The Great British Spy
The James Bond franchise of films is something of a time capsule. The twenty-four, soon to be twenty-five, films have been produced regularly in an unbroken line going back to 1962. As a natural consequence, this series of formulaic by design spy-thrillers can be used to shed light on the cultures in which its installments were produced. Of course, all media can be used to examine the culture that produced it, what the James Bond franchise provides is a picture of a culture's idealized masculine hero, as well as a look at political anxieties, and British cultural fascinations of the time.