Professor David Peimer
James Bond
Summary
What is so enduring and endearing about James Bond? Is he pure adventure story fantasy? Is he the embodiment of British brains and sexy cool? An action man with wit, charm, and cunning? A mere marketing formula? We look at these questions and ask, why does Connery stand out as the ‘best’ Bond?
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Well, I purposely left out that today, because that’s a whole conversation to get into, and obviously, there are the debates around, you know, it’s just a misogynistic, paternalistic, you know, pretty damning portrayal of women in the films. Changes later with Judy Dench and others coming in and different actresses playing different roles, it changes. But there is, there’s racism, there’s anti-feminism, there’s all sorts of things in those novels, there’s no question. It’s not an excuse, but I think when we see these books as part of the times we see what they’re feeding in terms of popular prejudice going for and against popular prejudices in their times. And I think from an educational point of viewpoint to understand that, to get that.
I try to mention that, you know, Richard Maybaum, worked on 12, Wolf Mankowitz, and some of the early ones. You know, usually a team. So, usually, a couple of writers. There’s so many that, you know, to go into right now. Okay, well, thank you very much, everybody. And hope you’re well, hope you have a great rest of the weekend, bit of fun for August.