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Licence To Queer covers queer aspects of Bond books, video games and more. Search here for your favourite titles and characters or find content related to particular queer identities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, etc).
OSS117: The Spy Who (Covertly) Loved Them All
On the page, Agent 117 pre-dates 007 by several years. In the noughties he was brought back to the screen by a team who would go on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. As well as poking affectionate fun at the Bond character (especially his sexuality), the films have a serious side, satirising outdated attitudes. Will the upcoming third film maintain the same winning balance of comedy and social commentary?
James Bond: Muscle Mary
The lines between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ fashion are more blurred than ever, in part thanks to James Bond. Nevertheless, stereotypical assumptions about the clothing we choose to wear still persist. Craig’s Bond carries off a classic ‘gay look’ down to a (very tightly fitted) tee.
The Sinning Daylights
Some unused Bond songs just refuse to fade away. Back in 1986, the Pet Shop Boys were led to believe they were going to be chosen to represent queens and their country by doing musical duties on The Living Daylights. So what happened and how different would Dalton’s first film have sounded had they got the gig?
Queer re-view: Quantum of Solace
An unsettling and emotionally truthful queer parable, the direct continuation of Casino Royale teaches us that finding ourselves is a painful ongoing process, not a one off event. The film delivers its lesson like a brick through a plate glass window. Cutting quickly (too quickly for many) and deeply (Octopussy this ain't!), most of the svelte running time is a setup for a showdown with Bond's most persistent and insidious enemy: himself.
Boom Bang a Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Bond and the Eurovision Song Contest overlap more than you might think. One is loud, glamorous, camp and massively popular with the gays. And then there is Eurovision.
Lustring on: restoring the critical sparkle of a 50 year old classic
I’m never one to avoid flying in the face of convention so I make no secret of my love for Diamonds Are Forever and I’m always eager to proselytise in its favour. To mark the release of surely the film’s most detailed review ever on the Really, 007! podcast, I take a look back at the wavering reputation of this unfairly maligned gem and the reasons behind this changeability.
We all have our secrets: the ‘other’ song of No Time To Die
Billie Eilish’s title song is not the only tune with a starring role in Craig’s final outing. Although this news has been overlooked in English-speaking media, the film prominently features a song from an artist whose own life of glamour mixed with sadness attracts legions of French-speaking gay fans. Queer Bond fan and Sexuality Studies graduate Läne Bonertz dissects how the song perfectly complements the ‘othered’ world of 007 and considers how its inclusion could foreshadow the fates of No Time To Die’s characters.
Please drink Risico-ly: stiff drinks and manliness in Fleming’s booziest short story
No sooner has Bond arrived in Venice than he’s hitting the watering holes. Bond works his way up from a favourite haunt of Ernest Hemingway to the finest the floating city has to offer. And then the real drinking begins. But what do the drinks that Bond chooses reveal about him as a man?
The truth about Tennyson: Britishness, ‘buggering on’ and the gay love poem at the heroic heart of Skyfall
M’s poetry reading is one of Skyfall’s most gripping and memorable scenes, imbuing the film with a sense of what Winston Churchill would have termed ‘buggering on’. It also contains a tragic gay love story, mostly forgotten about (or hidden) for nearly 200 years.
A bevy of Bond Boys
When I invited Licence to Queer readers to imagine Bond 26 featuring the first Bond Boy, I did not expect such imaginative - and entirely feasible - ideas. I asked you to be bold and you more than delivered. Here are your suggestions. Expect Good Boys, Bad Boys turned Good and suggestive names that might make even Bond blush.
Things were about to turn nasty?
For many of us, Timothy Dalton’s third Bond film is the most tantalising ‘what if?’ of the franchise. Targeted for a 1992 release, we all know it wasn’t to be. But what isn’t so well known is a TV drama that Dalton made at this time which gives us a glimpse of how a darker, queerer Bond 17 might have turned out had he stayed in the frame.
Bond and politics don’t mix. So why, when Bond himself resists being drawn far along either end of the political spectrum, do both sides persist in wielding poor 007 like a blunt instrument?