Since the early Fifties, James Bond has represented the pre-eminent fantasy of what a man’s life ought to be like. Countless millions of men have depended on Bond to tell them how to dress, what to drive, what to eat, what to drink, how to talk and what sort of woman to desire.
In an interview from the November 2015 issue of Vogue, the beautiful and dress to kill, Léa Seydoux – said what Bond wants – and thus what men generally want – is a girl half his age, in a bikini, with a nice bottom, perfect hair and a stripper’s name: Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore, Plenty O’Toole, Xenia Onatopp, Christmas Jones… Once introduced to the audience, the Bond girl’s job is then to get wet, get frisky and get killed, ideally in as sexy a way as possible (asphyxiated naked by gold paint, drowned naked in oil, eaten by fish, shot with a torpedo…). It is certainly not what Emily Davison had in mind when she threw herself – fully clothed – to her death under that horse.