‘Thor’ Actor Chris Hemsworth Says A Woman Should Play James Bond. That’s Idiotic.

On Monday, actor Chris Hemsworth (better known as Thor) explained that the role of James Bond should be redone, this time with Charlize Theron playing the part. Theron is the star of the soon-to-be-released Atomic Blonde, a Bond/Jason Bourne female knockoff. “She embodies every ounce of strength and nobility and dignity and integrity that the character should have,” Hemsworth explained. “She’s smart as hell. She’s physically able. Ya know watching her in those fight scenes [in Snow White and the Huntsman], doing it in high heels by the way and 8-foot long gown, was even more impressive. And I just think why not? It’s time.”

This is, to put it mildly, ridiculous.

But it’s not rare to hear Hollywoodites virtue signaling by talking about their ideal Bond. Ian McKellen said years ago that he’d like a gay Bond.

But Bond is Bond. He has a character. He’s an ultra-straight womanizer fulfilling teenage boy fantasies. That’s the point of the character. It just doesn’t work the same way with a woman. Bond is a bad boy because he can seduce any woman, no matter how unavailable or beautiful. Making Bond a woman changes that calculus utterly, because virtually any mildly attractive woman can do the same with virtually any man. It’s not a challenge for Charlize Theron to get a man in bed. As Amy Schumer has said, “I’m 160 lbs., and I can catch a d*** whenever I want.” She’s scientifically accurate. As David Schmitt, Ph.D. writes at Psychology Today:

Over the last few decades almost all research studies have found that men are much more eager for casual sex than women are (Oliver & Hyde, 1993; Petersen & Hyde, 2010). This is especially true when it comes to desires for short-term mating with many different sexual partners (Schmitt et al., 2003), and is even more true for wanting to have sex with complete and total strangers (Tappé et al., 2013). In a classic social psychological experiment from the 1980s, Clark and Hatfield (1989) put the idea of sex differences in consenting to sex with strangers to a real-life test. They had experimental confederates approach college students across various campuses and ask, “I’ve been noticing you around campus. I find you to be very attractive. Would you go to bed with me tonight?” Around 75 percent of men agreed to have sex with a complete stranger, whereas no women (0 percent) agreed. In terms of effect size, this is one of the largest sex differences ever discovered in psychological science (Hyde, 2005).

It’s not sexism. It’s science.

Furthermore, there is always going to be a necessary suspension of disbelief while watching Charlize Theron, who might be 120 lbs. soaking wet, beat up guys twice her size. Watching Daniel Craig (5’10”, 170 lbs.) do the same isn’t quite the same thing.

There are plenty of great female action parts. Theron might well play one in Atomic Blonde. But hijacking classic characters and having them switch genders and/or sexuality destroys the characters. There’s a decent case for Idris Elba as Bond — color doesn’t change the math for Bond’s character. There is no case for Theron or any other woman.