Queer · and · Loathing · in · America

So, of course after I was so pleased to read that bit in Thunderball yesterday about Bond not being a sexist who degraded women about their sexuality, I went back to the book last night only to read this:

Women are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are seldom first-class.

Fleming goes on for an entire paragraph at great length as to why women are bad drivers, and then in the next paragraph, Bond sees a woman who is the "Bond girl" for the book, Domino, and that entire paragraph reduces her completely to a sex object.

Sigh.

Thunderball is later than Diamonds Are Forever (the former originally published in 1961; the latter in 1956), but it still precedes the release of the first film, Doctor No, released in 1962. However, this book was based on an original screenplay Fleming wrote, so...(in fact, Bond trivia fans, the screenplay Fleming wrote eventually was the basis for the film Never Say Never Again, when Sean Connery returned to the role in the early 1980's briefly. The actual original film of Thunderball had an entirely different script and ALSO starred Connery. Weird, right?)

I had a good weekend--one in which I got stuff done but not nearly enough, of course. (There's never enough time in the day, is there?) But I did get in for a massage yesterday afternoon, which was an enormous blessing. I slept quite deeply, comfortably, and well--and woke up this morning very refreshed and ready to go. This is always a good thing, you know.

I also did a bunch of interviews yesterday for a blog tour I am going on to promote Fashion Victim--I'll post links once they go live--and I am also guest blogging at a number of places in March (again, links will be provided for those who can't get enough Gregalicious).

And now back to the spice mines.