Daniel Craig Is Right About The 'Laughable' Masculinity Of Bond

I am the father to twin boys who are almost four years old. They are boys (until they tell me otherwise) as a label, but we like to make sure that doesn’t dominate their personalities. Everything doesn’t have to be blue and male characters and other such forced nonsense. We also openly show affection to each other, which I did not expect to be as much of a hot-button issue as it has been! I can barely talk to a Dad at the park without him launching into some self-defensive tirade about how they won’t hold or help their son if they cry or get hurt. It’s insane and has happened so many f***ing times!!

Luckily, I am the one dealing with it. The boys hardly even notice unless they are talking to their grandparents (either set) who cannot f***ing fathom the idea that boys may want to watch girl characters or play with girl toys. The whole thing is so mind-numbingly stupid it’s hard not to lash out at said relatives when they say that my sweet boys won’t want to play with a Minnie Mouse doll or watch Bluey. In their limited defense, this is one of those issues that can be blamed on society. Generations have been told that boys and girls do separate things separately and never the twain shall meet.

It’s all asinine. If we want to boil it down, it wouldn’t make sense statistically and never has. There are all kinds of people on this great big planet, and they’re mostly different. Yes, there are similar folks and so on, but everyone will see the world differently. They may be fed the same influences, and that will shape opinions over time, but when they’re young like my kids, they like what they like, and that includes pink, Miss Marvel, and outwardly showing their emotions. They are not bound by the construct of masculinity and neither is Daniel Craig (f***ing nailed that segue).

The man formerly known as James Bond is doing press for the new Luca Guadagnino film Queer and was asked if he had any reservations before taking the role twenty years ago. Craig pointed out the same thing that has caused well-meaning adults to gift my kids things like a book called Puzzles For Boys (what is inherently male about a puzzle in a jungle safari?! What is this s***?!). “I would say one of my biggest reservations about playing [Bond] would be the construct of masculinity,” he explained to The New Yorker. “It was often very laughable, but you can’t mock it and expect it to work. You have to buy into it.”

Laughable indeed, Daniel, and you can find few better representations than James Bond. The Super Spy is all about remaining tough, suave, and sexually active while fleeing metal-mouthed monster men and sporting a tux. To be fair, I love a lot of the Bond movies, especially Craig’s. Also, his films did make some efforts to subvert Bond’s narrative. Still, the “masculinity” is on full display and Craig has moved on to more interesting, empathetic pastures.

“I mean, the vulnerability of human beings is always interesting to me,” Craig noted about playing a William S. Burroughs type in the new film. “We’re all vulnerable. It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter how tough you are, everybody’s vulnerable. But it’s how boys are brought up, how men are expected to behave, how someone like Burroughs was expected to behave.” I love this line of reasoning. So much of “masculinity” is tinged with shielding your feelings, which will, in turn, make it harder for people to acknowledge the feelings of others. Exposing and examining vulnerability is a short walk to strengthening one’s empathy. We all cry. We all screw up. There’s no reason to hide any of that.

Craig isn’t making a film like Queer to correct anything about his career but acknowledges it would have been hard to make while he was sipping martinis and firing a PPK. “Listen, [Bond] is nearly 20 years of my life,” he explained. “When I took it on I was one person. I’m now a completely different person. I’m not doing this movie in response to that. I’m not that small. But I couldn’t have done this movie when I was doing Bond. It would’ve felt kind of, ‘Why? What are you trying to prove?’”

I don’t disagree with Craig’s logic, but I also think it would have been harder to movies like Queer while he was playing Bond because it wouldn’t have been readily accepted. The construct of masculinity is propped up by a lot of rubes. It won’t topple anytime soon, but I’ll be damned if I won’t do my best to knock it the f*** down.