Britt Ekland, who starred in The Man with the Golden Arm, says today’s Bond girls are more like Bond women.
Bond girls just wanna have fun – or at least had more of it in the early days of the franchise. But according to Britt Ekland, who played Mary Goodnght in 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun opposite Roger Moore, today’s standards have limited the amount of “fun” that modern Bond girls can have.
In a recent interview, Britt Ekland told PA Media (as per Metro) that shifting values have given today’s Bond girls different opportunities, both for good and bad. “There are no more Bond girls, they are Bond women today. They have it with the political correctness and the #MeToo, they have a much better time than we had…But I don’t think that the end product is as fun as ours were, because we were pretty and we had good bodies and we didn’t try to look sexy, we just were.”
Britt Ekland doubled down on the PC factor, which she thinks has caused Bond girls to have to button up more. “Today, everything is so, ‘Don’t do that because that will upset that side’. We didn’t have any of that. We just went out there, we were always in a bikini and all these people are fully dressed, very typical, but it was a job and we did it…So, I think today the Bond women have it – from a political correctness point of view – in a much better position. But I think we had more fun.”
While we all have our favorite, the Bond girl has certainly come a long way from the days of Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore and Holly Goodhead – especially when it comes to their oh-so-subtle names. And for many, it’s those faces, bodies and, yes, names, that remain at the pinnacle of what a Bond girl represents. For others, the progression of the Bond girl has been a move forward for the franchise.
As the hunt for the next James Bond continues, so, too, will the one for the next Bond girl. But don’t worry, no matter what they do with modern Bond girls, they won’t permanently have a female play 007.
What are your thoughts on Britt Ekland’s take on modern Bond girls? Who is your favorite Bond girl ever? Let us know!