COMMENTARY
Britney wants to be a Bond girl

By Samantha Bonar
Los Angeles Times

Britney, you are no Bond girl.

Can you see Britney Spears playing Shirley Eaton's role, top, in "Goldfinger"? Or displaying the sexy wit of Ursula Andress, middle, in "Dr. No," or Sophie Marceau, bottom left, in "The World is Not Enough"? Sean Connery, right, and all cool 007s deserve better. Photo Illustration by Martha P. Hernandez • The Honolulu Advertiser

With Spears' brazen request on the table, perhaps it is time for a refresher on what a Bond girl is and what she is not.

A new coffee-table book, "Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond" (Harry N. Abrams, $40) by John Cork, co-author of "James Bond: The Legacy," and former Bond girl Maryam d'Abo (Kara Milovy in 1987's "The Living Daylights") breaks down the Bond girl mystique.

Those who pigeonhole Bond girls as mere sex objects are guilty of reducing complex female characters to one rather boring dimension, the authors argue. Bond girls, they say, are quintessential alpha females, melding masculine confidence with feminine manner.

The classic Bond girl's sex appeal, says Graham Rye, publisher of Britain's 007 Magazine and author of "The James Bond Girls," is "drawn from an air of classy sophistication, partnered with independence, intelligence and toughness and complemented by a face that turns heads — and a great body," he said.

"There isn't a girl next door in the entire lot," Sean Connery said in a 1964 interview quoted in "Bond Girls Are Forever."

Spears is on tour and was unavailable for comment. A representative refused to confirm or deny the report. Broccoli, in London, could not be reached for comment.

Jane Seymour starred in "Live and Let Die" with Roger Moore. Advertiser library photo

"The biggest challenge for Britney Spears," said Cork, "is that people already have a very strong preconceived notion of what Britney Spears is — and that is very different from audience preconceptions of what a Bond girl is."

So what are the ingredients for a sublime Bond girl? Vodka babetini, never shaken, stirring up James:

• A Bond girl has sex appeal. Her allure stems from her classic beauty — tall, lithesome, elegant. Ursula Andress (Honey Ryder) rose from the sea like a knife-wielding Aphrodite in 1962's "Dr. No," the first of the Bond films. Another "Dr. No" Bond girl, Sylvia Trench (played by Eunice Gayson), is described in the screenplay as "willowy, exquisitely gowned, with a classic, deceptively cold beauty." Britney, on the other hand, is already looking over-the-hill at 22.

• A Bond girl is exotic. She usually has an accent and speaks at least three languages — her native tongue, English and the language of love. She is from Shanghai, China; Istanbul, Turkey; Brussels, Belgium; or Belarus. Britney is from Louisiana. The town of Dadgummit, at that.

Ursula Andress was knife-wielding Honey Ryder in the first Bond film, "Dr. No," with Sean Connery. Devastating in beauty and sharp in wit, Andress set the standard for Bond girls in 1962. Advertiser library photo

• A Bond girl is powerful. In his novel "Live and Let Die," Ian Fleming describes Solitaire (played by Jane Seymour in the 1973 film) thusly: "Part of the beauty of her face lay in its lack of compromise. It was the face born to command." Author Camille Paglia in "Bond Girls ... " describes Pussy Galore as played by Honor Blackman in "Goldfinger" (1964) as "one of the most commanding, authoritative women in popular culture for the time." Granted, Britney once sold a lot of Pepsi. But it's not quite the same.

• A Bond girl is sassy. Sarcasm is one of her sharpest weapons. She uses it to pierce James Bond's ego at every opportunity. Luciana Paluzzi, who plays assassin Fiona Volpe in "Thunderball" (1965), mocks Bond: "James Bond, who only has to make love to a woman and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents and immediately returns to the side of right and virtue — but not this one! What a blow it must have been — you having a failure."

Britt Ekland, who plays Hong Kong spy Mary Goodnight in "The Man With the Golden Gun" (1974), chides Bond: "Oh darling, I'm tempted — but killing a few hours as one of your passing fancies isn't quite my scene." Britney has never been known for her devastating repartee.

A recent Bond girl, Halle Berry, held the starring female role in the 2002 James Bond film "Die Another Day." Advertiser library photo

• A Bond girl is sophisticated and classy. She knows how to dress to impress and how to dress to kill; she knows which fork to use and never eats with her mouth open. Bond girls are daughters of diplomats, royalty and top scientists. Britney thinks a corset and a python make good accessories, and it wouldn't be surprising if she ate her peas with a knife.

• A Bond girl is talented. She can pistol-whip a criminal mastermind with one hand while whipping up a prize-winning chocolate souffle in the other while stomping out a fire caused by a mysterious chemical from an Eastern European country. D'Abo's Kara Milovy in "The Living Daylights," for example, is a world-class concert cellist. Britney can, um, what is it she can do, exactly? Shimmy?

• Most important, a Bond girl is a man-killer. Literally, of course, but she also gets the richest, the smartest, the most dangerous men in the world. Until she tires of them, or they try to feed her to sharks, or vice versa. Andrea Anders (played by Maud Adams), for example, is the kept woman of million-dollar-a-shot hit man Francisco Scaramanga in "The Man With the Golden Gun" (1974). Kept very well, thank you. Honey Rider in "Dr. No" describes killing a rapist with a spider: "I put a black widow under his mosquito net, a female ... It took him a whole week to die. ... Did I do wrong?" Britney couldn't even hold on to Justin Timberlake. Or dispatch him in a creative way.

Bond girls, sums up writer Andrea Lee in "Bond Girls," are "not simple sexpots, but ruling-class goddesses."

Britney, live and let this dream die.