About

Dr. Lisa Funnell is an award winning author, media educator, and leading expert on gender, feminism, and geopolitics in James Bond and other action films. She is affectionately referred to as Dr 007 on social media and her research has been cited by media outlets around the world. She is currently working as the Associate Dean of Creative Industries at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Canada.

HER STORY

Dr. Lisa Funnell has been studying gender, feminism, and geopolitics in James Bond for nearly two decades. She grew up in Canada watching the James Bond films starring Roger Moore with her Dad. They would enjoy Sunday dinners in front of the TV and invariably select Bond films to watch. She is a lifelong fan of the Bond franchise and the collection of VHS tapes she watched with her Dad as a child is one of her most prized possessions.

She began studying women in the James Bond franchise in 2003 while completing her Masters Degree in Popular Culture from Brock University in Canada. She wrote a thesis on The Bond Girl Phenomenon (defended in 2005) and has continued to publish on various topics helping to shape the sub-field of “Gender Studies” within James Bond scholarship.

In 2014, she published her first book Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Star (SUNY Press). Her interest in Chinese warrior women stems from the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) starring Michelle Yeoh as Bond Girl Wai Lin. Funnell was so intrigued by the dynamic performance of Yeoh that she wrote a book on Chinese warrior women and even featured Yeoh on its cover. In 2015, Warrior Women won the Emily Toth Award for Best Single Work in Women’s Studies from the PCA/ACA among other honors.

In 2015, Funnell published For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond (Wallflower Press). It is first book-length academic anthology on feminism and femininity in the Bond series. It features 28 essays from scholars working around the globe and explores a range of factors that have shaped the depiction of women in the Bond films. In his Foreword, preeminent Bond scholar Christoph Lindner writes that “This book is urgently needed,” offers a “radically different vision of the world of James Bond,” and “changes how we see and understand the 007 series as a whole, including our relationship to it.”

In 2017, Funnell published her book Geographies, Genders, and Geopolitics of James Bond (Palgrave 2017) co-written with Klaus Dodds (Royal Holloway, University of London). This passion project was the product of a shared interest in understanding and analyzing the world of James Bond. It offers a new and interdisciplinary lens through which the films can be analyzed and explores a range of topics have been largely overlooked. This book is one of many research projects that Funnell and Dodds have embarked on together.

Funnell has just completed two new book projects on the James Bond franchise. The first, Resisting James Bond: Power and Privilege in the Daniel Craig Era (Bloomsbury 2023), co-edited with Christoph Lindner, explores the depiction of power, privilege, and oppression across the Daniel Craig era films (2006-2021). It encourages both readers and scholars to be (more) cognizant of how systems of power inform (and are subsequently replicated through) the visual, narrative, and representational elements within the films.

The second, Global James Bond: (Re)Imagining and Transplanting a Popular Culture Icon (Lexington Press, 2024), co-edited with Klaus Dodds, considers the interplay between the local and the global through the reinterpretation of the James Bond brand/genre in film markets around the world. At the heart of the book is the critical consideration of whether the Bond figure and/or the franchise can be decolonized and reimagined in productive ways.

Funnell is currently working on a new collection, Global Bond Girls: The Impact of a Complex Cultural Icon, with Monica Germanà, exploring how the figure has helped to shape cultural representations, performances, and definitions of femininity around the globe. This multidisciplinary and multimodal collection explores the representation of women across official franchise texts, the rearticulation of the Bond Girl archetype through the casting of their actors in subsequent roles, and the reinvention of the figure as the Bond Girl has been (re)imagined and transplanted into different cultural texts worldwide.

Funnell is also working on a series of book projects exploring sexual violence in American media. Her collection, Screening #MeToo: Rape Culture in Hollywood (SUNY Press, March 2022), with Ralph Beliveau, is not only concerned with the depiction of sexual violence in film but also the relationship between stories, how they are told, and the culture that produces them. Screening #MeToo challenges readers to look at Hollywood film differently, in light of attitudes about art and power, sexuality and consent, and the pleasures and frustrations of criticizing “entertainment” film. In 2023, Screening #MeToo was name the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.

Funnell and Beliveau are currently working on a follow-up collection, Streaming #MeToo, exploring rape culture in American television.

For media inquiries email DrLisaFunnell@gmail.com