Tuxedo and Martini: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Bashir champagne gun.jpg|link=Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|frame|[[Bond One-Liner|A lot of kick for a '45 Dom.]] ]]
 
{{quote|''"Shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of [[Did Not Do the Research|gin]] and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice. [[James Bond|James]] is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it."''|'''President Bartlet''', |''[[The West Wing]]'' <ref>Bartlet [[Did Not Do the Research|has forgotten]] that James orders ''vodka'' martinis</ref>}}
 
Everyone knows this character. He wears a tuxedo with a small [[Bow Ties Are Cool|Bowtie (which Is Cool)]], a martini in one hand ([[Drink Order|shaken, not stirred]], naturally) and a Walther PPK in the other. Announcing himself as "[[Surname FirstThe Name SurnameIs Bond, James Bond|Surname... Forename Surname]]", he engages in witty [[Double Entendre]] speak with busty high society women that leads into the bedroom. And just in case he finds himself in a particularly hopeless situation, he'll have a gadget hidden in his cuff links that will allow him to defeat the [[mook]]s ([[Bond One-Liner|with a bad pun or two thrown in posthumously]]) and save the day.
{{quote|''"Shaken, not stirred, will get you cold water with a dash of [[Did Not Do the Research|gin]] and dry vermouth. The reason you stir it with a special spoon is so not to chip the ice. [[James Bond|James]] is ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it."''|'''President Bartlet''', ''[[The West Wing]]'' <ref>Bartlet has forgotten that James orders ''vodka'' martinis</ref>}}
 
Everyone knows this character. He wears a tuxedo with a small [[Bow Ties Are Cool|Bowtie (which Is Cool)]], a martini in one hand ([[Drink Order|shaken, not stirred]], naturally) and a Walther PPK in the other. Announcing himself as "[[Surname First Name Surname|Surname... Forename Surname]]", he engages in witty [[Double Entendre]] speak with busty high society women that leads into the bedroom. And just in case he finds himself in a particularly hopeless situation, he'll have a gadget hidden in his cuff links that will allow him to defeat the [[mook]]s ([[Bond One-Liner|with a bad pun or two thrown in posthumously]]) and save the day.
 
The character that should have immediately come to mind with that description is, of course, [[James Bond]]. However, while Bond has definitely popularized many of these aspects, most [[Shallow Parody|Shallow Parodies]] out there can't seem to find anything beyond the above paragraph to make fun of (They also seem to miss that Bond typically wore situation-appropriate attire during field work).<ref>One annoyingly common mistake is for the parody character to get a ''gin'' martini instead of a ''vodka'' martini (as the otherwise-valid opening quote shows: it's a potentially-legitimate concern with a gin martini, but with a vodka martini using vodka made from potatoes, the shaking gets rid of some nasty-looking oils on top. [[The More You Know]]!).</ref> It's also interesting to note that most of these tropes were NOT in the Ian Fleming books. For example, the films inverted his usual stirred-not-shaken [[Drink Order]]. Nevertheless, this is how [[James Bond]] is viewed by and large.
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As so many of these characters could be seen as placeholders for James Bond, this whole page could be considered his character-specific subtrope of [[Fountain of Expies]]. See also [[Dead Unicorn Trope]]
 
{{examples}}
== Comic Books ==
* In ''[[Planetary]],'' the character of John Stone is a clearly a [[James Bond]] Expy. In issue #11, he employs fantastic gadgets and tosses out one [[Bond One-Liner]] after another while facing a villainess who has just shot his assistant - who was an Expy of [[Nick Fury]]!
* In ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]: Black Dossier'', has a [[Deconstruction]]. Apparently Bond himself with the serials scratched off (his name is only given as "James", but we're also told he's related to Campion Bond), he's an attempted rapist who gets the crap kicked out of him after some jokes about a woman's stage name being Oodles O'Quim. He's kind of an ass even beforehand, so this is very satisfying. Unfortunately, we see him walk off with the girl in the end, {{spoiler|after he murders her adoptive uncle, who had exposed him as a traitor.}} Alan Quatermain even mocks how sorry the British adventure hero had become.
 
== Film ==
 
* In ''[[True Lies]]'', the major hook is that [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] plays a secret agent who keeps the nature of his work secret from his wife. His tuxedo is lampshaded in a scene during a secret mission where he opens his drysuit to reveal a tux. We are then given a contrast between his work and home life by transitioning from this opening to his home where his daughter disrespects him and his wife [[The Glasses Gotta Go|wears glasses]].
* The movie ''[[XXX]]'' was essentially one big [[Take That]] against this trope, and opened with one such agent being easily tracked down and killed because his tux stood out in the heavy metal concert he tried to escape through. Then used again where Darius had to dress up as a waiter at a party. The disguise works well enough to hide him amongst a lot of other guys when they were on to him.
* Even the [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] films occasionally have their fun with this.
** Take ''[[Goldfinger]]'', where after Bond has snuck in to a drug factory in a <s>wetsuit</s> drysuit and blown it up. He comes out of the water, removes the drysuit—anddrysuit... and reveals a neat tuxedo. (As mentioned under Live-Action TV below, ''[[MythBusters]]'' would later find this to be Plausible.)
** In ''[[Casino Royale]]'' a waiter asks Bond how he wants his martini, but... if he has a vodka-martini, his drink should be shaken and never stirred. If he has a gin-martini, his drink should be stirred and never shaken. Bond doesn't call him on it, despite the fact that he should be an expert.
{{quote|''Bond: I'll have a martini''
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''Bond: Do I look like I give a damn?'' }}
* Clark Devlin in ''[[The Tuxedo]]'' is almost never seen without his tux. He's smooth with the ladies and dances very well. Slightly subverted in that most of that is due to the tux being a highly-advanced piece of technology that does most of it for him. He is seen without his tux at the end, on the roof with a sniper rifle wearing something a SWAT member might wear. He is never shown in action, though.
 
== Comic Books ==
 
* In ''[[Planetary]],'' the character of John Stone is a clearly a [[James Bond]] Expy. In issue #11, he employs fantastic gadgets and tosses out one [[Bond One-Liner]] after another while facing a villainess who has just shot his assistant - who was an Expy of [[Nick Fury]]!
* In ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]: Black Dossier'', has a [[Deconstruction]]. Apparently Bond himself with the serials scratched off (his name is only given as "James", but we're also told he's related to Campion Bond), he's an attempted rapist who gets the crap kicked out of him after some jokes about a woman's stage name being Oodles O'Quim. He's kind of an ass even beforehand, so this is very satisfying. Unfortunately, we see him walk off with the girl in the end, {{spoiler|after he murders her adoptive uncle, who had exposed him as a traitor.}} Alan Quatermain even mocks how sorry the British adventure hero had become.
 
== Literature ==
 
* ''[[The Laundry Series|The Jennifer Morgue]]'': The subject of both [[Affectionate Parody]] and [[Take That]] in the [[Charles Stross]] novel. Because of the [[Theory of Narrative Causality]], the protagonist {{spoiler|and his girlfriend}} starts acting out [[James Bond]] tropes, commenting how much he differs from Bond. In regard to Bond's signature drink, every time it's ordered in the novel, there are comments on how awful it tastes.
* The [[Tom Clancy]] novels are rather scornful of the CIA types the ''real'' intelligence agents refer to as 'Martini Mixers'.
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* ''[[In Death]]'': Roarke comes pretty close to this trope. ''Divided In Death'' had Peabody pretty much refer to him as an [[Expy]] of [[James Bond]].
 
== Live -Action TelevisionTV ==
 
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''. Bashir likes to run a holosuite program that enables him to basically BE''be'' the film James Bond. "Bashir, Julian Bashir." He also specifies his martinis "stirred, not shaken" to invert Bond's usual drink order. [[Lampshaded Trope]] all the way by Garak's constant snarking about it, when he was along for one run of the program ([[Holodeck Malfunction|When something weird happened, of course]]). Despite the presence of an honest to goodness secret agent in the program, Bashir ignores him because he's playing James Bond, and is not in an actual covert operation, and the two play by different rules.
== Live Action Television ==
 
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]''. Bashir likes to run a holosuite program that enables him to basically BE the film James Bond. "Bashir, Julian Bashir." He also specifies his martinis "stirred, not shaken" to invert Bond's usual drink order. [[Lampshaded Trope]] all the way by Garak's constant snarking about it, when he was along for one run of the program ([[Holodeck Malfunction|When something weird happened, of course]]). Despite the presence of an honest to goodness secret agent in the program, Bashir ignores him because he's playing James Bond, and is not in an actual covert operation, and the two play by different rules.
{{quote|'''Garak''' (on having it explained to him that the decadent living and [[Bond Girl]]s are government-issue): "I think I joined the wrong intelligence service!"}}
* Parodied in ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'' with 'Agent Suave', who has a ''[[Casino Royale]]''-style adventure in a high-stakes casino where all the games are typical village fete things like 'guessing the weight of a fruitcake' and 'whack the rat'.
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'''M Expy:''' You're going to a casino.
'''Suave:''' Oh, God, yes, that's right. Blimey. Fingers crossed! }}
** The same sketch also subverts the one-liners: it quickly turns out [[Mission Control]] provides them. {{spoiler|For both Suave and the villain.}}
* ''[[Reilly, Ace of Spies]]'': Sidney Reilly. Considering that Reilly, a man shrouded in mystery, was possibly a [[Real Life]] inspiration for Bond, this makes it a bit of [[Truth in Television]]. Consider also that he was played by Sam Neill, who was screen-tested for the role of [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] in ''[[The Living Daylights]]''.
* Played with a lot in ''[[Chuck]]''. Chuck Bartowski is the furthest thing from James Bond you can find. But he still tries, because he's [[Functional Genre Savvy]]. When he evolves from [[The Woobie]] to [[Iron Woobie]], he makes it work. In fact, because he's so successful (thanks to Casey, Sarah and the Intersect) that the default name he uses when he goes on a mission becomes feared by the enemy agents as a Bond-esque Tuxedo super-spy.
* ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]'' tested out if you could wear a tuxedo under a dry suit to crash a party on a yacht. After swimming underwater for half a mile, Jaime came up out of the water, stripped off the dry suit, and was able to attend the party in a perfectly presentable tux.
* The tuxedo hadn't been invented yet, so ''[[The Wild Wild West (TV series)|The Wild Wild West]]'' had to make do with period-appropriate high-class clothing. In all other respects, though, the episodes set in Washington fit this trope superbly.
 
 
== Video Games ==
 
* In one scene in ''[[Rayman|Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc]]'', a Hoodlum dresses in a tuxedo and holds a gun in the classic James Bond poster pose, before throwing it aside and pressing a button on his arm, which produces a ridiculously large mechanical device, which fires a laser beam that turns an unfortunate caterpillar into something resembling a roast turkey.
* The Spy in ''[[Team Fortress 2]]''. Impeccable two-piece suit, upper-class speech patterns ("Gentlemen") and haughty mannerisms, wears a fancy wristwatch with a built-in [[Invisibility Cloak|cloaking device]]. Promise not to get blood on his suit and he'll kill you quickly.
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== Web Comics ==
* Good Hitler in ''[[Goats]]'', e.g. [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20110624033358/http://goats.com/archive/080826.html here]. Note tuxedo, martini; the "last, first last" introduction may not have been included, though. In fact there's an entire Good Hitler franchise in the Goats verse, replacing not only Bond flicks ("Die and Die Again", "Death Never Lives Twice", "Quantum of Hitlers"), but almost every other known movie ("Good Hitler vs. Space Hitler", "The Search for Good Hitler").
 
* Good Hitler in ''[[Goats]]'', e.g. [http://www.goats.com/archive/080826.html here]. Note tuxedo, martini; the "last, first last" introduction may not have been included, though. In fact there's an entire Good Hitler franchise in the Goats verse, replacing not only Bond flicks ("Die and Die Again", "Death Never Lives Twice", "Quantum of Hitlers"), but almost every other known movie ("Good Hitler vs. Space Hitler", "The Search for Good Hitler").
* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': In December 2001 the strip did a James Bond parody called [http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20011218 Snowfinger]. After Santa Claus is mutated into an alien hybrid, [[Killer Rabbit|Bun-bun]] is recruited by the Christmas elves to stop Santa from distributing presents laced with alien mutagenic spores.
 
== Western Animation ==
 
* ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' example: "Double-O Dale." Both Dale and his role model Dirk Suave are depicted in Tuxedo and Martini style all the time when they were doing secret agent work.
* [[The Lancer|Derek Blunt]] on ''[[Darkwing Duck]].'' Although he dresses and acts to fit the Bond stereotype, Blunt unusually eschews gadgets and tricks in favor of realistic spy work.
* One episode of ''[[Re BootReBoot]]'' spoofed this type of character with "Matrix, Enzo Matrix", as well as ''[[Wacky Races]]''.
* ''[[Archer]]'', a total [[Jerkass]] secret agent with massive mother issues, lives the trope—notably, he puts off defusing a bomb to change from his tuxedo to a black turtleneck.
** [[Insistent Terminology|"Tactleneck!"]]
* ''Phineas & Ferb'': "Elementary, My Dear Stacy" takes place in England. Because of a prior incident with the union, Agent P works with Agent Double-O O. The latter takes hours to burn through a manacle, while Agent P simply gets the key off a table.
 
== [[Truth in Television]] ==
*Zig-zag. Real spies wheedle foreigners into committing treason. Or at least manipulate them into giving information by negligence. Or keep an eye on other spies doing the same thing. Or various variations on the theme. Often the most valuable traitors are to be found nearby powerful people who of course do live lives of luxury if it suits them. That said, some spies are ordinary street informers and even those that do get to live the Bond lifestyle don't find it quite as glamorous as the movies say. When all is said and done they are doing a stressful job where they cannot trust their comrades and the society they work in will likely regard them as criminals.
**Several famous or infamous spies were paid by the ability live this way. Dusko Popov spent [[World War II]] gambling and womanizing in [[City of Spies|neutral Lisbon]] while he fed false information to the Germans.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Stock Parodies]]
[[Category:Fountain of Expies]]
[[Category:Tuxedo and Martini]]
[[Category:Shout-Outs Index]]
[[Category:Tuxedo and Martini{{PAGENAME}}]]