There are a few iconic things that will always signal we’re watching a James Bond movie: A Martini, shaken not stirred; our hero behind the wheel of a gorgeous Aston Martin; and, of course, an opening sequence that features 007 pointing a gun directly at the audience and shooting, with a classic theme song blaring as a blood red animation drips down the screen.
It makes sense, then, that fans of the popular spy franchise would be upset to find out that Amazon — which took creative control of the series earlier this year in a blockbuster deal with MGM — quietly removed all of the firearms from the thumbnails for all of the James Bond movies on its Prime Video streaming service.
The backlash was swift — and justified. Bond is a spy with a license to kill, so it’s silly to pretend he wouldn’t be carrying a gun. Scrubbing all of the weapons out of the Bond posters is like erasing the spacesuits from Apollo 13 or Photoshopping the axes out of firefighters’ hands in an image promoting Backdraft. Hell, there’s even a gun in the logo — that’s how emblematic weaponry is for the series. Some on social media called Amazon’s decision “cultural vandalism,” while others denounced the company for being too “woke.”
But why would Amazon purchase an iconic series like James Bond only to neuter it? Was this really an attempt to soften the spy’s image and cater to people who may be offended by him packing heat? We won’t know for sure, as Amazon has declined to comment on the decision, but it seems to be more of a financial decision than anything, an attempt to appease the almighty algorithm. Policies vary from platform to platform, but generally speaking, most social media algorithms and some search engines “punish” images that contain firearms, suppressing them or flagging them as “sensitive” content. YouTube de-monetizes any gun-related video on its platform. The decision to disarm Bond has nothing to do with how Amazon feels about the movies potentially promoting violence — it’s simply an SEO play.
The choice to Photoshop the guns out of the thumbnail imagery, however, remains an inexplicable one. As of this writing, the clumsy images — which included Daniel Craig sporting an empty shoulder holster on the Spectre thumbnail — have been removed in response to the backlash. And they’ve been replaced by other stills from the movies that notably do not contain guns. The new Skyfall image simply crops out the firearm Craig was carrying in the scene pictured. Would any of us have noticed if they just did that to begin with?
Regardless, the fact that Amazon replaced the images with new thumbnails that also don’t have guns is as big a clue as any that they’re trying to ensure the algorithm doesn’t tank their SEO ranking. As our features editor Alex Lauer wrote earlier this year, “Amazon wants to expand the Bond universe (read: make more money on it) — and it doesn’t bode well.” In their eyes, the mission is simple: get as many eyeballs on their content as possible to maximize profits. But is riling up Bond’s dedicated fanbase worth the extra impressions that may or may not lead to the second-most lucrative company in the world raking in more advertising revenue?
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