Defender of Social Values

The 1970s was a tumultuous time politically. The civil rights movement was still in full swing, the gay rights movement had just started, and the flower power movement had captivated much of America’s youth (Schulman). A social revolution had begun and given rise to new concepts of community and involvement.

These avenues of social change were not welcomed by everyone. President Nixon was infamous for his repulsion towards hippies and the political movements of the 70s. John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy chief, stated in regards to the White House’s policy towards these groups:

“We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did (Baum).”

This context is important in understanding the changes made to the villain of Live and Let Die from book to film. The villain, Mr. Big, originally smuggled gold coins for the USSR; however, when adapted to film, Mr. Big’s plan changes to spreading heroin across the US. That is to say, Live and Let Die is the Bond film with the first prominent black character, but this film depicts all but one black man as a criminal working to spread the usage of heroin worldwide.

This film preyed on the fears of the public spread by the current political institutions. Chosen due to its similarity in subject matter to the black panther movement (Moore), the African American community was represented as villains in a film that co-opts the blaxploitation genre, a genre which emphasizes the black figure as hero.

This fear of social change is further emphasized in the villain plot of Scaramanga, The Man with The Golden Gun. Scaramanga aims to utilize a solex agitator to create an infinite solar power plant. He will then sell this to the highest bidder. This plot seems to be derived from the 1973 energy crisis caused by the Arab oil embargo (‘History of Solar Power’). The hope was to turn to solar power as the future; however, Scaramanga represents the distrust and fear of solar power that permeates the masses. The eventual failure of solar power in the film resonates with the audience and reemphasizes the weaknesses of solar energy.

Protector for the Community

The final two villains of the cannibal era, Hugo Drax and Karl Stromberg, both hope to achieve a similar goal. They hope to destroy the world and create a better one in its ashes; Stromberg through his own version of Atlantis and Drax through his space shuttle.

This does not seem too far-fetched of a concept. Compared to other villains’ schemes this is definitely attainable and not that original; however, these two back to back films are the only Villains in the entire series hoping to develop their own communities.

The sixties and seventies led to the growth of several type of alternative communities. A common type of alternative community was the communist agrarian societies. These communities were small communist sections of the US solely dedicated to supporting each other. As communism was often associated with the evils of the modern world, these small communist communities were feared out of association (‘Utopian Communities’).

Drax and Stromberg are manifestations of all the ill wills thought towards the communist communities. They hope to exclude the outsiders from their perfect society, as the wider populous feels the communist communities could do to them.

Moore’s transition into Bond coincided with political turmoil and social unrest. Similar to the sexual revolution of sixties, Bond could have utilized that social unrest to become a symbol for the revolution. Instead, Bond drew weak parallels to underrepresented communities and ignored the deeper issues. This resulted in an era of redundancy and racism that best not be repeated.