How James Bond Survives

The James Bond of the 1960s drank, smoked and treated women like disposable objects. So how did Bond not only survive in our politically correct era but thrive as one of Hollywood’s most reliable franchise anchors?

The stewards of the series may take heat for a silly gadget here or a questionable title there (cough, cough, “Quantum of Solace”). They deserve credit for keeping the core of what makes Bond work intact through more than 50 years of spy games.

James Bond means business. He doesn’t apologize for his actions. He’s a prototypical alpha male who also can rock a tuxedo like few of his peers. So long as that holds true, the franchise should keep prospering.

Casting current Bond actor Daniel Craig, whose features aren’t as neatly assembled as his predecessors, helped keep the series on the proper footing. And he’ll likely keep up the character’s unflinching approach during fall’s new 007 adventure “Spectre.”

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It’s a franchise under near-constant pressure to match up to modern left-of-center marching orders all the same. Consider the push to change Bond’s ethnicity.

Craig hasn’t even retired from the assignment yet, and still some think the next Bond should be a minority, specifically black actor Idris Elba. The “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom” star is a huge talent who could handle a Bond-esque role without question. Still, the character’s back story — his parents were Swiss and Scottish and he grew up in England — is part of Bond lore.

Author Anthony Horowitz, tasked with writing the next James Bond novel “Trigger Mortis,” caught social media fire for saying Elba is “too rough… too street” to be Bond. It isn’t a color issue, though, Horowitz claimed.

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Those statements should keep Twitter users busy for at least the next 48 hours, even though Horowitz has already apologized. But that isn’t the only change to the character that’s being suggested.

Former Bond man Pierce Brosnan said last month that a gay Bond would make “interesting viewing,” but that for the sake of progressives the character should be black first. The family that currently controls the Bond franchise would not permit a gay Bond feature, Brosnan contends.

He’s a prototypical alpha male who can crush a tuxedo like few of his peers.

Or what about Bond’s famous womanizing, a tic that led to cartoonish monikers like Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore? It’s changed with the times, too. In 1987’s “The Living Daylights,” Timothy Dalton’s first of two Bond outings, Bond is essentially a one-woman hero. We still get the obligatory Bond Girl in every 007 outing — “Spectre” features not one, but two, Bond Girls (Madeleine Swann and Monica Bellucci) — but the sexual power dynamic is more balanced. Craig’s Bond is even wounded by the loss of Eva Green’s character in “Casino Royale,” his first foray into the British spy series.

And that pleases Craig. The actor told Esquire magazine that he applauds the evolution of Bond’s romantic life.

He said he hopes that “my Bond is not as sexist and misogynistic as (earlier incarnations). The world has changed. I am certainly not that person. But he is, and so what does that mean? It means you cast great actresses and make the parts as good as you can for the women in the movies.”

Pitting Bond against female co-stars given rich, three-dimensional roles can only improve the storytelling — and keep feminist antagonists in check.

What’s non-negotiable is Bond’s methods and a license to kill that shows no signs of aging.