Playing it straight with a gay James Bond

Following No Time To Die, all bets are off. But is the world ready for a gay James Bond? Affectionate parody Jayson Bend: Queen and Country shows how it may not be such a far-fetched idea after all.

Please note: I have mostly avoided anything that could constitute a spoiler, especially the laugh out loud hilarious puns. Jayson Bend is available to purchase on DVD and Amazon Prime Video. And at a svelte 49 minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome. A recommendation for everyone.

Listen to the soundtrack here:

Listen to my interview with the film’s director here:

Jayson Bend: Queen and Country began life with director Matt Carter, a gay man, having a conversation with his friends about what a gay James Bond would be like. After considering making a 10 minute short, he and writer Andrew Faure realised they had enough ideas for something more substantial.

Although their protagonist’s name riffs on another famous JB (Jason Bourne), Jayson Bend is unequivocally in the James Bond mould - a sexy, highly capable superspy who represents Britain’s last line of defence against the machinations of megalomaniacs everywhere.

Bend is agent 009, top operative of Royal Intelligence Ministry, which makes A LOT more sense as an acronym... 

In Queen and Country, Bend is tasked with investigating the machinations of a megalomaniac businessman, Perdood, who already has a virtual monopoly on the world’s hairdressing salons and looks set to expand his influence and control - unless Jayson Bend can stop him. Think Goldfinger meets Tomorrow Never Dies with more hair dryers.

Based on that synopsis, you would reasonably expect this to be a mocking parody of James Bond films and, in an interview, director Matt Carter described his creation as a ‘spoof’. But I would contend that it celebrates the works it imitates rather than denigrates them.

What’s really striking is how straight the film plays things, tonally I mean. The only marked difference between this and the Eon films is the hero’s sexual orientation. Yes, you could argue that the setup plays with the stereotype of gay men being obsessed with having a decent hair cut, although this is more of a metrosexual thing nowadays anyway and, wisely, this point isn’t laboured. And yes, there are several references to aspects of gay culture (including some very-Fleming-like product placement for Grindr) and cheeky winks to sex acts associated with gay men, although these are so well-known that you would reasonably expect straight audiences to get the joke as well.

Bend himself is not a sissy character and the other gay men he encounters are positioned at various points on the masc/femme spectrum without anyone ever becoming a caricature. Perhaps the most outré element is one of Jayson’s gadgets which he uses to make things go with a bang. Although it bears a visual resemblance to the Parker pen which conceals a grenade in GoldenEye, this is definitely NOT a pen (I won’t spoil the surprise!).

But otherwise Jayson Bend is just like James Bond - albeit with a better hair cut and a more responsible attitude towards safe sex (unlike Bond, Bend uses condoms).

Just like Bond, Jayson enjoys a couple of hook ups. Adhering to time-honoured 007 convention, one of them is Good and the other Bad. The only difference is that they are Boys instead of Girls. It’s undeniably thrilling to watch a Bond character seduce or be seduced by another man, the ultimate wish fulfilment for a gay Bond fan. It goes beyond merely having two men share a bed together: a gay male gaze permeates much of the film.

One of the most playfully subversive elements of the film is its highly polished main title sequence which draws on the iconography of the Bond series (especially Maurice Binder’s Live and Let Die titles and the more recent works of Daniel Kleinman) but switches the scantily-clad women for men.

All the other ingredients are here: an Aston Martin, a scene with M, a briefing with Q, the gadgets, a flirtation with Moneypenny (genderbent so the character is male - which would make total sense in the ‘official’ series as well in case someone at Eon ever reads this or sees this film). Bond fans - gay or not - will have fun spotting the homages to other Bond movies (a Macguffin from A View To A Kill, a finale which draws on both GoldenEye and Casino Royale) but to go into any further detail about these would be to spoil it.

Andrew Faure’s script succeeds in intelligently bringing to the surface some of the subtext of the Bond series. A female villain akin to Xenia Onatopp has a name which raises a smile but also points to the castration anxiety which has been a hallmark of Bond since Fleming had his hero sit on a chair with a hole cut out of the centre.

One of Jayson Bend’s many delights (again, which I won’t spoil) is the high quotient of innuendos, which are genuinely hilarious and never sleazy. Although the DVD edition of the film is rated ‘18’ by the BBFC, this is because the disc contains a bonus film - completely unrelated to the feature - containing strong sex. The violence in the opening scene is a bit bloodier than we’ve come to expect from the Bond series but there is no swearing and the sex is nowhere near as graphic as any equivalent scene in any Bond film from the last three decades. There may be a few remaining prudes who find the sight of two men lying in bed together while having a conversation with their shirts off to be beyond the pale, but I doubt they’d be the sort of person to be reading this website. You’ll have to decide yourself whether the lack of graphic sex (a selling point of many gay films, it has to be said) is a good thing. Personally, I think we need more films at this certificate (‘12’) which usualise the experiences of queer people without oversexualising them.

The lack of graphic sex does not preclude the film being sexy. Just like a Bond film, it’s sometimes better to tease in order to tantalise, and the film does not disappoint, with some sizzling chemistry between the male leads.

An effective synthesis of Bond conventions, the temptation must have been there constantly to slip into mocking parody territory but - commendably - it was resisted. And it’s evident that the key creatives involved knew their Bond. It was clearly a labour of love from all involved, particularly Matt Carter, who not only directed it but also (amongst other things) scored it, wrote the theme song and did the visual effects.

The world of Jayson Bend is sometimes more recognisably down to Earth than the glossy fantasy abstraction of Bond’s universe (a real bar is used for the initial meeting of the male leaders, for example). But although the film was shot on a miniscule budget, it does a commendable job of disguising its limitations, particularly in the performances (uniformly excellent), the visual effects and the music. The score (which is also on Spotify, iTunes, etc and worth a listen by itself) is a stirring homage to Arnold and Barry in particular, perhaps even with a little of Thomas Newman, whose Skyfall score must have debuted as the finishing touches were being put to this film, in 2013.

2015’s Spectre at least featured a shirtless Daniel Craig in the title sequence. And No Time To Die lingered on Bond’s body far more than any of the women’s. More signs that there is space for much more than just a straight male gaze in the ‘official’ franchise.

Dear Eon: we would like more of this please. Much more.

In the meantime, I might just go ahead and watch Jayson Bend again.

All images from the film copright Take A Seat productions. Used for educational purposes.