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Licence To Queer covers queer aspects of Bond books, video games and more. Search here for your favourite titles and characters or find content related to particular queer identities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, etc).
Queer re-view: Skyfall
If Dorothy in the The Wizard of Oz is to be believed, there's no place like home. But what if that home is Skyfall? In his 50th anniversary queer odyssey, 00-Dorothy doesn’t just kick back against traditional notions of home and family; along the way he creates a unconventional family to replace the one he lost and blows up his childhood abode with dynamite. Talk about cathartic!
“Sexuality, gender and James Bond are all very complex subjects…” Breaking binaries with Ben Williams
Bisexual Bond expert Ben Williams and I have been speaking for years behind the scenes, emboldening each other to be more openly queer. After they came out as non-binary, we thought it was about time we tackled The Big Stuff more publicly: gender binaries, putting who we’re attracted to into boxes and, perhaps most profoundly of all, what needs to be going down in our personal lives to make sense of Quantum of Solace.
He runs while others walk
Running probably saved my life. It’s saved Bond’s more than a few times as well. Here, I look back at his running career - which was not exactly impressive until Daniel Craig brought more metrosexual physicality to the character - and compare it with my own, which started soon after I my first viewing of Casino Royale.
Look what the cat dragged in: is the world ready for a more feline James Bond?
More than shifting his gender or sexual orientation, surely the boldest way to reinvent Bond would be to make him care for something other than himself. A cat, perhaps? After looking back over 70 years of books and films, I’m convinced the idea has legs (four of them).
Armour on or off? Why Tom Ford is the perfect fit for James Bond
Versace, Cardin, McQueen, Calvin Klein… the Bond series has been associated with many of the world’s most famous queer fashion designers. But there is no more perfect fit for Daniel Craig’s Bond than Tom Ford.
James Bond: Muscle Mary
The lines between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ fashion are more blurred than ever, in part thanks to James Bond. Nevertheless, stereotypical assumptions about the clothing we choose to wear still persist. Craig’s Bond carries off a classic ‘gay look’ down to a (very tightly fitted) tee.
The truth about Tennyson: Britishness, ‘buggering on’ and the gay love poem at the heroic heart of Skyfall
M’s poetry reading is one of Skyfall’s most gripping and memorable scenes, imbuing the film with a sense of what Winston Churchill would have termed ‘buggering on’. It also contains a tragic gay love story, mostly forgotten about (or hidden) for nearly 200 years.
David was featured on German’s biggest TV channel, ZDF, talking about how James Bond provided him with an alternative role model when he was growing up, especially compared with the supposedly hypermasculine action heroes of 70s and 80s cinema.