Schwanebeck, Wieland (2016):
"Spying in Gagool’s Cave: James Bond’s Colonial Adventures." Anglia 134.3: 506-520.
Journal Article
Abstract

This article assesses the colonial legacy in the long-running James Bond franchise. While various Bond scholars have repeatedly stressed the 007 fran- chise’s indebtedness to the geopolitical coordinates and mentality of 19th century imperialism and to the Victorian era’s ideals of masculinity, this article is the first one to read a Bond film (A View to a Kill, Roger Moore’s final adventure in the role as 007) as an adaptation of a colonialist-era pretext, in this case: H. Rider Haggard’s seminal Africa novel, King Solomon’s Mines (1885). Out of the numer- ous parallels drawn between both texts, the role of the aged adventurer, the significance of the map and its psychosexual connotations, as well as the night- marish construction of an animalistic, racialised female Other are highlighted in this reading. It culminates in a brief assessment of the most recent Bond films, as both Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015), in spite of some (postcolonial) adjustments, continue to be indebted to an imperialist mental framework.