Laura Spungen: When Can Homophobia Live and Let Die?

Laura Spungen: When Can Homophobia Live and Let Die?

THERE ARE CERTAIN EXPECTATIONS – necessities to many fans – that come along with the release of a James Bond film. As a resultof the fairly predictable nature of the films, the franchise has become a popular phenomenon, evidenced by total box office earnings of over $7 billion (“Box Office History”). Beginning with a silhouetted, hyper-sexualized credit sequence, Bond is equipped with unrealistically high-tech gadgets and sent on a top-secret mission in an exotic, jaw-droppingly beautiful location. He makes an impossibly gorgeous woman fall in love with him, rescues her from adangerous villain, and saves the world – all within the course of a two-hour screening time. But there is one aspect of this formula that goes mostly unacknowledged by fans: many of the evil geniuses Bond faces off with are minorities in terms of their sexuality.