Licence To Queer

Bisexual Bond expert Ben Williams and I have been speaking for years behind the scenes, emboldening each other to be more openly queer. After they came out as non-binary, we thought it was about time we tackled The Big Stuff more publicly: gender binaries, putting who we’re attracted to into boxes and, perhaps most profoundly of all, what needs to be going down in our personal lives to make sense...

For 70 years, Her Majesty was the only consistent recurring 'character' across the different versions of Bond, serving as an inspiration for many, including women and those men who had to keep their sexuality secret.

With the first book in her new trilogy, Kim Sherwood has blown the world of Bond wide open - and then some! In this far-ranging conversation we discuss diversifying MI6, seeing 007 from different angles, setting up threads for the next instalment and much more.

Two of my dearest friends Han (until last autumn a Bond first timer) and Maz (ardent Brosnan-era admirer) join me for The World Is Not Enough at our local cinema. Hear our thoughts from before and after the film. Licence To Queer regulars will already know Han and Maz. We introduced Han to the world of Bond for the first time in September 2021 and talked about what it was like for Maz growing up a...

GoldenEye was the first Bond film I saw in the cinema, aged 13. Seeing it at the cinema 27 years later, aged 40, would it be an emotional experience? (Yes. The short answer is Yes.) I also had the good fortune to meet Thomas (@TEG79 on Instagram) who you can hear on this episode and Doug Astley (@TheDougHQ on twitter) who was sat next to me the whole time (although we didn't realise this immediate...

Despite me being British, sport has always bored me to tears. So imagine my surprise when I found myself bawling my eyes out with pride in our sportspeople twice in one day! Perhaps their Bond-like approach to overcoming adversity had something to do with it?

Running probably saved my life. It’s saved Bond’s more than a few times as well. Here, I look back at his running career - which was not exactly impressive until Daniel Craig brought more metrosexual physicality to the character - and compare it with my own, which started soon after my first viewing of Casino Royale .

More than shifting his gender or sexual orientation, surely the boldest way to reinvent Bond would be to make him care for something other than himself. A cat, perhaps? After looking back over 70 years of books and films, I’m convinced the idea has legs (four of them).

An award-nominated voice actor and filmmaker, Kathryn Vinclaire is also a massive Bond fan who identifies as bisexual. Like many of us - even gay-identifying men like me - she has a “massive crush” on Diana Rigg in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. We discuss her Tracy Bond awakening moment and why the world of Bond is such an open space for queer people like us.

David and Antony rev up their engines, listen to her howlin' roar and play with the boys, lavishing praise on the Top Gun sequel they didn't know they wanted. They discuss their relationships with the 1986 original, homoerotic subtexts, their opinions on Tom Cruise and the rest of the cast, the music (Gaga!) and try to work out why it just works so well from start to finish. Also, they share what...

Moore's Bond is the most 'Camp' but what does that really mean?

Anya's not the only woman on the scene. She's got tough competition from none other than the Queen!

A hairy Russian 007, a fishy megalomaniac and and a queerly horrifying man mountain with metal teeth.

The book's General Gogol equivalent is a far less lovely character than the film's. And there goes Moneypenny being over-efficient as usual.

For me, The Spy Who Loved Me marks the point where Bond edges closest to the ‘harder’, even hypermasculine end of the spectrum, potentially making it harder for some queer viewers to identify with him. It can sometimes feel like overkill, especially when it comes to his sexual conquests, as if Bond is trying too hard to prove something, perhaps even putting on an brave show of it. This performativ...

In a bit of a departure from Bond, Sam and David discuss why the joyful Netflix smash hit Heartstopper is a milestone in queer culture and why EVERYONE needs to watch it. Although Bond comes up a few times in the discussion, it mostly draws on many of the ideas Sam and David have explored in relation to Bond, especially in terms of representation. They discuss why it resonated with them so much, w...

Daniel Craig turned heads when he turned up to the No Time To Die premiere wearing a shocking-pink jacket. A statement piece in more ways than one, it was widely hailed as a break with Bond tradition. But the more we look, the more we find that this is hardly Bond’s first time wearing the most ‘feminine’ of shades.

“It might sound strange for an asexual person to be a Bond fan, given that sexual attraction is such a big part of the character’s world…” Fenna Geelhoed sets asexual representation in her sights and targets the best and worst examples from the Bond series.  This is a video accompanying an article on www.licencetoqueer.com   Direct link here: https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/what-do-y...

In the dark days of my early twenties, I fell out of love with Bond and poor Batman had to shoulder the responsibility of being my queer role model. Now that I’m nearly 40, staring down like a brooding gargoyle at my impending birthday, I’m wondering where the Batman and Bond influences end and the real me begins? This is the podcast version of my article published on 19th March 2022: https://www....

Chris's original story imagines the first meeting of Diamonds Are Forever's lovable assassins. He talks to me about why he wrote it. Read the story here: https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/wint-meets-kidd

According to Die Another Day costume artist and gay Bond fan Patrick Whitaker, this is “the Campest Bond movie that will ever be made” and I’m not inclined to disagree.

Although Giancita ‘Jinx’ Johnson is not the first of the series’ ‘female Bond’ characters, she’s the one who mostly closely mirrors his non-binary combination of masculine and feminine qualities, as well as his traits of a stereotypical gay man.

Like the recipient of a deeply-suspect DNA transplant, Die Another Day is an attempted blend of new and emerging trends in culture and filmmaking with the feel of a classic Bond film. Not only that, it’s also narratively-speaking, both a Rebirth and Overcoming the Monster tale, two distinct archetypal story styles. The resulting experience is an identity crisis unfurling, sometimes jarringly, in f...

Verity keeps her tip up, Q gives Bond his ring and Moneypenny enjoys some me time.

Colonel Moon/Gustav Graves is t he epitome of someone who is not who they claim to be. And what makes ice queen Miranda Frost such a cool queer heroine?