Nevertheless, M’s power over Bond is ultimately too threatening to his mythic masculine identity. Playing a much more significant role than she did in the Pierce Brosnan films, M criticises Bond’s weaknesses and mistakes, but she also contributes in important ways to shaping his identity-in-process in her complex role as boss/mentor/mother. Taking us back to the beginning of his career, Casino Royale reconfigures Bond as fallible, vulnerable, and psychologically unstable, a man struggling to secure his identity as 007. This article argues that Casino Royale (Campbell, 2006) and Quantum of Solace (Forster, 2008) – the fifth and sixth films starring Dench as M and the first two starring Daniel Craig as Bond – effect the most significant revision of gender roles in the franchise to date. The casting of Judi Dench in Goldeneye (Campbell, 1995), however, signalled the series’ potential to interrogate its own sexism.
The James Bond film franchise has attracted much criticism for its depiction of women.
