The bond beyond

The final chapter considers aspects of the Playboy–Bond connection from the mid-1960s onwards, reflecting on the legacy of past associations and outlining some of the broader transformations that tested the limits of James Bond and Playboy as cultural icons. The nature and general patterns of the relationship formed between Bond and Playboy magazine in the early- to mid-1960s proved to be influential in the decades that followed, but were also negotiated in relation to social and cultural change. These changes include perceived shifts in gendered power relations and feminist critiques, meaning that strategies like humour and nostalgia became increasingly prominent ways to address cultural anxieties and the ongoing struggle to maintain some kind of contemporary relevance. In particular the chapter discusses the mid-1960s Bond parodies, the women of the Bond films in Playboy, the Bond of the Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig eras, and challenges to the playboy post-1960s. In the later sections of this chapter the importance of nostalgia to the Playboy–Bond relationship, and contemporary popular culture more generally, becomes especially apparent. The chapter concludes that the foregrounding of nostalgia is a key strategy used by Playboy and Bond to mediate and (re)narrate the relationships between past, present and future.

The consumer bond

This chapter maintains the focus on the 1960s, framing a discussion about similarities between the lifestyle habits and style of Playboy magazine and James Bond within the essential context of male consumerism and the rise of consumer culture, in that they both function effectively as consumer guides. The chapter sets out to identify and discuss some illustrative examples of this connection between Bond and Playboy in the decade and a half after they were created, especially in terms of consumer preferences, style and taste. There are obvious but important similarities in the ways that Playboy and the Bond novels and Sean Connery-era films operate as consumerist fantasies, identified with exclusive or expensive brand-named products, gadgetry, travel, fashion, food and drink, and defined by an attention to detail, as this chapter illustrates.

Before the bond

This chapter begins by recognising the apparent coincidence that both James Bond and Playboy magazine first entered popular culture in 1953. It goes on to make the case that this can in fact be explained with reference to the publishing industry, certain influences on the lives and imaginations of creators Ian Fleming and Hugh Hefner, and the social and cultural climate of the post-war era. The strong coincidence of Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale, and Hefner’s Playboy being published in the same year, though on opposite sides of the Atlantic, appears less accidental when understood within the wider context of the 1950s, as do the changes that were made to the pre-existing literary formulas of the spy thriller and the men’s magazine. Looking at the post-war contexts of Britain and America, the chapter demonstrates that the early Bond novels and Playboy negotiated aspects of the changing social and cultural circumstances in similar ways, creating a playboy lifestyle fantasy that celebrated independence from the traditional breadwinner ideal.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the book’s main aims and its distinctive approach to the longstanding relationship between James Bond and Playboy magazine. The text is organised around an exploration of how the relationship was developed over time and in relation to society and culture so as to construct and maintain the playboy as an icon and lifestyle fantasy.

The Bond women

This chapter continues with the theme of consumerism in the Playboy–Bond connection by examining the representation of women and the role of sexuality in the lifestyle fantasy via its relationship to commodification. The chapter observes that the Playmate and the Bond girl share common characteristics, and it examines Playboy’s coverage of the women of the early Bond films by closely analysing the November 1965 ‘James Bond’s Girls’ pictorial. As the first of many Playboy pictorials to accompany the Bond films, the presentation of ‘James Bond’s Girls’ serves as an instructive case study for many of the issues and debates over female objectification and sexual liberation. The chapter ends its analysis of these representations of women in Playboy and Bond by relating them to the requirements of male sexuality and the playboy ideal.

The literary Bond

This chapter deals with the first phase in the formal relationship between Playboy, Ian Fleming and the Bond novels, which began in 1960 and lasted up to the middle of the decade. During this time, Fleming and his writing made regular appearances in Playboy, and there began a direct relationship between the author, the literary James Bond and Hefner’s men’s magazine that blurred the lines between real life and fiction. The chapter also considers how Fleming and the Bond novels endorsed Playboy, and how Playboy endorsed Fleming and the Bond novels, against the backdrop of James Bond’s introduction into American popular culture. Examples considered include Fleming’s Thrilling Cities trip to Chicago, his ‘Playboy Interview’, and the presentation of the Bond stories and serialisations as part of Playboy’s ‘Entertainment for Men’ formula. The chapter concludes by identifying that Fleming’s death in 1964 and the growing popularity of the Bond films in the mid-1960s, in association with the strength of Sean Connery’s public identification with the character of Bond, meant that as the decade continued Playboy’s relationship with James Bond entered its next phase.

The Connery Bond

This chapter begins by identifying 1965 as a highpoint for James Bond and also a significant milestone in both the formal and informal relationships that developed between Bond and Playboy. It is the first of three chapters to use as a key point of reference the 1965 November issue of Playboy, which included an interview with star Sean Connery. The chapter examines how Playboy endorsed Connery’s Bond as a contemporary role model both in the early Bond films and beyond the screen, and as an iconic embodiment of the playboy fantasy ideal. It examines how particular aspects of Connery’s Bond resemble the 1960s Playboy fantasy of individualism, social mobility and the work–leisure relationship, which was not without its contradictions and paradoxes.