they did have acumen for audience appeal. The appeal that has worked for nearly fifty years now is the lifestyle of James Bond, a British Secret Agent code-named 007. To understand our obsession with Bond we need look no further than his lifestyle as represented in Fleming's novels and the United Artists pictures. To do this I intend to consider three points: the character of James Bond as a rendering of the fantastic in circumstantial details that create the illusion of reality; the place of fable in Bond stories; and the world in which Bond lives as a glamorized advertisement for capitalist consumption.

(To save confusion, references to the books will be prefixed with "Fleming's" and all other title references will be to the films).

1. The Character of Bond as defined as both real and fantastic

"He runs while others walk,
he asks while others talk..."

these lyrics from the theme to "Thunderball" show that Bond is at once part of society and distinct from it. While other characters of spy thrillers such as Bulldog Drummond, Duckworth Drew and Hardcross Courage reside in the forgotten limbo of detectives, spies and secret agents notable only because they are absent, James Bond is a character who represents a one-in-a-million man, but in actuality is a man like any other. He crosses the boundaries between fantasy and reality, belonging to neither, yet relevant to both.

The circumstances that confront Bond dwell in the realm of fantasy. The character is ageless, kept eternally at mid-life, his world threatened every time he is involved and there is a beautiful woman or two at hand. Bond's reaction is always spontaneous. Although he functions as a detective at times, there tends to be little thinking and lots of action.

As Kenneth Van Dover states in "Murder in the Millions", when "confronted with a choice [whether its ordering dinner or escaping a villain], he never hesitates. And of course his taste is impeccable" (180). Bond demonstrates a fastidious adherence to personal custom and etiquette. Critics such as Kingsley Amis and Leroy Panek have pointed to Bond's role as the "essential clubman" in his belief in rituals of dress and consumption, and honour and duty (Panek 207-8). Bond's loyalty cannot be questioned. Rarely does 007 even attempt to convince the enemy he can be turned and only briefly will the villain consider asking Bond to join his scheme. Bond's loyalty is as guaranteed as his success.

However, Bond's victories rely heavily on others. Whether these people are Q, the CIA, the present Bond girl, or even a villain turned by Bond's stunning good looks, when 007 is faced with certain defeat, one of them effects his escape. In "From Russia With Love" Red Grant acts as his personal guardian angel in a gypsy gun battle; if it weren t for Mayday in "A View to a Kill" Bond would not have been able to effectively stop the detonation of a bomb. Even in Fleming's "Casino Royale", Bond is rescued from torture and death by a Russian spy who arrives to kill the villain. Bond's dependence on others does not have a detrimental effect on his image, in fact it adds to it. The 007 lifestyle leads to extraordinary situations, but 007's reaction is ordinary.

Another way Bond adopts real world characteristics is in his acceptance of the necessity of exertion and instruction. "Bond is not a natural hero; he must practice to be superhuman" (Van Dover 179). In virtually every film and novel Bond spends time with both M and Q. M provides mission details, morality advice, identifies the good and bad guys, and states the judgment of justice that should be taken; Q provides instruction in gadgets that help transform 007's ordinary skills into those of a hero. In Fleming's novels there is also the added feature that missions leave Bond wounded or exhausted. In Fleming's "You Only Live Twice" Bond is found half-alive suffering from amnesia. While in "Casino Royale" Bond spends much time convalescing during an extended denouement.

Bond is a both a figure of fantasy and a real man, but how does this relate to our addiction to him? In "The James Bond Dossier" Kingsley Amis calls it Bond's 'mythic power' or "the universality of the secret-agent figure as a focus for daydreaming" (Amis 4). Other fantasies have "tangible props" the secret agent has none (Amis 4). To be a cowboy requires you to live 100 years ago and to have a hat, horse and a gun, to be an astronaut requires you to live 100 years ahead and have a space suit and a space ship. To be a double-0 agent requires nothing more than gadgets which appear as ordinary objects. This pen then becomes a high-density dart gun, with a single steel tipped projectile that will explode on impact. The secret agent fantasy is portable-it can go anywhere and acts as a "real starting point for [the] excursion into unreality" (Amis 4).

The duality of the fantastic and the real in the character of Bond relies to a great extent on the basic narrative format of the novels and the films. Bond's world is familiar to us in its oddity. We all know the basic elements of a James Bond story: there is Bond, the good guy; a grotesque villain with a megalomaniacal plan; a beautiful woman who is either an innocent or connected to the villain; M who decides Bond's morality for him; and Q who equips Bond with virtually everything he might need. Added to this mix is a sprinkling of black tie functions, a high stakes gamble, exotic locations, gunplay, dangerous car chases, and usually a plot device which somehow involves water. As viewers, we anticipate all these elements and so then are provided with access to the secret agent world of 007. However, as Van Dover comments "Fleming's underlying fable is the simplest, and perhaps, therefore the most powerful" (214). "Ultimately Bond's appeal derives from the fairy-tale quality of his adventures" (Van Dover 158). Ian Fleming himself recognized as much when he said: "Bond is really a latter-day Saint George" (Cannadine 52) and included references to the similarity in the novels. For example, in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" Bond mused, "It would be amusing to reverse the old fable-first to rescue the girl, then to slay the monster." (27) While in Fleming's "You Only Live Twice" Tiger Tanaka comments "You are to enter this Castle of Death and slay the dragon within" (66).

The organization of Bond stories is eerily similar to the fable of St. George and the Dragon. There is a monster, a damsel to be rescued, a threat to avoid, and distance to be traveled. Bond is "a chivalric hero who rides out to vanquish a grotesque villain embodying social and moral evil...he rides for queen, country and the liberal tradition...[and] again and again rescues a damsel, slays a monster, and averts a holocaust" (Van Dover 160).

While emphasizing the unreality of the tales as fantasy, the novels and films have always remained current to the year they were produced. The result is an emphasis on externals. Many critics have noted that there is nothing to Bond himself except externals. This is an effect of Fleming's use of third person instead of first person commonly used in spy and detective fiction to produce a speed of identification and an efficiency and credibility of story telling. Fleming's style of narration is largely due to his tendency to orient his novels to his market of readers. Fleming's literary philosophy was to rely on what his middle-to-upper class British readers were familiar with, rather than putting them in situations they know nothing about. As a result, Fleming's "Goldfinger" has thirty pages dedicated to a golf match between Auric Goldfinger and Bond, as opposed to 10 pages dealing with the villain s plot: the arrival at Fort Knox, the gold robbery, and Goldfinger's escape.

In terms of the Bond films the world of consumerism is emphasized more and more. In "The Incredible World of 007" Lee Pfeiffer and Philip Lisa state that "Bond is the quintessential capitalist, who works hard and rewards himself with every earthly pleasure imaginable" (8). Endorsing brand names was originally a function of Fleming's to "bind his hero in his time" and provide Bond with a "knowledge of the ways of the world" to establish a credibility from which he can "enforce justice" (Van Dover 167). Now the Bond films have become highly sophisticated advertisements blatantly connecting story to aspirations of consumerism. In "Tomorrow Never Dies" Bond escapes capture and death with a prominently displayed BMW, remote-controlled by an Erikson mobile phone. Bond's gadgets indicate an inherent interdependence between working hard and being rewarded.

Merely having the gadgets is a reward for Bond just as it is an advertisement for whatever real world product it is created from. But the ultimate reward for 007's continued loyalty and hard work, as a secret agent is his lifestyle as a secret agent. A multitude of dry martinis "shaken not stirred" made with specifically requested brands of vodka drunk in casino's, banquets, expansive restaurants and exclusive parties; Rolex and Omega watches, Aston Martins, Lotus', BMW s, exotic locations and expensive hotels. That is the lifestyle of 007, and also a highly developed advert influencing the viewer to consume those products as James Bond consumes life.

8 The next film, "The World is Not Enough" due November, 1999, is set to feature the music video or the performance of its Bond theme in the story itself. But the biggest travesty of this consumerist influence is "Goldeneye"'s BMW roadster, titled as the new Bond car with all the gadgets, but only used for five seconds of film driving down a dirt track.

Works Cited:

1. Amis, Kingsley. "The James Bond Dossier". London: Jonathon Cape; New York: New American Library, 1965.

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