Day Two:
I have decided to become a Bond Girl. -That is, I have decided to turn myself into the sort of woman who is the mysterious, ubercompetent, often slithery, and possibly lethal female counterpart to that Nietzchian, tuxedo'd, unflappably glamourous and seriously fictional superspy, James Bond.
Why? Well, for a number of reasons....
1) Bond Girls are actually kind of cooler than James Bond himself, in a "I can do everything you can do, while wearing an Azzedine Alaia bandage dress and keeping my hair perfect," kind of way. It was said about Ginger Rogers, that she could do everything Fred Astaire did...but backwards and in high heels. Ernest Hemingway said that "Courage is grace under fire." Bond Girls take that LITERALLY.
2) Bond Girls are NEVER recurring characters ("M" and "Moneypenny" notwithstanding), which is fine with me, as I have both attention deficit disorder AND a busy schedule.
3) Any Bond Girl who forms a genuine emotional, um, bond, with Bond, ALWAYS gets killed off by the end of the movie, i.e., within 120 minutes max. I'm not saying that I'm scared of commitment, but if you have ever had the kind of breakup that results in moving one's furniture out of your home unexpectedly, in 110 degree heat ,while arguing pointlessly over DVD ownership, you will understand that the Bond Girl alternative of being throttled by a giant, mutant, yet strangely cheesy Soviet supervillian, definitely seems like the soft option,
4) Bond Girls have alluring accents, bizarre yet interesting names, fascinating and exotic professions, incredibly full social lives, and yet STILL find time to lounge on yachts in the Mediterranean. This mean that Bond Girls have the one thing I crave more than anything in the world: an assistant who is GREAT at scheduling. Also, as a hobby of choice, "lounging on yachts" pretty much trumps "posting to Pinterest", every time.
5) Bond Girls have awesome bodies, and yet, are never, EVER seen working out. (Aside from strenuous, yet dewy, sex scenes.)- Have you ever seen a Bond Girl refuse a glass of Veuve Clicquot by saying, "Love to, but that's, like, 300 calories, and I had a danish off the cart at work today"? -No, you have not. Bond Girls HAVE DESSERT. -Of course, one could argue that, since, intuitively, they know they're not going to live through the next 120 minutes, they're not overly worried about cellulite, but hey, whatever. -Hand me that cheesecake and my bulletproof vest, wouldja?
6) Bond Girls-- and this is key-- are INCREDIBLY GOOD at everything they do. Scuba diving; tarot reading; driving insanely gorgeous cars extremely fast while activating rocket launchers from the dashboard; you know, just another Thursday.- Also, after sex, they never get that weird "raccoon eyes from smudgy mascara" thing, which is deeply awesome. If you toss a Bond Girl a sinister, ticking blue box which might be a thermonuclear device and ask her to deactivate it, she's not going to say, "Um, how do I open this thing? Honey?"- No. She's going to tear off a blue wire with her teeth, spit it out, and thereby, somehow, save the world.. -Unless it's the red wire. Uh-oh.
7) They glide effortlessly across spacious ballrooms-WITH MARBLE FLOORS- while wearing long gowns AND spike heels. Have you ever tried this? It is almost impossible to do, without taking a faceplant into the hummus dip.
8) It's a great way to attract James Bond-y guys: men with suave, devil may care attitudes, who are breathtakingly fearless, utterly competent, relentlessly suave, incredibly masculine, can drink several martinis without embarrassing side effects, and...um... have very serious sexual addiction issues.-Yeah, I'm thinking I didn't think this through, either. - But what the hell. I didn't say i wanted a commitment, right?
9) I want a Neitzchian-ly perfect, super competent, unapologetic female role model in films. Really. Even though, technically, a Bond Girl is, by definition, the least feminist thing in the world- I mean, she is DEFINED by being a male's nameless counterpart-- I find it refreshing that she's not "powerful but emotionally repressed", "brilliant but insane in a kooky and dangerous way", or any of the other women in film stereotypes. "Supportive but nonthreatening"? Please. How about "conditionally supportive but might actually shoot you, although it''s totally not personal"? -Yeah, I thought that was better, too.
10) F#4k it. I just wanna be a Bond Girl.
Tomorrow: In which we learn that "thinking about exercising" and "ACTUALLY exercising" are two different things; realize that getting a driver's license is kinda of a pre-requisite for "high speed car chases"; and meet an actual Bond Girl's niece.
I have decided to become a Bond Girl. -That is, I have decided to turn myself into the sort of woman who is the mysterious, ubercompetent, often slithery, and possibly lethal female counterpart to that Nietzchian, tuxedo'd, unflappably glamourous and seriously fictional superspy, James Bond.
Why? Well, for a number of reasons....
1) Bond Girls are actually kind of cooler than James Bond himself, in a "I can do everything you can do, while wearing an Azzedine Alaia bandage dress and keeping my hair perfect," kind of way. It was said about Ginger Rogers, that she could do everything Fred Astaire did...but backwards and in high heels. Ernest Hemingway said that "Courage is grace under fire." Bond Girls take that LITERALLY.
2) Bond Girls are NEVER recurring characters ("M" and "Moneypenny" notwithstanding), which is fine with me, as I have both attention deficit disorder AND a busy schedule.
3) Any Bond Girl who forms a genuine emotional, um, bond, with Bond, ALWAYS gets killed off by the end of the movie, i.e., within 120 minutes max. I'm not saying that I'm scared of commitment, but if you have ever had the kind of breakup that results in moving one's furniture out of your home unexpectedly, in 110 degree heat ,while arguing pointlessly over DVD ownership, you will understand that the Bond Girl alternative of being throttled by a giant, mutant, yet strangely cheesy Soviet supervillian, definitely seems like the soft option,
4) Bond Girls have alluring accents, bizarre yet interesting names, fascinating and exotic professions, incredibly full social lives, and yet STILL find time to lounge on yachts in the Mediterranean. This mean that Bond Girls have the one thing I crave more than anything in the world: an assistant who is GREAT at scheduling. Also, as a hobby of choice, "lounging on yachts" pretty much trumps "posting to Pinterest", every time.
5) Bond Girls have awesome bodies, and yet, are never, EVER seen working out. (Aside from strenuous, yet dewy, sex scenes.)- Have you ever seen a Bond Girl refuse a glass of Veuve Clicquot by saying, "Love to, but that's, like, 300 calories, and I had a danish off the cart at work today"? -No, you have not. Bond Girls HAVE DESSERT. -Of course, one could argue that, since, intuitively, they know they're not going to live through the next 120 minutes, they're not overly worried about cellulite, but hey, whatever. -Hand me that cheesecake and my bulletproof vest, wouldja?
6) Bond Girls-- and this is key-- are INCREDIBLY GOOD at everything they do. Scuba diving; tarot reading; driving insanely gorgeous cars extremely fast while activating rocket launchers from the dashboard; you know, just another Thursday.- Also, after sex, they never get that weird "raccoon eyes from smudgy mascara" thing, which is deeply awesome. If you toss a Bond Girl a sinister, ticking blue box which might be a thermonuclear device and ask her to deactivate it, she's not going to say, "Um, how do I open this thing? Honey?"- No. She's going to tear off a blue wire with her teeth, spit it out, and thereby, somehow, save the world.. -Unless it's the red wire. Uh-oh.
7) They glide effortlessly across spacious ballrooms-WITH MARBLE FLOORS- while wearing long gowns AND spike heels. Have you ever tried this? It is almost impossible to do, without taking a faceplant into the hummus dip.
8) It's a great way to attract James Bond-y guys: men with suave, devil may care attitudes, who are breathtakingly fearless, utterly competent, relentlessly suave, incredibly masculine, can drink several martinis without embarrassing side effects, and...um... have very serious sexual addiction issues.-Yeah, I'm thinking I didn't think this through, either. - But what the hell. I didn't say i wanted a commitment, right?
9) I want a Neitzchian-ly perfect, super competent, unapologetic female role model in films. Really. Even though, technically, a Bond Girl is, by definition, the least feminist thing in the world- I mean, she is DEFINED by being a male's nameless counterpart-- I find it refreshing that she's not "powerful but emotionally repressed", "brilliant but insane in a kooky and dangerous way", or any of the other women in film stereotypes. "Supportive but nonthreatening"? Please. How about "conditionally supportive but might actually shoot you, although it''s totally not personal"? -Yeah, I thought that was better, too.
10) F#4k it. I just wanna be a Bond Girl.
Tomorrow: In which we learn that "thinking about exercising" and "ACTUALLY exercising" are two different things; realize that getting a driver's license is kinda of a pre-requisite for "high speed car chases"; and meet an actual Bond Girl's niece.
