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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).
He runs while others walk
Running probably saved my life. It’s saved Bond’s more than a few times as well. Here, I look back at his running career - which was not exactly impressive until Daniel Craig brought more metrosexual physicality to the character - and compare it with my own, which started soon after I my first viewing of Casino Royale.
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.
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.
Kim Sherwood's A Spy Like Me had its official launch on Saturday 27th April at Dukes Hotel in London. It was my pleasure to be not only an organiser but also the emcee for the evening. The centrepiece of the event was a conversation between Kim and me with a follow-up Q&A. You can listen to a recording of that here!