“I am not a sporting man, Fräulein” : The tragedy and farce of James Bond’s heroic prowess as challenges to the ‘popular’

• This presentation concerns how the term “popular” is actualized in James Bond films, and specifically how sports are played out in the saga. While both sports and Bond are pivotal parts of Western popular culture from the mid-20th century and onwards, their relationship is ambiguous. In his battles with various villains, Bond becomes embroiled in action sequences that are curiously spiced up with sporting activities. Such sports are often culturally coded in ways that represent certain social classes and practices (leisure, extreme, etc.) but are transformed in the cinematic context: sometimes they are emphasized for stylizations of prowess and violence; sometimes they are distorted into parody and comic relief. The agent’s sportive ambiguities are emblematic of the ambivalent status of Bond’s character in contemporary culture, pivoting between high and low, elites and masses. Fulfilling Marx’s adage about how history repeats itself (“first as tragedy, then as farce”), Bond’s personage not only reappears in different incarnations, portrayed by different actors over time; each actor also repeats a similar pattern in their respective Bond biographies that is enacted through the employment of sports. We conclude by claiming that when Bond distorts sports the meaning of the term “popular” per se is problematized.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Filmvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Studies on Film (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Idrottsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Sport and Fitness Sciences (hsv//eng)

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