Bond, Queer Bond - with author Mark O'Connell

Host Richard Jones sits down with fellow Brit Mark O'Connell — Bond expert, BBC commentator, and author — to explore the surprising depth of queer identity woven throughout the James Bond franchise. From Mark's grandfather's three decades as Cubby Broccoli's chauffeur, to a tearful seven-year-old's first encounter with Octopussy, to the deliciously camp world of Diamonds Are Forever, this episode explores this history of 007 as an unlikely beacon of LGBTQ+ representation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome to the second episode of season two of the Bear World Podcast, the companion to BearWorldMag.com, the magazine for bears, cubs, chubs, and chasers everywhere now in its 13th year. I'm your host, Richard Jones. I am very excited this week because we have a very, very special guest, a fellow Brit, and he's going to be talking to us about his new book, Bond Queer Bond. And if you know anything about me, you know I'm a little bit of a Bond fan myself. Um, if you remember some of my social media posts, I have taken pictures outside of the Philly of Seoul location in New Orleans. Only the Bond fans will get what that even means. Um, not only has he written Bond Queer Bond, he appears as a commentator and guest and writer across various outlets, including the BBC, BBC News, Sky News, The Sunday Times. Um he's interviewed a raft of artists, including recent times, including in recent times. I mean, it's he has a long biogue, so this is why it's taken me time. Uh, including in recent times, the composer David Arnold, who did The Good Omens, um, Billy Magnuson of No Time to Die, and a rich list of Bond creatives, directors, actors, authors, and more. Mark appeared in Sky Movies Bond's Greatest Moments, headlined a Polari Literary Salon at the Southback Center, and was a BBC comedy apprentice on Jonathan Harvey's Beautiful People on BBC2. His debut book, uh Catching Bullets, Memoirs of a Bond fan, is published by Splendid Books with a forward by Mark Gattis of Sherlock and Dracula, and a prelude by the 007 producer herself, Barbara Broccoli, who said Catching Bullets is a wonderfully funny and touching memoir. Cubby would be proud. There is so much more, uh, but I'll run out of time. So let's meet the man himself, the wonderful Mark O'Connell. Welcome to the Bear World Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me onto this illustrious cultural vessel. I'm I'm ready to go. I'm geared. I'm geared up.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Wonderful, wonderful. Welcome. It's great to have you. I mean, I'm thrilled. I, you know, I got to know you a little bit over the last so so long, but it's great to have you uh in the in the studio with me, as it were. Um, I I mean, I'm gonna dive in uh because I I can't wait. Um book is amazing, truly uh truly amazing. I mean, I I I thought I knew a bit about Bond, um, but this book, I mean, sh shone lights on Bond that I didn't even know that there was places to shine the light into. Um so amazing. And yeah, just so I think I don't know whether I I think you know a lot more about Bond than than many people, but I you know, I have my favorite Bonds, and there's Bond movies that I think, well, I've watched it once, but I haven't kind of gone back to it over and over. It's really given me an appetite to kind of dive into some of the Bond films that I don't know so much about. Um so I before we kind of dive in, I I I want to kind of find out a little bit, uh you're not just any old academic Bond researcher fan. I think you need to tell us and tell a lovely audience out there how you really got to know about the Bond movies.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Um, well, I was lucky. Um, I my grandfather worked for the Broccoli family, who the the they were the sort of the captains of Bond for many decades, right up until very recently, with Barbara Broccoli. And uh back in the late 50s, my grandfather was a chauffeur, and Cubby Broccoli needed a chauffeur. He was setting up um, well, he's already had a film company, he was kind of looking at maybe doing something about the Bond franchise. My grandfather was with him before that, and then my grandfather ended up staying on, as you know, a lot of people do uh in the Bond world. He ended up staying on for many, many, many years, like over 30 years. And he was a house sitter chauffeur. Um, I have this hilarious vision, and this is a true thing that he used to go to LA and house sit Cubby's house in Beverly Hills, and my granddad wasn't perhaps you know, he he wasn't sort of shorts and a vest type person, so he was probably there, sat in a tweed, uh, you know, turtleneck jacket and all of that. And um he uh yeah, he would go there and uh it was kind of an interesting Bond was in my family before I was, and I remember hearing those discussions of Bond and names like Roger, Barbara, Cubby, Paris, uh, and it was around a sort of you took kill. That was the first time I was aware of a Bond film being in production, and I would kind of I would ask questions, and my grandad was very guarded, not because of some NDA secrecy thing, he was just one of those quiet people, so it was really hard to sort of ring out any gossip or titles or anything, but he it was good, he was good. So, yeah, so I kind of came to Bond because Bond had already come to my family, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Right. Do you I mean you you mentioned uh a view to a kill. I mean, you do you remember kind of seeing your first bond then?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Oh yes, my first bond was actually June 83 at the Guildford Odeon on one of those divorced parent Saturdays that um were a thing in the 80s, and um uh my dad took me and I had a major meltdown in the foyer of uh the Odeon Guildford because I wanted to see Return of the Jedi. And I remember and I'd seen it already, I'd seen it already though. Um, and you know, had Octopus in one screen, Return of the Jedi in the other, and I think it was like war games and something else, you know, what a time to be alive. Um three very great movies, yeah, totally. And my dad he stuck to his um Walter PPK and guns and said, No, we are seeing this film. I was like, what? And I was seven, you know. Could you imagine taking a seven-year-old to a Bond film now? But I was taken to see Octopusy, because obviously films called that are perfect for seven-year-old boys, and I I just fell in love with it. And I didn't know why there was little bits, but it was the whole package, the whole production, the whole yeah, the whole sense of entertainment. Um, and I remember uh not so long ago, Hans Zimmer said that Bond music should feel like a perfume that lingers in the room. And I think actually a Bond film is like an exotic perfume that just lingers, and that's what it did to me. I I can vividly remember the um the tuk-tuck chase and the gymnastics and even the title sequence. I remember watching the red glimmering titles sort of uh mirroring across the whole big order, this 1930s art deck auditorium, and I remember finding that fascinating. So it's weird what you remember, but no, Octopusy was my first Bond film, and then A View to Kill was the first one that I anticipated. The first one that oh, there's another one, and that was where I started to get fed a little bit of stuff from Cubby's office, whether it's posters or cassette soundtracks or your other little curiosity. I got a great watch from Cubby once, which um I subsequently broke, which I still feel bad about. Sorry, Cubby. Um uh so yeah, so Vue to Kill Omas. Vutokill was the first one I really look forward to, and it played and it uh it was kind of quite poignant and felt quite full circle that Vuutokill features so heavily in the book as well. I didn't put it in because it's my favourite Bond film, I put it in because of what the sort of Venn diagram crosshairs that that film particularly represents. There are many other Bond films as well in the book, but Vuutokill is one of the the gay flagbearers in the book.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, that that was fascinating to see because it it's again, it's um it's funny because it's a film I kind of remember through the music, because that's the that's the Duran Duran. Am I right? Is it the Duran Duran? Yeah, Durand Duran.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, number one in America. First, first Bond hate in America as well.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

And it I it was on um, because it was on um, I think it was on like now that's what I call music compilation or something like that. Um, so I kind of remember I remember that connect that connectivity of of the music uh for me. Um I mean, does that I mean I don't know whether you're able to do this, but do you have a favorite bond? Do you have a bond that well that's my bond? I mean, I think you know a lot of Doctor Who fans go, I that's my doctor or whatever. Do you have the same?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

I have I have a I have a media lot, I have a real answer and a media answer. So my media answer is the best bond should be whoever we have now. And I remember once Barbara Brocky said, I'm gonna steal that. And I'm like, well, don't, because that you might regret that. You should have this, it's you your job, or it was your job to have the best bond now. Um, I am Team Roger, you know, from that octopusy moment and a View to a kill. I'm Team Roger, and he and it was like like a chick. I you know, I said that in catching bullets uh back in the day, that I was like this chick just coming out of the ground or cracking out of his egg and look up and see this flared Bollinger clutching beamoth called Roger Moore, and that was my bond. And Connery just felt like my stepbond, they all felt like the other guy, and I was actually quite glad that Timothy Dalton became the next Bond because then it enabled me as a Bond fan to write, okay, I can move on, but also look look backwards. And I've kind of done that all along. I've never, oh, he is never as good as Roger Moore, and it's never good. You know, I think Daniel Craig was easily the best Bond since Connery. That doesn't mean he was my favourite, but um yeah, I get it. But you know, what Roger Moore did, you know, Roger Moore kept the franchise going. Each actor has kept the franchise going, sometimes during precarious box office uh moments, but also just in terms of uh creativity. And Roger Moore went from sort of 73 mean streets and godfather right through to um Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins, and uh Temple of Doom. You know, he really steered it through very different different box office times. So I'm very grateful to Roger Moore. But I'm I wanna I want to say in you know maybe two years, 18 months time that Mr. X is the new guy is the best Bond because that's what it should be. We should always have the best bond, should be now.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

That's true. I like that. I like that answer. Yeah, because I because I I guess I'm the same Roger's mine because it's the first one I really, you know, uh live live and let die is my favorite bond for all kinds of weird reasons that I won't go into. But uh, I mean nothing weird, just uh you know, there's all different parts of it. Is it gift shops?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Is it gift shops with fake plastic snakes getting gift wrapped? Is it yes?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Because I always think did she did she squish it together to wrap it, or did she wrap did she really wrap it lengthways like he asked for?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

So I'm she's not Rowan Atkinson in love, actually. There's no flourish, she doesn't put any petals, she doesn't do this, she just wraps it.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

There you go. Yeah, and she leaves it behind, and he leaves it behind. I'm like, you know, she's waiting for you to pay for that, but um no, it's it's it's just I don't know, just I just I I feel like it's I remember that from being watching it all with the family uh one Sunday or something when it was on, you know. So that's a memory connected to it. So it isn't always about the film itself, I think it's about the memories connected to it. But anyway, Roger love Roger, love Roger. I feel like Roger was the comedy bond, like I feel like he had the comedy lines more than anybody else.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, he was, he was he was the lighter bond, but Connery did light as well, especially, especially going to it. And I think um I think with Roger Moore, when he wasn't being comedic, it's a bit like I was I was watching um Evil Under the Sun the other night, and um, and I kind of was doing this comparison between uh on-screen Poirot's and on-screen James Bonds, and there it you can kind of loosely tie up. And I think Ustinoff is like the Roger Moore, right? Um, and they would be funny and lighter, but when they weren't funny or lighter, my god, did that cut through the screen in the moment? And Roger Moore would do that. He, you know, he would even early on, he's quite he's a way more serious in the first couple of films, then he has a little sort of moon raker, yeah, late 70s flourish, but he's way more serious than you think. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Wonderful. I mean, Quarrow and Evil Under the Sun, another favorite, but that's for a whole other podcast. Um, so just to bring it back to the book itself, um Bond Qui Bond, uh it says that it delves into the queer elements of Bond. Now, again, for everybody out there, what what does that mean? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Um, well, a few people always think, oh, is it like sort of um you know fan fiction? Is it you're imagining gay James Bond? And I went, no, no, no, I don't need to. I really don't need to. Um, I think in these times of where diversity and equality is has become collateral, and we've always had diversity and equality. I hate this thing where um we've only had LGBT progressions since we've had hashtags and social media. I don't think that's not remotely true. And if you go back across time, queer diversity, gay visibility has been there. It's just you know, society and politics and laws have changed for good and bad, bad and good. Um, so I was a I was aware of that, and I wanted to, I kind of wanted to, I wanted to do another Bond book, definitely. And also there, you know, there's the prospect of the 007th incarnation of the on-screen bond if the timings felt good. But I thought of another Bond book, there are quite a few out there, and you know, I wasn't going to do one on the cars or the costumes or the songs, but I thought is there enough queer history? And I started to dig and I was always conscious, maybe there's not enough. Uh, and a few publishers turned me down because I said that that this is a niche within a niche and there won't be enough to fill the book. And I was like, screw you, let me let me prove you wrong and prove myself wrong, and I have and did. Um, and it was important for me. So the whole the the whole gist of bond queer bonds, the starting point of it is I wanted to acknowledge the LGBTQ creative, artistic, political, and sort of historical timelines, inputs, and frameworks that fed into the openly straight James Bond. Because it's kind of it's kind of ridiculous, you know, it's unique selling point is Bond. Why would Bond have a queer history? Well, he he does, and that starts with Fleming and his world, his associates, the politics that he was railing against and trying to sometimes puppet in a better way. Um, but also, you know, what happened then with all the the on-screen stuff, you know, a gay editor changes action cinema. Um, Peter Hunt, he he changed how films were cut, how how adventure cinema was made, and uh, and then uh uh uh Lionel Bart, the who wrote the first Bond song. We had Bond songs in Doctor No, but he wrote the first Bond song, and it was I I interviewed David Arnold about all of that, and he gave these great insights and suggestions that Lionel Bart wrote the first Bond song was like a kind of enduring yearning, which instantly was the chapter title. And he said that a guy that was it wasn't he wasn't closeted, but something that's worth bearing in mind is that we'd had a lot of the Fleming Bond novels and five of the films when it was still illegal to be a gay man in England and most of Britain. Um, and I thought, well, you've got these these creatives who are yes, yes, they're working, they're you know, yes, Peter Hunt was an editor, yes, Richard Chopping was an illustrator, but they they kind of changed, they check they created genres, and that was important to me. So it was recognition, it was giving those those those quiet heroes their flowers and their plaudits. Um, and then it just grew. I found out, you know, it's this book is not just about the gay people that have created Bond, it was about the gay people that have used Bond that as it has been part of their world and crucially so.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Yeah, I love I love one of the bits in the book that I was fascinated with, and it kind of resonates really well today is uh the ballroom scene where you said that when they're brand new, um they're 007s, which was fascinating to come in. At the minute in New York is is running really high because it's the new incarnation of cats. They've put it against the ballroom scene.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Oh, it's a gelical ball, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah, which it just the reviews have been out of the world, you know, there's not been one bad review, which is which is amazing. Um, but yeah, that that that I love finding those bits out that I you just how would you even know? You know, I we're not in the ballroom scene, so we wouldn't know. So, but but wonderful that something's so as you said, a world that like on the outside is so straight and and you know has these things happen that people take to their own self is wonderful, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, and I every time I I used to I would uh text my husband go book gold, and it would and it would be two or three things every day I would find out, like the double oh sevens, and just to give a bit of context, uh it's all there in the book, but the ballroom scene, which you know we should all know as um as as gay men, gay people, but the ballroom scene, you know, is this uh particularly 70s and predominantly 80s onwards scene of of community, of of sass, of style, of presentation. Um, and it's you know it's been brilliantly um uh chronicled in uh Ryan Murphy's pose series, which I think was great, which also then had a Bond reference. Um I can't remember uh Blanca, the the main character, she's trying to get an agent, and she says, Well, the Bond girl's got an agent, Tula has an agent, and that there was Tula, who was a trans actress who was uh in a brief scene in Fury's only, which which was brilliant for her and brilliant for the Bond franchise. She then took a lot of tabloid flack for it, and that was yeah, totally wrong. And you know, even today, let's not go there with how trans people are being sort of represented and shredded in social media and and some cultural destinations. Um, but but there was all that, and then when you watch Paris is Burning, which is a you know the definitive film about the ballroom scene, one of the older queens is kind of asked, Who's your inspiration? I remember I think it was Labanja. Sorry if I got the name wrong, and he says Maude Adams. And I went, Oh. So then suddenly, you know, just these connective tissues. I didn't want the book to be about loose connective tissues, I wanted it to be about veins and bones and bone marrow. And I I I well, time will tell. I you know, I I feel I'm I'm proud with what it's become and what it now is.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Well, sure. I mean, I think you know, we've we've touched on a couple of pieces, but I mean it's hundreds and hundreds of pieces of connectivity that I I mean I'm fascinated about. You know, I I mean it I really I haven't read these, I haven't, you know, we're all guilty about it. Well, I am, you know, being on social media and that and you know, reading a book. I've got plenty of books, I love books, but sitting down and reading one takes a lot these days. And I was through, I I it was my commute book, and I was reading it at home, and I, you know, I it was wonderful. Thank you, you know, because it is it is a subject that I remember I remember my mum talking about Bond. I mean, that's how you know she was a big actually science fiction fan, but she loved Bond. She and she had, she said, the original books, and I'm like, Oh, wish we still had them wherever she got them from. But um, she she and she was funny, she'd always be like, Oh, that's not in the book. You know, we'd be watching a bond for well, that didn't happen in the book, and it'd be like, She was the only one that ever knew that's good.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

That's good for a mum to sit there on the Bond sofas. Where usually it's the you know, the teenage geeky bond kids going, that's not in the book, mother. But I love that I love that your mother was the was the fact checker.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Completely. I mean, she she would read our book a week, if not more, you know. Um always had a head, a face in a book. I mean, it's a big joke in our family about uh hanging out with mom was hanging out, watching her reading a book. Um but um, but yeah, you know, I mean it again, you uh folks, you've got to read the book. If you're into film, even if you're into films, the the the the diving into a franchise the way you do and and and pull that all together um is fascinating it's fascinating. What what do you think was the biggest for you the biggest surprise uh as you go as you delved in?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Um well, just that there was enough. There was enough to get me over that manuscript finishing line. Um I just how also how quickly Bond, especially the films, but also the books, but the films really became ingrained in popular culture, and if they become ingrained in popular culture, they become ingrained in queer culture and queer audiences, because you know, gay people can like straight things and vice versa. Um and just to suddenly find out that there was the first ongoing gay comic strip was a spoof on Sean Connery's bond. It was called Harry Chess, as in Harry Chest, because that's what Conoring was apparently known for.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

We're all about that here, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

And if you want to look up some of the hairy uh the Harry Chess um uh uh artworks and scenarios, there are out there. So finding that was interesting. Finding the gay porn that was doing sort of very quasi bond homages, but using exist I don't think it was licensed, but using like John Barry Score from On a Majesty's Secret Service. Um, so I've seen a title sequence that's basically a adult gay film where instead of um you know, instead of tits and tech, as my friend called Bond titles, they're tits and tech. I went, yeah, that's right, it's tits and tech. Um, I wanted male tits and I got them and other bits as well, and suddenly cascading guns and it and you know, and these that stuff exists, and then also finding out the underground queer sinner that was doing bond spoofs in San Francisco, but then at the same time as doing their wacky lo-fi bond sort of Mickey takes, they would also be documenting and have uh demonstrating great queer reportage in the bars and clubs. You know, they weren't dressed with extras, they were just who was there that day, and you suddenly see the inside the 60s queer worlds, and that was important to me as well. And thank you for saying, you know, what you've said there because it was important to me to write a book for people that weren't gay and weren't Bond fans. Um, and I was conscious of, I mean, there's a lot of expectancy about writing a new Bond thing, but also queer history, queer culture. You know, I even struggled with the key word, but I got over that fast. Um uh I I just wanted the book to be accessible, but also accessible to to uh to gay people who who maybe don't know that, who, who know Harvey Milk because they think, you know, Sean Penn was in a film once. I would go, well, no, let's pull it. So I wanted to bring those stories out. Of the history books, out of the alleyways and the law courts, and bring them because if we don't do that then we're not doing it now, and now is quite important with you know our queer history and diversity and equality has become collateral for certain political parties and headlines and people. And I thought, no, I'm going to reclaim it. And what how better to reclaim queer history than with the very straight James Bond? Who a lot of people are oh, it's gone woke, Bond's gone woke. Well, Fleming used the woke phrase properly in the 60s. So sorry, Bond's always been woke.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

I mean, that's it, isn't it? It it's we've always been there. This woke, we didn't appear overnight when the word woke appeared. You know, we've been doing these, and I think that that that that's an interesting part of the book is that it shows actually the impact on life from the 50s. You know, that's that's that's the I think to me that's the fascinating thing that this goes all the way back to Fleming himself and the world he was working in. And I think you I think, you know, when you cursory look at Fleming, you think he's uh massively heterosexual and very of the the old guard and the kind of establishment. And it's like he was, but with all these other things that that made his life rich as well, you know. And I think that that I can't remember the passage in the book, but you were saying oh, it was um Grace Jones staying in his house and uh uh obviously when he passed away at that point, I think, but the ki the connectivity of people that he uh knew. I mean, Dickie Chopping, for instance. I mean that the connectivity to Dickie, who, for those who don't know, uh did some of the most famous kind of uh not the very earliest ones, but several of the early on book covers that that really set a tone for design for the film, the film going forward. Uh again, what I you know, I learned this all in the book, folks. It's you know, you've got to read it. Um so yeah, so I mean to me, fascinating to to um the I I think I told you the other weird connectivity to Dickey and and maybe some of the things is is it Wivenho in terms of where uh Dickey lived in Wivenho, there was another guy that lived there, I'm gonna forget his name, he was a professor of sociology, was working on the team for the uh is it the Levenden, the Levenden Report? Oh the Wolfenden. Wolfenden. I don't know where Levendon Report. Um so they and he they lived there many years before I did, so they must have known Dickie and Dennis. So there's you know, the the fact that the the the that report came out, and again, for those that don't know, the Wolfenden report led to the decriminalization of homosexuality in Britain in the late 60s, would it be?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

And yeah, and Dickey was in the chamber when that got finally passed, and with according to John Liz Turner, and was livid because it in his mind meant all those you know straight husbands that would come by after work would not want to be. I'm not gay, I'm not homosexual. He was livid that everyone that that was the bracket for what he was and it you know is. Um yeah, and the Wolfenden, and there's even more connections with Wolfenden and I won't. I'll keep something back, but uh Wolfenden had a son who wasn't totally disconnected to various um alleged spy rings and all of that. And you're you're reading it like and I know I would never have been able to do this book 10 or 15, 20 years ago because of the you know, we all mock, we all criticize and are uh wary of the internet and you know and and its its reach and its impact. But uh what you know in a good way, so much more is curated and online, so you can find stuff and you can dig and you can more importantly check and cross-reference and see is that right? Was that you know? I I have a chapter where Truman Capote comes and stays with Fleming, and I kind of write I wanted to write it like a Fleming chapter.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

That's what I was thinking of. Yeah, I'd forgotten who it was, but yes, that's the one it was.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

I was thinking, what was the weather like? Um, and I and I knew that Ian uh Ann Fleming had or Ian and Ann Fleming wrote a lot back and forth to each other, and I think one of them uh complained about the bad weather, but I thought, no, I need to check that, um, because that letter might have been out of time or context. And I managed to find Jamaican weather reports for that February Valentine's weekend in 1956, and it so went in the book. And I yeah, and that that's that was the joy of it. I just it it never felt like work, it never felt like research. And one of the things that's people are responding to is the the stuff I've found out, and to me, I'm just I'm just so glad it's you know, I've been sitting on this for two or three years, all of it, and I'm glad it's finally sort of leaking out, um better words, ways of saying that. I'm glad it's reaching an audience leaking out.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

We we get that here at the Bear World Podcast. We're we're um I I mean we I I I mean I could go on for hours told you about this, but um, I think what what is there any particular film that used to or that in this kind of period of research, and even though you knew a lot about Bond, in the film itself was kind of you were like, Oh, now I get that, now I get that thing, or I get that piece or that uh bit of cleverness that maybe I mean I want to say the old phrase of coded, or um, but just clever editing or clever use of an image or something, was there something that suddenly leapt out to you from a film that you thought you knew, but with all this research, you're like, ah, now I get that.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Well, I think it's important, and I just made this up as listening to your uh question there, that queer creativity doesn't always mean queer content. Yes, um so you know, seeing like the work of Peter Hunt, you know, Peter Hunt did not project his his um you know his more private life into the films, although there's a lot of shots of Sean Connery and you know his hairy chest, but that was for all the gay audiences and all the women at the time. Yeah, um, and I've forgotten your question that that might be a cut. Say that again. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

No, just just like once you started to do the research and kind of start to piece together the things that but again, the revelations that even you found was if you went back to any of the movies, was there something that you thought? I mean, this might be a strange question, but you were like, Oh, now now I've done the research. Now that thing that I'm seeing in that particular movie either makes more sense or suddenly became clearer, or you were like, Oh, jumps out at you now. That's kind of like a nice thing, you know, you know, that you can pierce through the coding or or you just can put some pieces together, go, oh now I get that, I get what they were trying to say there. Now I'm an because now you're an adult seeing that movie.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Well, as a kid, as a gay, so I was sort of yeah, I was 10 years old in the middle of the 80s, and I I was a kid that found Bond through Octopussy and then a view to a kill, and then the registry of Bond films that were on ITV, and that was you know, that was shooting uh Bond fish in a barrel because you you didn't know which one might be on next, and it was usually a bank holiday afternoon or boxing day afternoon. And I remember uh fist pumping the air when it was announced that next Sunday on LWT at 7:15 is Diamonds Are Forever, and it was the the voice guy was always um there's it's not Bond related, but I love there's a great Christmas ad for Alien. Come aboard the Nostromo with actress Sigoni Weaver, and I was they used to be like that. So next Sunday's Diamonds are forever. See Sean Connery in Las Vegas, it would always do that anyway. I was fist pumping because it was on, and then I watched the film a week later and I'm avidly punching out the commercials and trying to make you know a ad-free copy of it on my uh VHS tape. And then Winton Kid came up, and I was and I think a lot of gay people now, but definitely in the past, if there was a gay character or a gay thing on TV and you and you were in the lounge with your family, it was terrifying because you did have this fear that the Winton Kid would turn and go, and you're gay too. Or you'd think maybe what if my parents already suspect? And are they looking at me to see my my reaction to that? I remember my mum asked me what did I think of AIDS and the John Hurt Iceberg advert. And I was 11, 12, like, yeah, I don't know. Um, the advert's terrifying, and that was that was the uh length of our discussion. Um so I was kind of I was a bit fearful of the queer content of bomb films, and there wasn't much of it, you know. We would we would all laugh at the camp concierge and moon raker, and I I flicked that away quite quickly. I would, I don't the book is not about things that that was gay, but you didn't know it. That that's that's not what I want to do. Um, and then but then later on, as a you know, in my 30s and onwards, 40s, and now a little older than that now. And I I look at Winton Kidd as just being a stunning embodiment of queer representation because you've got a couple that are deeply in love, deeply committed before the film and remain that way to the end. And they are they camp? Yes. Are they are they preening? Are they faggy? Yes, they are, and that's why they're brilliant, they don't care. And I think I don't think it was ever played for laughs. Um and you had two straight actors who were you know, and I I interviewed Putter Smith, which was another absolute joy to interview one of um the two killers from Diamond's Isle Forever, and he he had such great views, and he's in his 80s now, but he had he sounded like a brilliant teenager and a brilliant guy in his 20s when it came to his straight world attitude to the gay people around him. And I said, you know, that was brilliant to hear. And also it's important to hear that we've not always just struggled, we've not always been downtrodden and underrepresented or not represented. Um, so later coming in, seeing uh Diamonds Love Forever and going, Oh, this is this is delicious, and then you suddenly, yes, I noticed. Well, obviously the drag, but the preening nature of Charles Grey with his um, you know, with his uh cigarette holder and the cat with the the you know the diamond collar, it's very queer. And and then you know, you've got Bambi and Thumper, and suddenly, even now for the book, I was looking and God, Diamonds R Forever is a massively queer film in many respects, you know, and that's before you even say title song by Shirley Bassey. Well, yeah, I mean, she's like the least queerest of it all in a way. No, no, totally, totally. Yeah, when Shirley Bassey is the least gay thing, you know, you know, you know the film's you know been done for us.

SPEAKER_01 32:20

Fantastic, fantastic. Um, I I could talk to you about this forever. Um, I I love Bond, and I think you've given me a new passion for Bond. I mean, I I will reveal that I couldn't read the book without the Bond music playing because I had to switch everything else off, but I do like a little bit of something in the background. I was like, well, it's gotta be Bond music. So I you've got to have that perfume.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

You've got to have that perfume.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And I think that's what got got me to really like enjoy reading a book again. You know, I mean, I feel like I haven't, you know, I read books a lot, but not as much as I used to. I mean, I used to read if you ever commuted in any city, you read a book, uh, you know, you didn't want to read a newspaper, you read a book on the subway. That's what I used to do. Um but this has been wonderful. It's wonderful to meet you. I I can't tell you how much I think the book is wonderful. I'm sure it will do well. I think there's many plaudits to come. Um, I'm excited to see what happens. And um, I really truly appreciate you coming on the Bear World Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Oh, well, thank you for asking. And uh it's good to be interviewed by a fellow Bond queen as well. Um, yeah, and a real Bond Queen, not just a I'm a Bond Queen. No, no, you're a real Bond Queen.

SPEAKER_01 33:30

High praise indeed, and I will take that very much. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Ladies and gentlemen, Bond Queer Bond is published by the History Press and is out in all the good and bad bookshops uh from the 14th of May, uh, which is next month. See you in a few weeks. I'll be back and uh enjoy. Take care all. Thank you so much for listening.