Page - 128 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

Goldfinger, from Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, GB 1964), has British citizenship, but he is played by a German actor and in the novel he is Latvian. Elliot Carver, from Tomorrow Never Dies, has an English name and he is played by a British actor, but he is from Hong Kong and he is also the illegitimate son of a Ger- man woman. Other villains are less related to Britain and the United States. The nationalities and ethnicities of the remaining principal villains are other than British or North American.37 Kingsley Amis noted in the 1960s that “throughout Bond’s adventures, no Englishman does anything bad”.38 Some commentators have also noted that many villains are physically disfigured in addition to having names and ethnicities that largely diverge from “the West”, and from Britain in particular, suggesting that a certain racism is at play in Bond films.39 In sum, the examination of villains suggests that “religion” in the Bond world is part of how the difference between rational (Anglo-American) modernity and that which lies beyond modernity is constructed. This is further evidenced in the examination of the location of “religion” in Bond films, to which this analysis turns next. IMPERIALIST ATTITUDE TO THE EXOTIC A conscious marketing strategy for Bond films, deployed into order to reach an international audience, has been to use locations (almost) throughout the world, both by shooting in tourist attractions and by including exotic ceremo- nies and events.40 For instance, when Bond is in Turkey, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia are seen on the screen, and for India the Taj Mahal appears, al- though it has no role in the plot. In many films, rituals and celebrations are part of the story, such as the Junkanoo parade (Thunderball), the Sumo wrestling ritual (You Only Live Twice, Lewis Gilbert, GB/JP 1967), bull fighting (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and the Day of the Dead (Spectre). In many ways “religion” is an unhelpful category. For instance, Bond chases a villain in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, but the film does not deal with the event itself, which entails honouring the deceased, creating altars for them and visiting their graves. It is a syncretic pagan-Catholic celebration, but none of 37 Le Chiffre (Albanian, Jewish background), Rosa Kleb (Russian), Dr. No (Chinese-German), Ernesto Stavro Blofeld (Slav), Hugo Drax (German, although strong connections to France in the film), Karl Stromberg (Swedish in the novel), Alec Trevelyan (Russo-Austrian descent), Dominic Greene (French), Raoul Silva (presumably Hispanic), Gustav Graves / Tan-Sun Moon (North Korean), Franz Sanchez (Mexican), Kamal Khan (Afghan), Dr. Kananga / Mr. Big (Caribbean, fictive San Monique), Emilio Largo (Italian), Aris Kristatos (Greek) and Max Zorin (German). 38 Amis 1965, 86. 39 Black 2005, 19. On the basis of physically disfigured villains, it could be argued that disability is part of “the Rest”, differentiated from the nearly perfect physique of Bond himself. 40 Bennett/Woollacott 1987, 206–207. 128 | Teemu Taira www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 119–139