The narrative outside the narrative: Wow! 007, now a black woman? 007 is 007, not a colour. Choose Happiness.

Vachel Dunn
Nov 3 · 7 min read

Their casting decision doesn’t dictate your happiness. If it did, well then every few years EON Productions would’ve been disappointing it’s audience base all to often…, don’t you think?

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsTLUl2Ywus

Audiences have created a problem here, or even, the problem. They create the meaning, which they themselves, have then rejected. The audience of Bond, has caused a problem for themselves. Dr Mark Piccini, Lecturer in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT, when talking on audiences reminds us of the Frankfurt School’s approach. That audiences are laregly to be blamed and held responsible for their interpretations. The Frankfurt School has always assumed that as an industry, mass culture endeavours to have people kept “in their place,” controlling them in ways unbeknownst to them.

Conversely, while the inclusive nature of establishing a black, female Agent 007, tackles an immeasurable racial inequality in major film franchises, it is also perhaps merely the culture industry bowing to pressures from the masses. These pressure applying masses have given these films, and their producers, a great deal of power. In giving the films power, they have made themselves vulnerable to opinions, and of course decisions, of an opposing view. While the culture industry can be seen as controlling, those who subscribe to alternative notions on the topic, such as those of whom view Stuart Hall as a leading cultural and social studies critic, can view these culture industries and their decisions as an opportunity for developing a more positive meaning, for encoding and decoding meaning of acceptance, progression, and enjoyment. We should all decide how we feel, we should all decide to feel well about it.

Source: https://prezi.com/skwiyxot5p1t/stuart-hall-encodingdecoding/

Audiences communicate from and bring their echo chambers of disunity and confirmation bias to the debate of why a Secret Agent 007 in the african heritage, female persuasion, is wrong. This decision, which has been deemed as ‘wrong’ by some, could have been accepted for what it is. Given as little to no meaning, as needed, to create a moment of which is based on impartiality, or better yet, acceptance. British Cultural studies centre, more ubiquitously referred to as the Birmingham School, more specifically, Raymond William writing in Culture & Society: Essential Writings speaks to the ridiculousness of finding issue after issue in all decisions, always. Going so far as to say that…

“What kind of life can it be, I wonder, to produce this extraordinary fussiness, this extraordinary decision to call certain things culture and then separate them, as with a park wall, from ordinary people and ordinary work?”.

There is no inherent wrong in this casting, there is simply opportunity, and I seriously struggle to fathom why some of those involved in this debate have opted to create an experience that will frustrate them. If, you believe in the works of Social studies professor John Fiske, then you have chosen to instill negative meaning and feeling to what is inherently a work of art meant to provide, among other experiences, joy, which abounds with opportunity for happiness. Why choose doom and gloom?

source: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=007&epa=SEARCH_BOX

These audiences, as Dr Mark Piccini states,

“make meaning and appropriate popular culture for their own ends. While decoding will be affected by the decoder’s social position, background, education, etc., people contest and negotiate dominant meanings and can assume a form of ownership of popular culture texts”.

There are two major audiences in this debate. One that believes that a black, female 007 means that James Bond is now a black female, which is factually incorrect as veriefied by producers of the film, and secondly, an audience that believe in the creative freedom of storytelling, and the potential it has. Regardless, if you did so desperately loath the idea of a black female agent 007, for whatever horrible reason, then you might find that your public protest of the issue may have an affect to the opposite of what you desire it to. As they say, any press is good press, you know?

source: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=007&epa=SEARCH_BOX

The latter, objectively rejects the idea that they create the meaning, and the former believe in the opposite to the latter. Even if the reverse was true, it doesn’t matter. What is the issue? That creativity has been exercised? That imagination has been fired up? That you (you being a disgruntled fan), have failed to create for yourself a positive outlook? Is it Racism? Could it be Misogyny? I am not claiming to know what fire is in the belly of so many, but I do think that whatever it is, it makes little, to no sense. Regardless of 007 not being Bond, as is the case in this upcoming Bond film, the issue would be the same if the new Bond was a Black Female, as is the case with the new 007.

The story will exist regardless of certain members of society’s disdain for it. You have the chance to enjoy something, to sit down and take roughly two hours of your day to indulge in a film, an escape, and a moment of what can be enjoyment. Do not let your perception of it negatively impact your life, regardless of what school of thought you may subscribe to, you could encode a ‘positive’ experience. It’ll happen almost completely regardless of what you think. The Birmingham school of thought is boundless in its potential for joy. Encode this text with joy. You have an opportunity to choose what you think. Be informed, why not? Education is power, and in understanding the potential meaning you either: can create, or the potential meaning( which is apparently frustrating some) you can ignore.

Moreover, audiences looking for ‘immediate satisfaction’ (to the tune of what both Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer speak of throughout Dialectic of Enlightenment ), such as, perhaps, the continued casting of the established archetype for Agent 007, could perhaps look towards accepting, instead of opposing, this casting decision. If it is immediate satisfaction one is truly seeking, then what satisfies them is surely not as important as having at least something to satisfy them. Is something not better than nothing? Isn’t 007, 007? I would imagine fans of the series would prefer a 007 as opposed to no 007. The Culture Industry, while often seen as a controlling entity, can be encoded with positive leaning meaning, and thus, so can a radically different 007. 007 is not a colour, but far, far more than that. 007 is a character which stands for the justice of the world, and for democracy. One that has always changed in appearance.

Source: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/g26633373/james-bond-actors-ranked/

Students of all schools of social commentary can justify support for a radically different 007. The dislike of this decision is not justified by a commitment to either school aforementioned, or unmentioned.

Stuart Hall asserts and gives credence to others, who in their own opinions, substantiates those opinions of his own. On the topic of consumption of media, in which this 007 fiasco perfectly relates to, Hall Claims that,

“ … Professor Halloran has properly raised the question of studying “the whole mass communication process”, from the structure of the production of the message at one end to audience perception and ‘use’ at the other. ” .

The consumption and operation of the culture industry is nothing if meaning is not a result of it’s existence. Further to that end, Hall goes on to state that

“…the event must become a ‘story’ before it can become a communicative event. In that moment, the formal sub-rules of language are ‘in dominance’, without, of course,subordinating out of existence the historical event so signified, or the historical consequences of the event having been signified in this way.”

While somewhat counterintuitive of a thought to have whilst discussing Hall, these stories communicate an event, yes, but what that story is is not always strictly dictated to you. You can decide, you can decide to appreciate, and enjoy what you go to see in the cinema.

While you may subscribe to the notion of Bond being an epitome of conservatism, such as the Head of Directing, Department of Film, Screen and Creative Media, Bond University Darren Paul Fisher states it to be, that conservatism does not have to extend to your beliefs on where the film franchise can go.

The Public Ear

Dedicated to growth, progressiveness, and inclusivity.

Vachel Dunn

Written by

The Public Ear

Dedicated to growth, progressiveness, and inclusivity.

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