Market Forces : James Bond, Women of Color, and the Eastern Bazaar

Abstract

This chapter examines the chase sequences in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and in Skyfall (2012) in order to argue that 007’s varying relationships with women of color may be seen through the Otherness evoked by the Eastern bazaar: a site of visuality and mobility as well as a social space where both hybrid identity and cultural tourism are made visible. The earlier film (with Pierce Brosnan and Hong Kong action star, Michelle Yeoh) reflects what Mikhail Bakhtin casts as carnival, where inverted roles challenge social and cultural norms. In contrast, the later Bond (with Daniel Craig and a new Moneypenny, Naomie Harris), regresses to the Orientalist expression of an East-West relationship predicated on the colonial exercise of power based on exclusion and domination.