Sexpionage! Why filmmakers can’t resist a honeytrap
From the Bond girls to Red Sparrow, seductive spies have been a movie staple – but the greatest Mata Hari was a Hitchcock heroine
Reports of the death of the Bond girl have been greatly exaggerated. She has simply matured, as reports from the latest James Bond film suggest that they are now to be known as Bond women, and newly installed screenwriter Phoebe Waller-Bridge has said the franchise “has just got to evolve, and the important thing is that the film treats the women properly”.
Sexpionage on screen has a mixed reputation. This is the business of “honeytraps”, in which “swallows” (female spies) and “ravens” (male ones) seduce the enemy to gain their secrets. The movies love it, of course: sex scenes are more alluring than mid-level operatives combing through phone records. But when films get it wrong, the results can be creepy, and all too often misogynist. There is little glamour or heroism in being forced to have sex against one’s will, and the emotional fallout from “undercover relationships” has rightly proved a scandal in recent years. Meanwhile, sexpionage films such as Mission: Impossible II fail to conceive their female characters as anything more than passive sex objects and Bond girls remain dazzling but disposable.