Another Murderous Toff*

In a world of Ted Lasso, do we still need James Bond?

Who gets to be a hero, in these rabid, panting dog days of Western patriarchy? What does it mean to fight the good fight and stand up for what’s right? When every cultural certainty is crumbling away like wet cake, can good men exist, and are they necessary? These may not be the most pressing questions when our houses are underwater and our futures are on fire, but they are the questions that the top-billed franchises in mass media, old and new, are trying to answer, and that matters.

It matters because sex and gender and race and nation are power structures and they are stories, and how we tell those stories reshapes the world and our place within it. Right now, the biggest show on TV is a desperate fantasy of escape from the isolation block of toxic masculinity disguised as a fuzzy sports comedy rammed with dad jokes. But I’m not here to talk about Ted Lasso. Because the biggest film in cinemas is…the new James Bond.

Again.

James Bond, superspy, mass-murderer, sexual predator, alcoho…