So this week I’d finally look ahead to the future, and talk about something that I’m sure no one else, anywhere, ever, has yet talked about: the title of the new James Bond picture, Quantum of Solace. Or, it’s one of those things that it seems like everyone, just everyone has an opinion about, so I want to go ahead and record my view of the matter here at Culturology for posterity’s and history’s sake. My stance? Eh, it’s really not that bad. It seems like the discussion (as most discussions) breaks down into a simple set of pros and cons.
The pros:
1) It’s unique. I reckon that the title (and off the bat here, albeit parenthetically, I’d like to mention that the fact that it’s an actual title of an actual Ian Fleming story is pretty much completely unimportant) was picked as much for its sound as anything else. Kind of quasi-scientific but thoroughly open-ended. I suppose the expanded title would be something like A Discrete, Sub-Microscopic Amount of Solace. I’ve occasionally heard people complaining that the title doesn’t make any sense, but that really isn’t the case.
2) The notion of solace being right there in the title reminds the viewer that Daniel Craig’s James Bond is a different kind of Bond. Is a quantum of solace all the comfort and peace he’s going to get? Or how much he already has? Or how much he’s looking for? The Pierce Brosnan Bond movies came to be in the decadent mid-to-late ‘90s and, as such, were prone to the same kind of ridiculousness that ruined the Kilmer and Clooney Batman movies (though I generally think that Batman & Robin was so ridiculous that it’s worth keeping around, especially as Exhibit A in my on-going argument that the mid-to-late ‘90s was one of the most decadent and culturally destructive time-periods in American history), as awful titles like Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough demonstrate. Pierce Brosnan was a cardboard cut-out; Daniel Craig is not.
The cons:
1) The title Quantum of Solace is some emo bullshit. The Daniel Craig James Bonds are suffering from the same disease as the new Batman movies (The Dark Knight, aka Dick Cheney, We Forgive You, was not, I repeat, not good), trying to recover from the above-mentioned ‘90s crisis. Along with the heightened realism of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, based on its title, is going to add in that long-missing emotional aspect to the Bond persona. This is a terrible idea. Bond is a type, and the misogyny of his character can be comfortably explained away by the role-playing, but if we suddenly humanize Bond, than all of his fatal flaws are no longer forgivable; if the franchise starts to take itself too seriously, the whole project goes up in counter-feminist flames.
2) The pseudo-science of using “quantum” in the title is backwards and harmful to the intelligence of the already science-deficient citizens of the United States. Although, actually, the reasoning of this may be backwards—if people buy into “quantum” being in the title, then maybe there still is some respect for empirical wisdom left in the American zeitgeist; this is probably a good thing. Well, then, if con #2 here isn’t actually that much of a con, let’s modify it, and say that “Quantum of Solace” sounds ridiculous and stupid, both sound-wise and content-wise. This is more or less the opposite argument of pro #1, so we now need to break out of the pro/con model and take a look at some other Bond titles, to see if we can figure out what makes them good or not.
Inarguably Good Bond Film Titles:
Casino Royale – Probably the very best title. Pretty much bad-ass. And, incidentally, if you haven’t seen the Peter Sellers Casino Royale, you must. An amazing artifact of late ‘60s weirdness (the movie is really boring for the first hour or so, but then, once it goes off the deep end (and it goes off the deep end) it’s absolutely incredible (as of this posting, it’s available over on Hulu, so you can watch it on the internet if you want to)).
Goldfinger / Goldeneye / The Man with the Golden Gun – Put “gold” in the title, it totally works.
Moonraker / Octopussy – One-word titles that are pretty much silly actually work out pretty well, it would seem. Especially Octopussy.
And well, that’s probably enough examples. Does Quantum of Solace fit in? Maybe not. I’d say that it winds up being middle of the pack, along with Die Another Day, You Only Live Twice, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. I think it’s biggest disadvantage as a title just comes from following the impossible-to-follow Casino Royale. And we can’t very well hold that against it.
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Things That it is Okay to Like
2) Nirvana. Maybe this is a non-issue. I’m probably basing this too much on interacting with spoiled undergraduate hipsters at a private, North-Eastern (barely) University in the early 2000s, but liking Nirvana, so far as I can tell, requires some amount of defense. I’m coming at this, as can probably be inferred, from the perspective of a person that is and has been more interested in “independent” culture than “mainstream corporate swill” culture, and since Nirvana straddles that line in a way that no other band since has, they remain an important cultural touchstone. And this is not an argument about “grunge” music in general (though, for the record, I’m pro-Melvins, pro-Mudhoney, anti-Soundgarden, anti-Pearl Jam (in fact, the extended lives of both of the latter were seriously involved with what went wrong in the latter half of the ‘90s)). So far as I can tell, Nirvana was the last band genuinely its own entity to be thenafter co-opted by mainstream culture (the GAP/iPod commercial model, as I’m sure I will argue at length in a future column, is a different model than the “finding” of bands that used to take place in this country). I can argue the merits of their music too, if you’d like, but they’re worth liking for their cultural-historical positioning alone.
Things That it is Not Okay to Like
2) Family Guy. Everyone that you know that likes Family Guy is wrong. The arguments against it are mostly familiar already – I refer you first and foremost to the “Cartoon Wars” episodes of South Park (also available for watching on the internet). Their dead-on parodies of Family Guy demonstrate how uninteresting Family Guy really is. As intended with this segment of Culturology, I’m just letting you know where I stand on the issues that matter. Now, I’ve had this argument with some number of people before, so, for transparencies sake, I will come out as a strong proponent of the first 6-7 seasons of The Simpsons. “A-ha!” you say, “You’re just bitter about Family Guy stealing the Simpsons’ mojo [or however you’d word that].” No, that’s not it; I just politely point out that Family Guy is not actually funny, and that if I wanted to watch a bunch of pop-cultural references inartfully strung together, I’ll just hold out for the next Scary/Epic/Date Movie, coming, certainly, to a theatre near me.
hahahaha i like your name for The Dark Knight. but i have to disagree with you on Family Guy. i would argue that the show is valuable for its cultural-historical positioning as well. other than Star Trek, it’s the only TV series i know of that was literally resurrected by fan interest. and Star Trek was resurrected ten years after the the live-action TV series was canceled and it was brought back as a movie. Family Guy was resurrected a few years after cancellation and it amazingly resumed production like nothing had ever happened. also, along with Chappelle’s Show, Family Guy was one of the earliest series to prove that TV shows have a viable market other than reruns and syndication hell: DVD collections. that gave me ALF on DVD, and that’s enough justification for me. i would also add to this that Family Guy is basically THE reason that Adult Swim / late night adult cartoons succeeded on Cartoon Network. while i feel that Cartoon Network effectively killed the Saturday morning cartoon (that’s a whole other debate), i can’t reject the significance of today’s so-called “adult” cartoons and how they’ve created an entirely new genre of edgy animation (which previously only existed in the form of fun but awkward shorts like the material from Spike and Mike’s Animation Festival). i’m not much of a fan of South Park and i dislike their politics greatly. i would also say that i find the politics of Family Guy irritating as well. however, because of the timing of Family Guy’s joke delivery, i can sit and watch entire episode without getting too annoyed or bored to go do something else. i can’t say the same for South Park. so that’s my case in support of not throwing out Family Guy with its soiled, floater-infested bathwater.
Family Guy is funny sometimes, but tiresome always.
But while I disagree with you on The Dark Knight, I like what you say about the pitfalls of humanizing Bond. Besides the whole misogyny angle, the main problem is that a human Bond is no longer Bond. Casino Royale was a pretty decent modern spy movie, much borrowed from Bourne. It was not, however, a James Bond movie.
I grew up on classic James Bond. My favorite is The Spy Who Loved Me, which has the best song, the best pretitle opener (Union Jack parachute!), and the best Bondgirl in Major Anya Amasova, whose personal and political hatred of Bond are overcome by his masculine charms. Daniel Craig could never pull that shit off. For one thing, there’s something wrong with his mouth, something lipless going on. For another, he’s traded the winsome cavalierness for a dark emotional vulnerability. There’s a certain kind of woman attracted to that emo bullshit, but Major Anya isn’t one of them.
It’s not that a human Bond is offensive. It’s that he just isn’t Bond anymore. Hollywood spy movies are a dime a dozen; Bond is an icon. Like William Shatner, he cannot be spoofed, for he is a spoof unto himself. Neither can he be made more serious, for thus he loses his essential Bondness. In other words, the title of the new Bond movie, stupid as it is, is immaterial, since it is not Bond, only new.
kirsten, you said:
“Bond is an icon. Like William Shatner, he cannot be spoofed, for he is a spoof unto himself.”
so true!!!!! Bond really is his own greatest satire. sort of weird and sad at the same.
emo bond. classic. i wonder if his watch has secret artery cutting blades.
The emo blades are hidden in his wrist watch, so that all emo bond has to do is twist the dial, and it automatically slits his wrists. But not badly enough to kill him, just enough to let other people know how sad he is.
Stop the digital comment presses nick! - “i would also add to this that Family Guy is basically THE reason that Adult Swim / late night adult cartoons succeeded on Cartoon Network.” - Do you really believe that?
Adult Swim was born from experimental shows like Space Ghost Coast to Cost and anchored by heavyweights like Sealab, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman, and most recently Metalocalypse. Robot Chicken and The Venture Bros. are arguably the most popular shows on the network now. Even when Cartoon Network added Family Guy to the lineup, people were more interested in Futurama reruns.
I can appreciate that pop culture is an important part of these shows - especially the Venture Bros. and Robot Chicken - but I think that’s true of any comedic enterprise. Family Guy didn’t do much to break new ground.
Perhaps Nick is alluding to the “non-sequitor humor” of both the stoner cartoons on Cartoon Network, and the broadcast swill of Family Guy. That is, shows that just string jokes together with only a loose sense of plot as such. Which is all well and good, I suppose. But, then, half these shows owe as much to E!’s Talk Soup than anything else. Still not okay to like.
basically i’m saying that Family Guy reruns and the hype of the series when it was off of Fox was pretty unique. we have yet to see what a generation of impressionable adolescents say about the influence of Family Guy, but i think that the show will end up being pretty significant. obviously something like South Park had to come first, but i think Family Guy has made its own special splash culturally which may end up being just as big if not bigger than South Park. Brian is an alcoholic dog that wants to have sex with his female owner and Stewie is a violent talking baby with a superiority complex, and both of them are sold in stores everywhere (i’m talking supermarkets, etc.) as stuffed animals and novelty items. not to say that makes the show any good — i think it has entertainment value for totally different reasons — but that shows how viable they are as marketing properties (and thus some proof of cultural importance).
How would you compare Family Guy to Futurama? Since to me, their stories are pretty similar, and I don’t think one really happened before the other (except that Family Guy was returned to air by Fox and Futurama is still only now resurrecting its existence (I watched the first of their direct-to-DVD movies, and thought it was pretty funny)).
I’m trying to avoid any kind of “downfall of our culture” angle here, but that may be impossible. Family Guy certainly has some jokes, and often manages to string them together for 20 minutes at a time. Maybe I just overvalue plot, and should get with the times rather than bemoaning the pandering to short attention spans that both Family Guy and the bulk of Adult Swim are guilty of (I enjoyed the first seasons of Sea Lab 2021, but other than that, I can’t really claim to have like much of it.. maybe a couple Aqua Teens here and there).
But I agree with Neal - I don’t think Family Guy is at all a precursor for Adult Swim. And the Adult Swim stuff is funnier anyway. And whereas the average viewer of Adult Swim is stoned, the average viewer of Fox’s Sunday animation is of sub-median intelligence. It is certainly the stance of Culturology that viability as “marketing properties” is not interesting, or okay to like.
Futurama? hmmm i don’t have a full opinion yet considering that its resurrection is still in progress. i’m not much of a fan myself, but if this actually happens, then it will join Family Guy and Star Trek as series pulled back from the dead. i’m not saying Family Guy is a precursor to Adult Swim — i’m saying that Family Guy reruns helped Adult Swim and in turn made it “cool” to like ironic cartoons as an adult. i’m not placing a value judgment on whether that’s a good or bad thing. rather, i’m saying it has some cultural significance. and Pete, i think if you watched the genius of the Meet the Quagmire’s episode of Family Guy when Peter travels through time via the help of the Grim Reaper, you might actually find an episode of the show that you like.