 James Bond, the world's most famous secret agent, suave and sophisticated, a womanizer that's both dangerous and courageous, a character created in the 1950s by writer Ian Fleming and has endured 60 years of success on the silver screen. Ever since 1962's Dr. Noh first introduced us to the charming and alluring character that withstood the test of time and a large portion of that comes from constantly updating the movies with the times. After no time to die's tragic ending, the producers are now forced into a reboot of the series. What shape or form should that updating mean for the character of Bond? For instance, should James Bond be black? Obviously I realize discussing a topic like this is like tipping your toes into sensitive waters these days and I'm trying to go around this in a nuanced and respectful way. You see, changing characters to black seems to be a very popular thing these days in Hollywood and while I feel the Bond films have always been very diverse in their selection of actors regardless, this sort of trend was also seen in the Daniel Craig Bond movies where both Miss Moneypenny and Felix Leiter were changed to black actors respectively. And I feel both of these happen to be my favorite incarnations of these characters. I can see why there's an allure here to some people and before I delve too deeply into this topic I want to immediately put out there that I respect those who feel this could be a great progressive step of updating the character especially when it turns out a very talented black actor happens to be the very best possible choice for the role at a particular moment. But I also feel that those who don't want to see this happen should equally be respected. You see, I think there is also a lot to be said about being conservative about the Bond character too. I think changing Bond's gender, race, or sexuality are definitely three key aspects that make Bond the character Fleming wrote about in the 1950s and making a change to any of these three does steer away from the source material and Bond's core identity. Which, fair enough, can mean more to the one Bond fan than it could mean to the other. But to be perfectly honest, I am among the people who wouldn't want to see a change made to any of these three aspects. I feel there are great writers out there who could create an original character that happens to be a female secret agent or maybe a homosexual one or an Asian one or black or whatever. Changing any of these aspects to an existing character changes a lot about its identity and what that character means to people, in my opinion. Changing Bond into a woman for instance may be exciting for a few films but ultimately I think this is not what a lot of Bond fans would want to see and just would make it seem like a totally different character that simply isn't James Bond as was intended. I am much more in favor of updating the characters surrounding him, which of course they've always done. I feel the current trend of updating characters to black for the sole reason of being progressive for the sake of pleasing a woke orientated society, so to speak, is the wrong way to go about this. And one of my personal concerns is if they ever do change Bond to be black, could you ever change him back to a white Bond later down the line? You see, in my observation, they will take a lot of characters that have been white for decades and change them to black, sometimes just for the sake of being progressive. But in my observation they would never or rarely change a character that has been black for decades to be white. Take the little mermaid for example, a character that has now been changed to black. I recently saw an AI artist has changed this to what she would have looked like in this incarnation as a white character and it caused a lot of backlash of being a racist move. So, changing a character's race isn't racist, but changing it back is? Now, maybe it's my dutch down to earthness and I'm just too oblivious to this progressive way of thinking. But I can imagine if they ever took a character that has been black for decades and they changed it to white and some random artist comes along and changes it back to black as it was intended, that would cause a lot more praise than this sort of backlash. And that really got me thinking, supposed the filmmakers go down this route and we've had a black Bond for years now. And this is the new way things are and it's highly successful too. Then the time comes again for a new actor to take over the mantle as he's getting too old. Would there be room for white actors again too or would that move cause this same sort of backlash? Imagine a whole new generation of fans are going to be interested in these new Bond movies. If it had been years, some weekend Bond fans may never be aware that the character was originally white before because at that point it would have been a great successful black actor for years. What? They're considering to make Bond white again? No, no, no, no, that's a relic of the past. He can do that. That's racist. Obviously I know the majority of people don't think like this, but that for me is a reason I'm quite conservative when it comes to a character a lot of us fans are so passionate about. If it isn't broke, why change it? That isn't to say anything I'm saying here is the correct opinion, but it's my opinion. I'm not even saying my opinion can't change. Heck, I was really among the fans that didn't want a blonde Bond to begin with when Craig was announced to be Bond and clearly he proved me wrong ever since Casino Royale came out back in 2006. But I suppose this video provides a different angle to the discussion that you may have not considered before. In any case, whatever your opinion on the matter is, keep the discussion respectful and I hope you enjoyed this quick video. Give it a like if you do. Please subscribe and take a look at my Patreon page if you are interested in supporting the channel. See you guys in the next video.