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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).
Queer re-view: Dr. No
You would think that a film which opens with three men pretending to be blind would alert us to the need to look at things differently. But six decades of straight-washing has obscured quite how queer Bond’s beginnings were - and still are to this day. It’s high time we took the blinkers off: Bond was born this way.
James Bond is not always the best role model for staying mentally healthy. When faced with battles in his own brain, he’s far likelier to slip into avoidance behaviours (martinis, girls, guns) than deal with them head on. Even so, within the pages of the original Fleming’s books, we find that Bond’s creator was ahead of his time: he was not only interested in the treatment of mental difficulties, but also armed 007 with a coping technique recommended by professionals today.