Bond Forever, Bourne Forgotten

In a new listing of film and TV’s coolest heroes, James Bond emerged in the top spot — while rival spy Jason Bourne was MIA — finishing behind the likes of young Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In its 20 All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture rankings, Entertainment Weekly listed 007 #1 — a move not likely to please fan’s of every hippie’s favorite spy (other than Valerie Plame), that assassin with a conscience, Bourne. In fact, if EW was going to run a Top 2 All-Time Most Cheesed Off Folks right now, it might rank Bourne’s cinematic creators —Team America star Matt Damon and United 93 director Paul Greengrass — in that order.

Damon or Greengrass seem obsessed with attacking the James Bond films and the character himself every chance they get. Mixing up a bitter soup of professional envy at Bond’s legacy and success, personal insecurity at producing movies beholden to Bond and (of course) self-righteous political arrogance, both artists froth at every opportunity to brand Ian Fleming’s creation a soulless killer. Ignoring Bond’s efforts to battle terrorism and global crime, they stamp him a militarist imperialist misogynist.

That’s a lot of “ist”s to heap on a fictional character, and the Damon/Greengrass vitriol festival seems unwilling to turn the same critical eye toward their own non-corporeal screen creation. While Robert Ludlum’s character is an impressive and skilled killing machine, the movie Bourne is gloomy, bitter, self-absorbed and motivated only by personal revenge and the desire to be left alone (a trait of questionable heroic value).

But Bourne fights predominantly middle-aged white men in suits who are part of the military and intelligence establishments. Combine that with the character’s inherent narcissism, and he’s the perfect screen hero for the hard left.

But EW left him out of their Top 20 — a decision that could indicate Bourne is already fading into also-ran spy status as Daniel Craig and the Bond franchise flourish. In fact, whether the magazine’s editors realize it or not, the EW list is very conservative friendly, including fine, upstanding badasses like Dirty Harry, Jack Bauer and Batman. Then again, the left alienates itself from heroic qualities when it so frequently surrenders to moral relativism and the simple-minded “weak always good, strong always bad” mentality. So, it’s hard to balance such a list politically.

There’s talk of another Greengrass/Damon/Bourne project in Hollywood, but that series will never match Bond’s pop culture significance and historic resonance with movie fans — and that will forever burn in the guts of hard left ideologues who forget “it’s only a movie.”