I can't talk about "Skyfall" without also talking about this article, which I read about a year ago:
http://www.xojane.co.uk/entertainment/working-as-an-extra-on-a-james-bond-film-made-me-realise-how-racist-some-people-are
In brief, the author, an Asian woman, worked as an extra in the Macau casino scene. While she was excited to be a part of such a recognizable and iconic movie, she says that she and the other female, Asian extras were essentially treated as waitresses instead of professionals, and that many of male extras also made sexually inappropriate comments. At the time, I was living with one of my close friends, a first generation Chinese-American, who had recently begun discussing her negative experiences as an Asian woman with me and our other roommates; I think one of the reasons I found it so striking was because it paralleled a lot of things she had told me. But more than that, I think that reading about the author's experiences was my first overt realization that there was a lot that I didn't agree with about my beloved Bond films.
Don't get me wrong, I love Skyfall: it's beautifully shot, it introduces compelling themes about aging, death and M's role as an authority figure, and it completely reworks the character of Moneypenny from merely proof of Bond's desirability into someone more independent, driven, desirable; more of a character than a standard Bond trope. After the disappointment of "Quantum of Solace", seeing "Skyfall" was like being reintroduced to a proper Bond film.
Now that some time has passed, however, I'm able to see some flaws: while I love that Bond's fallibility humanizes him, he still supersedes Moneypenny, who is "better as a desk agent" and isn't introduced by name until the end of the movie. I was fascinated by Severine, but really, like most women in these movies, she is completely defined by her sexuality. Silva is my one of my favorite Bond villains, but his homo-eroticism/ possible sexual orientation , as in the older Bond films, helps mark him as unnatural as much as his rotting insides. And while M is given more of a role in this movie than any other, she as the female authority figure is still killed off and replaced by Ralph Fiennes.
But the biggest problem to me will forever be the casino scene: of course, it wouldn't be a Bond film without a few exotic locations, but the fireworks and dragons at the beginning, the waitresses in their bob cuts and kimonos, the komodo dragon....it's a dose of Orientalism as potent as Roger Moore's fight scene in "TMWTGG". It's proof that as much as viewers like me might wish it, the Bond films still have rooted problems. Would they be as interesting without them? I don't know. But I do know that I can't really look at "Skyfall" the same way I did when I was cheering for the original Aston Martin in the movie theater.
P.S. I kind of worry that I get really dramatic in these blog posts. So, in positive news:
*This is the poem M reads in her court scene, and it's excellent:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659
*One of my best friends constantly plays Adele's "Skyfall" theme in the car, and the way he loves that song might actually be a cornerstone of our friendship at this point.
*I sent my sister a text after I saw the movie for the first time, and when she excitedly told the people she was with, one girl apparently asked "where can you go to see the sky fall?", mistaking it for some sort of meteorological phenomenon.
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