James Bondage

April 8th, 2007 I've recently watched the latest James Bond; I'm not proud, but I did. Casino Royale, oddly endowed with a final “e” even though the word "casino" is masculine in French and thus does not require the afore-mentioned “e”. I decided to watch it because 1) my family rented it, and more importantly 2) my brother - who shares my scorn of James Bond - said it was watchable. I won't talk of the movie per se, just one scene. If you haven't seen it and want to retain a pristine lack of knowledge before you see it, you may want to stop reading here. Since you're reading this, I assume you've either already seen it, or you don't care to see it, or even have little worry about having it spoilt - though I assure you I won't be spoiling all that much. The scene I mean to talk of is the torture scene. I think that's probably the peak of the movie, as the mythic Bond gets tortured in the area of his virility. I think that was some collectively unconscious (term misused with awareness) desire of just about everyone to see the macho Bond get literally castrated. Here's what happens: in some gloomy place a man cuts a hole in a hay-made chair, conveniently present. Then James is made to sit on it, naked. He's tied and the villain is holding what seems to be a rope with a large end. Then the baddie sort of pendulates the rope under James' butt, and that causes a nasty reaction in the latter. At first I was confused. Is it hitting his balls? It seemed so. First, I don't know about James Bond's private parts all that much, but for your balls to hang so low as to go below your thighs in such a way that they're low enough to be hit - well that sounds like an 80 years old scrotum to me. Though I readily admit I could be wrong on this point, not giving this blog enough concern to actually re-enact the bondage scene on myself. Second, and that's the big part, our James Bond reacts strangely to being hit in the balls. The baddie hits him harder and harder (he's trying to extract a password from Bond) and our Bond just starts screaming with pain as the blows are unleashed upon his precious testicles. Any man reading this, provided he has balls, and has been hurt in them, knows that screaming is not possible after a blow to the fragile zone. Not only that, but breathing is technically impossible. It's too bad because Daniel Craig - if that be his actual name - does a great job there, as an actor. But seriously, I've been hurt in the balls before, and the kind of pain James Bond expresses in that scene is simply not credible. He's reacting as if he had his arms broken or knives passed over his chest. That's not ball-pain at all. Ball-pain is like time stops and the universe is dead. You stop breathing, you're voiceless, you hurt in your entire body in a way absolutely original and unknown to anyone deprived of balls. This is not natural pain, this is literally the voice of God screaming throughout your body that THOU SHALL NOT GET HURT THERE. It's an important zone for the reproduction of our enthralling species. And God's voice hurts like hell. So as I watched in disbelief, I first tried to convince myself that he was getting hit in the buttocks, but as the villain made clear, he was hitting him in the balls. Several times over. For a comparison with reality, let's have me telling you of this Italian referee who got kicked in the nuts by an angry player. One kick. The referee fainted - I repeat- fainted because of the pain. That's a kick. James Bond gets a massive blow from a rope, many times over. And never faints. It's simply not possible. Blows like this, as any male knows, cannot be tolerated by our precious jewels. These aren't balls, Bond, these are... I don't even know what his balls must have been made of to feel that way. Getting hit in the balls is the most humbling experience you can live through as a male. You feel utterly vulnerable after the painfully gained knowledge of that. Nothing comes close to it. That is why I suggest every young man of 21 should get kicked in the nuts by his local spiritual guide, and be made to feel humble. But back to our Bond. Despite the discrepancy in the ball area, I'm actually quite surprised, in a good way, that the owners of the James Bond franchise agreed to have the Bondesque attributes attacked so lavishly. That shows attitude. Boy, if they had advertised for the movie that way, I'd have gone see it. "James Bond gets his balls tortured in this movie" and I was running to it. I'll end this entry by saying that I kinda like the latest Bond actor; he managed to make that character non-irritating, and that's quite a feat as far as I'm concerned. I'm still confused about the overall movie, though. I know it's not bad at all, but it has that pinch of originality which I still can't classify. So I don't know about Casino Royale. But one thing is for sure, this movie is the ONLY Bond movie where the phrase "Bond, James Bond" was tolerable. And that's another notable feature of that cinematographic happening.