Is Hollywood inching closer to finally getting what audiences actually want? The answer, as usual, is yes and no.
At the very least though, some actors are finally starting to understand that changing the gender of a well-known and well-loved character isn’t the smartest idea. Jenna Ortega, one of the stars of the recently released “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” told the media recently that she doesn’t want female leads to replace characters traditionally played by males. Specifically referencing the James Bond character.
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“I love that there’s a lot more female leads nowadays, I think that’s so special. But we should have our own,” Ortega said. “I don’t like it when it’s like a spinoff — I don’t want to see like ‘Jamie Bond.’ You know? I want to see another badass.” That sentiment was shared by actress Ana de Armas, who appeared in “No Time To Die,” the most recent release in the Bond series.
“There’s no need for a female Bond,” de Armas said. “There shouldn’t be any need to steal someone else’s character, you know, to take over. This is a novel, and it leads into this James Bond world and this fantasy of that universe where he’s at.”
TORONTO, ON – SEPTEMBER 07: Ana de Armas attends the premiere of “Eden” during the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images)
Hollywood needs to create new characters, not gender-swap old ones
Thankfully, Bond film producer Barbara Broccoli also agreed that the character should still be a male.
“I think [the next James Bond] “I’m a big believer in creating roles for women, not just having women play male roles,” Broccoli said in 2021. “I don’t think there are enough great roles for women, and it’s really important to me to make films for women, about women. He should be British, so British can be anything. [ethnicity or race]””.
This is the right answer; create new characters. If there is a large audience for the female action hero, superhero, or “badass” archetype, then write new scripts, develop new projects, and release new films. Don’t just lazily remake the same story with a female lead and expect it to work.
The Indiana Jones franchise went out of its way to say that they were going to replace Harrison Ford with Phoebe Waller-Bridge in The Wheel of Fortune. This is not surprising, as Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy He, of South Park fame, was a key executive on the project, but it failed.
If Lucasfilm and Kennedy want to make Phoebe Waller-Bridge the face of an action-adventure franchise, they should do it. Just don’t make it “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” If far-left celebrity Jenna Ortega can understand that, they should, too.