Web Crush Wednesdays: Source Code in TV and Films

Sometimes, despite our wildly varying tastes and often viciously differing opinions, I risk watching movies with my brother. He’s a computer programmer with a fondness for plotty dramas, grimdark action-adventure flicks, and, oddly enough, rom-coms. So we ended up watching Skyfall together back when it came out. I mean, it almost fits all those categories, right? Unfortunately, I forgot that he, well, actually knows things about computers, and after the movie I was subjected to a good ten minute tirade on how no computer programmer worth their salt would ever plug an enemy agent’s computer into the MI6 systems to check what it contained, which was exactly what supposed tech guru Q did in the movie. This obviously led to the MI6 systems being hacked, the enemy agent escaping, and basically everything going down in flames. Good job, Q, that’ll put an end to your promising career in espionage, all right.

Stop spending all your money on cardigans and tea and learn how to do your job!

Hollywood using computers for terrible plot-related drama isn’t exactly new, as these sort of ill-researched plot holes seem to have been around ever since the computer was first invented. So it may not come as a surprise to some of you to learn that Hollywood puts little to no thought into the coding and hacking that’s so prominent in today’s films. Fortunately, today’s web crush does.

Minority Villains! Minority Villains…

As a feminist who critiques pop culture, I often struggle with lady villains, queer villains, disabled villains, and villains of color. The reason for this is pretty simple. On the one hand, villains can be dynamic, interesting characters and I love seeing minority characters in such a role. Villains are great, fun characters who are often more relatable than the hero, and fandoms do tend to latch onto and be protective of their favorite villains. On the other hand, when almost every TV show I watch only (or mostly) has minority characters filling the role of the villain, it often speaks to the terrible prejudice in our society.

Fanfiction Fridays: The Courtship of Mr. Bond

“I just thought you might go pay a visit,” his mother suggested.

“Me?” Q asked, aghast. “Pay a visit?”

“He must be starved for proper gentleman company, now that he’s settled in so far from London–”

“I am far from proper gentleman company.”

“–and perhaps if you befriended him he could introduce you to some nice heiresses.”

“Heiresses?” Q repeated, baffled and horrified. “What in the world would I do with heiresses?” (x)

Today’s fanfiction recommendation is a lovely historical AU set in the James Bond/Skyfall fandom.

The Courtship of Mr. Bond by marlowe_tops is set in Regency England and is actually more of a Pride and Prejudice AU, when you get right down to it. Q is the eldest brother and breadwinner of the Boothroyd household, with a mother and several sisters of marriageable age to provide for. He works as an engineer, inventing and fixing mechanical items for his neighbors. When a Commander Bond, unmarried and formerly of the Navy, moves into a neighboring estate, Q’s sister Georgiana sets her sights on him as a potential husband—but as Q chaperones Georgiana’s visits to Mr. Bond, the good Commander seems far more interested in Q than in his sister.

Fanfiction Fridays: That Which We Are

I’ve been reading fanfiction for almost a decade now. That’s almost half my life. And it’s interesting to watch, as time passes, the leaps and bounds fanfic makes in terms of various issues. Years ago, almost every slashfic I read was about characters who were straight ‘but-you’re-my-one-exception’; now many fics delve into the complexities of the orientations between straight and gay. Writers have gotten better about not completely writing off canon love interests or prominent female characters just because they get in the way of a ship.

But it wasn’t until recently that, for the first time in my decade of reading, I found a fanfic that, instead of a straight character being queered, featured a cis character portrayed as trans.

That Which We Are by mikkey_bones is a Skyfall fanfic that centers on the Bond franchise’s new Quartermaster, as played in the movie by Ben Whishaw. The summary states:

Q seems to explain gender theory, the Kinsey scale, and things like that on a daily basis. The dictionary by which he defines his identity isn’t an open book.

It’s relatively short (less that 5,000 words), but in that space mikkey_bones manages to make you really feel the discomfort, dysphoria, and panic that Q would feel regularly as a transman in a high-ranking government position. I didn’t like this fic—it made me uncomfortable and bore no resemblance to the sort of feel-good fanfic I generally seek out.

But I applaud it, because that’s what it was intended to do—to put you in Q’s place, and give you an insight into his experience. It’s tremendously well-written, contains no ships, and helps to fill a much needed void in representation in fanfic. I encourage everyone to check this out.

Sexualized Saturdays: Oh, Mr. Bond!

So I saw Skyfall on Monday, and although I never expected to do a review of a James Bond movie for a feminist website—the two terms ‘007’ and ‘feminism’ are basically antonyms—hooooo boy, are there a lot of things to unpack, sexuality-wise. For those of you who haven’t seen it, spoilers will abound—this is going to be somewhere between a standard Sexualized Saturdays and a basic Skyfall review—so consider yourself warned.

Web Crush Wednesdays: James Bond Lifestyle

I don’t know how high up James Bond is on your list of favorite things, but let’s be real honest: a large majority of the population loves a good James Bond movie. Or book (because on this blog, we like to read). So in honor of Skyfall, the next film in the Bond series which comes out November 9^th, I bring you James Bond Lifestyle. I first learned about this site from my friend, who is a huge Bond fan. I decided to give it a whirl, hoping it would prove interesting.

Now I don’t know about you guys, but part of me wants to be James Bond. Especially for guys, James Bond is a specific kind of ‘man’s man.’ He gets the girls, gets the bad guys (in a different sense than the girls, of course), gets the martinis shaken and not stirred; he’s a suave badass and a cultural icon. It’s no wonder that many people, guys and girls alike, want to be like him.

This site enables you to do just that. Did you guys ever get those catalogs with all of the random LotR and Harry Potter memorabilia? This website makes those guys looks like amateurs. Holy cheese on rye, do they have a lot of Bond stuff. They already have every single jacket Bond wears in Skyfall. You name it, you can probably buy it on this site. Do you want to go stay in the hotels Bond has stayed at? You can through this site. Interested to learn more about the limited edition “Spy Gear” Sony has released to celebrate Casino Royale? You can do that too. Do you want a fake credit card that doubles as a lock pick set? You can get that too!

So if you want to be James Bond, all you need to do is buy everything on this website! Simple enough, right? Well, if you have enough money it is. Again, the website is James Bond Lifestyle and you can go there by clicking here!