Nearly all of the James Bond films uploaded to Amazon Prime Video have been slapped with content alerts. A series of Bond classics, such as Dr No, carry viewer advisories for “violence, alcohol use, smoking, and foul language”. Other films warn of “nudity and sexual content”. However, a scene in the 1967 hit, You Only Live Twice, where Sean Connery changes his eye shape and skin colour to look like a Japanese man, has not had any warnings for racial insensitivity.
From the start of this month, all 25 movies from the spy franchise were available on Prime Video. Amazon secured the right to distribute 007 movies after purchasing MGM Studios in 2022.
But fans have taken to social media to criticise the warnings, with one writing on X: “We don’t need trigger warnings on anything. Stop mollycoddling humans. Let them watch and switch off if they don’t enjoy it.”
A second penned: “When did people in the UK become so weak and feeble that a few words and jokes on old TV shows and films can bring them out in a sweat?” Another, in contrast, said: “As long as they aren’t making any changes to the actual movies, I don’t really see a problem.”
The warnings come after a university placed a trigger alert on Dr No, warning students of “racism and xenophobia”.
A statement from the University of Portsmouth said: “Please note: James Bond films and novels are popular to this day but contain many problematic issues such as racism, misogyny and xenophobia. We will be discussing the problems with this text in all of our seminars.”
The university placed trigger warnings on more than 50 texts on its English literature degree reading list, including Dr No.
Professor Dennis Hayes, director of the Academics For Academic Freedom, said: “Putting warnings on James Bond is one of the silliest I have heard of.
“The novels are well-written, exciting thrillers, but academic killjoys will only focus on the political issues in which they are interested. I hope tutors in the seminars also celebrate the best in Bond.
“Students are not children and can see for themselves ‘outdated’ attitudes in works they read. Academics should stop acting like patronising parents.”
The Bond films are available to watch on Prime.
