Page - 122 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

gests that the portrayals come together to support and reproduce the existing discourse of “the West and the Rest”. This article proceeds by describing and justifying the data and clarifying how “religion” is operationalized for the purposes of this study. After that, four reli- gion-related themes in Bond films will be analysed in detail. These themes high- light how representations of “religion” play an integral part in the discourse of “the West and the Rest”. Finally, the concluding section ties the four themes together and reflects on why reading Bond through “religion” might matter for both Bond studies and studies concerning religion and popular culture. DATA: 25 BOND FILMS This article analyses James Bond films, not the James Bond novels, although the origin of the figure is in the novels. There are several reasons for this focus. First, the films have been more popular. There are plenty of people who have seen many Bond films but have not read a single Bond book, and the film series as a whole has been more profitable than any comparable series.9 In fact, the books started to sell well only after the release of films, and many of us have read the books only after watching the films.10 Popularity is an important criterion here, because in order to become popular, fictional forms have to relate to and con- nect with popular experience, and while the Bond phenomenon is “complexly ambiguous”,11 there are certain aspects pertaining to the typical plot structure, values and ideologies that make Bond’s popularity understandable. Portrayals of “religion” are among these. Secondly, although the first three Bond films “all bear a close enough re- semblance to their literary originals”,12 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Peter R. Hunt, GB 1969) being the closest of all Bond films to the original novel,13 the majority of Bond movies “abandon any fidelity to Fleming’s originals, opt- ing instead for screen stories which used only Fleming’s titles and character names”.14 One of the key differences is that “the films were deliberately de-po- liticised and detached from the Cold War background of the novels”,15 or at least they shifted more towards the climate of détente.16 In addition, “Bondi- an” became the term used by the production team to mean “the spirit of James 9 Black 2005, xi. 10 Bennett/Woollacott 1987, 26–27; 31. 11 Bennett/Woollacott 1987, 4. 12 Chapman 2007, 49. 13 Chapman 2007, 113. 14 Chapman 2007, 124. 15 Chapman 2007, 60. 16 Bennett/Woollacott 1987, 33. 122 | Teemu Taira www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 119–139