There is a fairly typical formula for the Hollywood male hero. He should be strong, handsome, and courageous, with a devil-may-care desire for the dangerous. He should be intelligent and tough — like Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, a Ph.D. and former marine officer, or the Eton-educated, intelligence officer James Bond. He should be street-start, with a limitless capacity for quotable one-liners, like Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry or “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection. And, to top it off, he should be capable of enjoying sexual dalliances with any woman he fancies.
In the James Bond series, the classy British spy seems ever-ready to engage not just with every henchman, but every attractive woman he encounters. Of course, since he’s Bond, he rarely seems to...