Resisting James Bond: Power and Privilege in the Daniel Craig Era

Beginning with Casino Royale (2006) and ending with No Time to Die (2021), the Daniel Craig era of James Bond films coincides with the rise of various justice movements challenging deeply entrenched systems of inequality and oppression, ranging from sexism, racism, and immigration to 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, reproductive justice and climate change. While focus is often placed on individual actions and institutional policies and practices, it is important to recognize the role that culture plays within these systems. Mainstream film is not simply 'mindless' entertainment but a key part of a global cultural industry that naturalizes and normalizes power structures. Engaging with these issues, Resisting James Bond is a multidisciplinary collection that explores inequality and oppression in the world of 007 through a range of critical and theoretical approaches. The chapters explore the embodiment and disembodiment of power and privilege across the formal, narrative, cultural and geopolitical elements that define the revisionist-reversionist world of Daniel Craig’s Bond.

Christoph Lindner is Professor of Urban Studies and Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London, UK, where he writes about cities, visual culture, and social-spatial inequality.

Lisa Funnell is Associate Dean of Creative Industries at Mohawk College, Canada. Her work on 007 includes Geographies, Genders, and Geopolitics of James Bond (2017) co-written with Klaus Dodds, the anthology For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond (2015), and the “James Bond in the Daniel Craig Era” special issue co-edited with Klaus Dodds in Journal of Film and Television (2018). She has also published over a dozen articles on the franchise.