June 1: When I was asked this question my response seemed innocent enough, but apparently, it was worse than I expected!

"Are you a feminist?"

I was in Grade 7 when I was asked that question. The inquisitor was a girl who happened to be one of my fellow junior high students and she had a number of her girlfriends congregating around her shoulders, smiling craftily at me as I pondered my response. I was 12 years old and had only the vaguest notion of what feminism was. I knew about Gloria Steinem through Mad Magazine and I'd remembered seeing a panel of feminists complaining about something (probably men) on the Phil Donahue show but other than that, I had no idea what feminism was all about. I knew that feminists supposedly didn't have a sense of humour, which isn't true by the way. Everyone is humourless when you make jokes about what is sacred to them.

When they asked me if I was a feminist, I thought they were asking if I played with dolls or wore girls' underpants, so I said no. The girls were shocked at my bigotry and I was labelled a "male chauvinist pig."

But I got over it.

-

A more useful strategy would be to ask my interrogator to define her terms. Feminism, like almost any word that ends with "ism," can mean a lot of things.

Do I think a woman should be paid the same salary a man is paid if they are working the same job? Yes, I do.

Do I think it's sexist for a theatre director to refuse to hire a woman to play Ricky Roma in Glengarry Glen Ross or Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? Absolutely not. And shame on those goofy pinko turds who would rob an audience of its need for authenticity in the name of an ultra-rigid view of sexual equality.

- 

I need to talk about Judi Dench now.

I am a big James Bond fan. Ever since I've been old enough, I've gone to the cinema to catch every James Bond during opening week - sometimes even on opening day. Much of my adolescence was spent watching Sean Connery, George Lazenby and Roger Moore portray 007. Most of the time, his boss, also known as M, was portrayed by Bernard Lee, who looked like this:

 Would anyone take me seriously if this phone was purple?

Bernard Lee had a no-nonsense aura about him; it complemented Connery and played a foil to the over-the-top farces that the Moore Bonds eventually became. I liked the fellah. 

In 1989, Timothy Dalton gave up the role of James Bond and the franchise went into limbo for about five years. Then it was announced that Pierce Brosnan would take on the role and, what's more, a woman would play the role of M.

I didn't like it. I liked the hyper testosterone of the Bond universe and I resented the notion of political correctness seeping into this masculine ritual.

But then I saw Goldeneye and I liked it and I liked Judi Dench too. Because of her gender and Bond's orphan status, the relationship between M and Bond morphed into something more than professional - it was positively maternal. In the last Bond film, Skyfall, one of M's superiors accuses her of getting sentimental about Bond. She denies this but everyone in the audience knew she was lying.

I think I found Waldo

In Goldeneye, M told Bond that she considered him a "sexist, misogynist dinosaur." And he probably was. Bond beats women in Diamonds are Forever, The Man with the Golden Gun, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and From Russia with Love. Those scenes always made me uncomfortable, even as an impressionable 13-year-old, and I was happy to hear Sir Roger Moore say that he was never happy with the woman-beating scene he had to do in Golden Gun and wished that the filmmakers had written it a different way.

I am reminded of something UFC superstar Ronda Rousey said when asked if she would fight a man in the ring.

"I don't think it's a great idea to have a man hitting a woman on television," she said. "I'll never say that I'll lose, but you could have a girl getting totally beat up on TV by a guy -- which is a bad image to put across. With all the football [domestic violence] stuff that's been happening, not a good idea. It's fun to theorize about and talk about, but it's something that's much better in theory than fact."  

-

Earlier this year, it was announced that a black actor named Idris Elba was being groomed to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond. The announcement made a bunch of people lose their shit. Here was the problem: Some Bond fans are passionate about their hero and would like the filmmakers to be as faithful to Ian Fleming's vision as possible. Of course Fleming never came right out and say that Bond was white though he did envision him to look like the American singer Hoagy Carmichael, who looked like this:

Hi kids. I'm dead now.

Idris Elba looks like this:

I can't wait to chat with M.

You know, I don't care if Bond is played by a black actor. I saw a play once where Noel Coward was played by a black actor and it didn't bother me none. Probably some people would get upset if Jim Carrey played Nelson Mandela but I'll let it go at that.

Apartheid? ALRIGHTY THEN!!!!

My main concern about Idris Elba is that when I say his name, it sounds like I'm doing some magical chant to summon the rain gods. I don't want to be having a discussion with my fellow Bond fans when all of a sudden, it starts raining.

Having said that, I don't ever want to see James Bond portrayed by a woman (unless it's a parody.) Also, I don't want Bond to sleep with another man. Ever! I don't mind Bond evolving but he should always remain something of a patriarchal archetype - someone who is reviled by a subset of lefties simply because "he's sexist."

-

Somehow, this note turned into a rant against radical feminism and a homage to James Bond. I feel compelled to state that since I started writing this paragraph one minute ago, I have sneezed four times. They are allergy sneezes and those are the worst. You can taste pollen in the back of your throat and your nostrils always itch like your nose hairs are made of rusty barbed wire.

-

In his book The Secret Knowledge, my hero, David Mamet, talks about his efforts to teach playwrighting to a room full of progressive youngsters who are determined to damn him for his regressive views. One young man challenges the so-called sexist notion of theatre, asking why a man shouldn't be allowed to play Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire (sidenote: Tennessee Williams had great names for his plays.) If I were Mamet, my response would be: "Because Blanche Dubois is a woman, you stupid asshole."

I mean, why in the world would this infant turd make such a silly request that is, quite frankly, sexist. Yes, I say it's sexist and I think I know what I'm talking about. I'm not a professional actor or director or playwright but I do think I know a little bit more about professional theatre than the average college freshman, so trust me when I tell you that roles for women are at a premium. You're not doing actresses any favours by taking the few roles available to them and demand they be played by men. We did that in Shakespeare's time. I don't think it works.

Watch a movie sometime and count all the women you see in it. Then ask yourself how many of the women are babes. Probably 90 per cent. Glenn Close said that in Hollywood, if you're not talented then you'd better be screwable.* What she meant was that for actresses, attractiveness is more bankable than know-how. If you doubt that then see how many roles there are kicking around for women who are over 50. 

So I guess that I'm not sexist. My heart bleeds for actresses** who, I think, have been getting shafted for years.

-

* She actually used a word that begins with the letter F, but you probably knew that.

** I like the word "actresses" and I think it's stupid when people want me to use gender-neutral terms. This goes double in the theatre world when roles are written specifically for men and women. I happy that the Oscars are still awarded to Best Actress and not Best Female Actor, though I fear that day will arrive soon.