“The Oldest Bond Girl Ever”: Discourses of female ageing and the older woman of the Bond franchise

Existing scholarship on the women of Bond from gender and ageing studies perspectives has considered the portrayal of James Bond’s boss M by Judi Dench, but the Bond Girl may also include older women. This article focuses on the cultural, promotional, and textual significances of an older woman of Bond – Lucia Sciarra, played by Monica Bellucci in Spectre (2015) – to explore and test ways in which popular and academic discourses of female ageing may be negotiated by and applied to the Bond Girl label, publicity image, and role in the Bondian formula. The study considers a number of contexts and readings to demonstrate how Bellucci’s casting and Sciarra’s characterisation in the film offer important insights into the representational politics at work in this longstanding franchise. The case study of the “mature” Bond Girl within the conventions of the Bond franchise also has significance for approaches to ageing female celebrity and the older woman in the media.