Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Is Matt Damon a Mangina?

Damon sides with Bourne over Bond

In all honesty, I don't watch very many films and I don't watch any television. I see one, maybe two, new movies a year. Television is crap and none of the movies I can enjoy watching more than once have been in theatres in over a decade. However, I was a bit surprised to see Matt Damon take a swipe at James Bond.

Bond is "an imperialist and he's a misogynist. He kills people and laughs and sips martinis and wisecracks about it," Damon, 36, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Growing up as a kid in the Matriarchy, James Bond was the man I admired. He had all the coolest toys, scored left and right with all the hot chicks, and always managed beat the villains. Even as a young man, I thought that James Bond had everything a man could want, and more.

How times have changed, or maybe it's just me. And it's kind of funny how a man "taking advantage" of slutty women (re: pick up artist) is considered a misogynist. I thought one branch of feminism advocated sexual liberation? I may not advocate the PUA lifestyle, but I certainly don't see anything wrong with it. If PUA's want a piece of what women are giving freely these days, the more power to 'em.

Paul Greengrass, Damon's director on Universal's "Bourne Ultimatum" and its 2004 predecessor, "The Bourne Supremacy," agreed that Bond is a relic from a different era.

"He's an insider. He likes being a secret agent.
He worships at the altar of technology. He loves his gadgets. And he embodies this whole set of misogynistic values," Greengrass said.

"He likes violence. That's part of the appeal of the character. He has no guilt. He's essentially an imperial adventurer of a particularly English sort.

"Personally, I spit on those values. I think we've moved on a little bit from all that, the martini shaken, not stirred."


My idea of what a real man embodies may have changed since I was a kid, but I still have fond memories of Bond. I might still wish I was James Bond if we lived in a different world that once was. James Bond represents all that used to be manly (yet refined) in the world, and some of what still is if you don't listen to those feminist harpies.

Makes me wonder if Bourne Ultimatum will be worth the cost of renting it in a year or two. If Jason Bourne is supposed to be the antithesis of James Bond, it sounds more to me like a chick flick than an action movie.

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