Why I Like Daniel Craig

I was in the theater watching Tomb Raider. The second shower scene started. I groaned. One hadn’t been enough?

Then the camera revealed to us that the dripping would-be object of lust was Daniel Craig instead of Angelina Jolie again, and I laughed. The movie knew what it was and what it had come from, but it wasn’t afraid to play with it. That alone made the movie worth the painful father-daughter scene and Jolie’s magic, jiggle-free bra.

I was reminded of that moment in the theater when I saw this.

Emily Asher-Perrin has a post up at Tor.com lamenting the ubiquity of the butt-to-the-camera pose (usually with side-boob) used to promote female action heroes for movies. This was provided as a rare example of a similar pose for a man. Like the second shower scene, the novelty was highly welcome.

That was when it occurred to me that this is a great deal of why I like Daniel Craig. It isn’t the pretty face people say he has. The stony, stoic sort don’t really appeal to me personally. No, it’s the fact that, whether or not he’s ultimately responsible for the decision, I’ve seen him throw a little twist in the tail of a fair number of movie gender-dynamics stereotypes. After all, what other Bond could have gotten away without romancing the “Bond girl” the way Craig did in Quantum of Solace?

And then there’s this.

With all that, how could I not like Daniel Craig?

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Why I Like Daniel Craig
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11 thoughts on “Why I Like Daniel Craig

  1. 2

    The many faces of Daniel Craig:

    😐 sad
    😐 happy
    😐 angry
    😐 jubilant
    😐 pensive
    😐 repromanding
    😐 bored
    😐 intrigued
    😐 inquisitive
    😐 scowling
    😐 intent
    😐 excited
    😐 horrified
    😐 shifty

    On a more serious note, that is a damn good video.

  2. 4

    Unfortunately it seems like a lot of fans of the series decried ‘Quantum of Solace,’ at least some of them citing the relationship with the female lead as part of their complaint. Personally I thought it was great to see Bond actually develop somewhat as a character between ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Quantum,’ but I guess some folks won’t be happy until we get back to the crazy gadgets and stupid inuendos.

  3. 6

    @ Rory – I thought it was the other way around. I liked the character development in Casino Royale and was disappointed when Quantum of Solace went back to being more typical Bond with mostly gadgets and shoot-em-up with a weak plot and sketchy characters.

  4. 7

    @Rory & @Gwynnyd,

    I really enjoyed the reboot with Craig in Casino Royale because it felt less gadgety was generally more about people, which was cool. Also, it wasn’t so wildly sexist or horrifically racist as some terrible previous films. I found Quantum of Solace disappointing.

    I didn’t like Quantum of Solace nearly as well as Casino Royale because the threat didn’t feel equal to a bigger evil Bond standard. I mean, yeah sneakily manipulating underground water sources to gain a business monopoly is super scuzzy, but it’s not the action of a crazy megalomaniac. The plot felt a little flat; I’m hoping for something that feels a bit more Bondish next time.

  5. 9

    What a great video! I loved Casino Royale, because in addition to terrific production values and strong character development for Bond I felt it was the first Bond film that was able to really move beyond unimaginative sexism in its portrayal of women. That and Dr No – for its noir overtones – are my favourites. Is it inappropriate to say that Craig looks very, very hot in the dress?

  6. 10

    Great video, I think that’s going on the facebook right now.
    I’ve also noticed the times he’s done the shots that would usually be filled by a female character for pure titilation. Also, in “Cowboys and Aliens”, even though female roles are a tiny minority, they are taken seriously and not misused for cheap overly-emotional drama or sex scenes. Not bad for a sci-fi premise that easily could have gone very much the other way.

    Nothing to do with gender equality, but I also liked Craig’s decision to play a role in Spielberg’s “Munich”, which was lambasted by many as a naive and offensive piece of work, but seemed to me to be Spielberg’s most mature work yet, both in content and style.

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