Gavin McLellan / Quantum of humanity
Well I’ve seen the latest Bond movie. The recipe has changed; mixed much more quickly, faster fight scenes with lots of bone crunching sounds, no gadgets, no humour, no black and white, no fantasy island evil empires, just brutal, clinical despatching of whoever gets in the way of the grudge, his ‘duty’ and a hunger for revenge.
Bond has never been warm or human. He has never been so efficient. He has never faced a corporate eco-terrorist before. This Bond wears his glamour like work overalls, which seems reasonable enough because it’s dirty stuff his duty requires.
He does show a quantum of humanity. Which is this; a drive to find the right order of things, a drive to find love, to find acceptance and approval. There is a residual trace element in the 2008 Bond of these traits of humanity.
The portrayal of omnipresent corporate greed, acting almost as a sovereign empire, carving up the world, for a shadowy elite isn’t that far fetched. It’s worryingly accurate.
What was also very accurate was the need to be aware, standing where you are in the moment, to sense the danger and act, and act decisively, with intelligence and strategy. As Bond becomes Bourne we see more of the frailty and humanity in the face of abuse of power.
We will never have superhuman fighting abilities, or drive Aston Martins to destruction, or play out our battle across continents and in exotic locations. Our struggle against power structures, inequality, environmental destruction is much more mundane and domestic but no less real. Our weapons are wisdom and compassion but are we accepting the assignment?
There is one comment on Quantum of humanity:
last post said error. Was saying that while I agree that our struggle aginst power structures, inequality and environmental destruction can be challenged by wisdom and compassion i would argue that compassion is the more important. Why? Because some people feel overwhelmed by the complexity of global issues and the feeling that they need to have great wisdom to challnge, can leave people feeling overwhelmed and disempowered. If by raising awareness people become engaged and compassionate, ordinary people can do great things (not quite as great perhaps as James Bond, but almost) if given the tools and the confidence to try…this is the assigment that I feel we could accept
February 9th, 2009 at 5:45 pmComment on this post...