From Honey Ryder to Madeleine Swann: The history of the Bond girl

The Bond girl is as ubiquitous to the spy franchise as Aston Martins and neat gadgets. To celebrate the release of the latest entry in the series, No Time To Die, the latest edition of EW's video series The Take takes a look back at the Bond girl character — who she is, how she's evolved, and what her future might hold.

In it, we posit that there are three main types of Bond girl: the sacrificial lamb, the femme fatale, and the hero.

Perhaps the most frustrating of the Bond girls, the lambs are the women who fall for Bond and then die as a way of motivating him to complete his mission. Teri Hatcher's character Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies is one such type of Bond girl.

Next up is the femme fatale. These women often work with the movie's villain as their primary minion. And they often commit the worst sin against Bond by betraying him after sleeping with him (think Rosamund Pike in Die Another Day).

The last type is the hero. These women, like Halle Berry's Jinx (also Die Another Day), are the classic Bond girls and act as an ally to the spy to aid him throughout the course of the movie. These ladies tend to be portrayed as Bond's equals, or at least something closer to it. Of course, no discourse on Bond girl history would be complete without looking at Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), who represents all three archetypes in one.

EW also takes a look at the evolution of women in the series, including how Judi Dench's M broke the mold by not being a source of romantic entanglement for the spy, and instead utilizing a different set of feminine tropes that highlight Bond's essence as a grown-up disobedient child in the Daniel Craig films. The evolution of M's secretary Moneypenny, as well as the often problematic depiction of women in Bond movies, is also explored.

In No Time to Die, Léa Seydoux makes Bond history by being the first classic Bond girl to have a significant part in more than one film when she reprises her role as Madeleine Swann. Lashana Lynch and Ana de Armas also join as series newcomers.

Watch the full video above. No Time To Die is in theaters now.

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