Page - 135 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

ences to, for example, the Resurrection. This suggests that Bond is at least a cultural Christian – someone who does not reject the tradition. There is further evidence that a certain kind of Christianity has been part of Bond’s upbringing. At Bond’s family estate in Scotland, Skyfall (also the name of the 2012 film), there is a “priest hole” from the time of the Reformation, a hiding place with a tunnel leading to the moors. M and Kincaide use it and head to the chapel. The tombstone for Bond’s foster parents stands next to the chapel. These details do not tell us anything substantial about Bond’s personal convictions, about which the films say very little. In Spectre, however, Bond responds to Dr. Madeleine Swann’s question about his becoming an assassin by saying that he had two options: that or priesthood. The film contains no further explanation; whether this is a serious comment is perhaps deliberately left unclear. Finally, while some authors have speculated about Bond’s “religiosity”, no consensus has been reached. Some label him a nonconformist Protestant; some state that he had a Calvinist upbringing; and some suggest that Bond is modelled after real-life Catholics.56 Frank Smith sees Bond as a carrier of Chris- tian culture and morality, but it has also been suggested that a reading of Bond novels “reveals no obvious religious belief”.57 These speculations take us rela- tively far from the films and are best noted but not given great weight. Suffice it to say that while Bond does not comment on his “religious” or “non-religious” standpoint in any explicit manner, he is content with Christian culture and its rites of passage as long as they are compatible with the (presumably) rational modern life of “the West”. WHY READING BOND FILMS THROUGH THE LENS OF “RELIGION” MATTERS This article provides an overview of religion-related issues in Bond films but with some deliberate omissions. For instance, this analysis has not addressed the unintentional or metaphorical “religious” language that exists in Bond films as in mediated public discourse in general.58 Rather, the discussion has principally focussed on a key pattern identified in Bond films: portrayals of “religion” in Bond films are strongly supportive of what has been called the discourse of “the West and the Rest”. Stuart Hall’s conceptualization of this discourse does not pay much attention to “religion”, but I have argued here that on the basis of Bond films at least, “religion” is an integral part of it. For the most part, “re- ligion” is placed on the side of “the Rest”, as something exotic and/or irrational 56 Chattaway 2012. 57 Contessa 2010; Smith 2011. 58 For an analysis of metaphorical and unintentional “religious” language and “religious” ex- pressions in British media, see Knott/Poole/Taira 2013. Reading Bond Films through the Lens of “Religion” | 135www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 119–139