Totally Spies—the Island of Mr. Sang
Anthony Bourdain is on a bit of a pop culture roll in Season 1 of No Reservations (by contrast, I am not on a roll with this newsletter. I apologize, ADHD and end-of-summer detritus are not conducive to these kinds of projects). After the Sopranos-themed New Jersey episode, he uses James Bond as a framing device in the fourth episode, The Island of Mr. Sang, which sees Bourdain visit his beloved Vietnam.
It’s a device that is simultaneously more and less ham-fisted than using Tony Soprano as a stand-in for real Jerseyites. While Tony had to work to make the Jersey episode fit the noir tone of a Sopranos episode, the events that befall him in The Island of Mr. Sang do sound like intrigue worthy of a spy movie. Tony has to go back to Vietnam to return a favor to an old friend! He visits a mysterious mountain community, but before he goes he has to convince a dour local party apparatchik of his pure intentions! He’s welcomed aboard an eccentric rich man’s private island—but what are the man’s motivations? The show hams up these events with a bizarre opening sequence featuring gadgets that I’m sure felt modern in 2005 and more James Bond references than I could count, but the stretch to make the plot of the episode fit a spy storyline is not that difficult.
Of course, the actual explanation for the events that transpired is far more mundane—Anthony Bourdain went on what was essentially a PR trip for the Vietnam government as it tried to attract tourists to some of its newer attractions (the titular island of Mr. Sang is Tuan Chau resort. I tried to find information in English to see if it is still open, but I could not find anything). Even though there are some bizarre interactions such as an eccentric rich man commandeering the crew’s TV camera so he can pretend to host a food show, ultimately everybody’s methods are as wholesome as they can be when money is involved. There are even a few bits where the show pokes fun at the framing. In an interaction at the end of the episode that may or may not be scripted, Mr. Sang makes fun of Tony for pretending to be like Bond but being unable to open a clam.
James Bond was a useful framing device for what was I’m sure a bizarre international adventure, and it makes sense because two movies from the franchise were partially set in Vietnam (they weren’t actually filmed there because of tensions with the Vietnamese government. Tomorrow Never Dies was not shot in Ha Long Bay but in nearby Thailand). However, judging from the glee with which Bourdain drops one Bond reference after another, I doubt this pop culture framework was chosen just because of convenience. Bourdain seems like a genuine Bond fan.
Because I don’t feel qualified to talk about the episode’s portrayal of Vietnam or its food (all of which looked delicious, but this is easily one of his worse Vietnam episodes), I wanted to use it as a vehicle to examine our fascination with spies. From Carmen Sandiego to James Bond, the international espionage artist, whether on the side of good or bad, is a source of fascination. I’m hardly immune to this. As a kid, I devoured any entertainment featuring spies. I started with The Backyardigans, who are enjoying a bit of a Tik Tok resurgence. I downed every book series that contained some form of espionage, from Artemis Fowl to The 39 Clues, and made my cousin and brother play spies all the time.
I’m hardly unique in this regard, there’s a reason that the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. is such a popular destination. Although nominally realistic, spy franchises are a form of fantasy for both kids and adults (there are some exceptions that focus on the more accurate aspects of espionage such as the work of John Le Carre). Actual espionage involves a lot more boring listening and dubious ethical choices than fancy gadgets and high-speed chases a la James Bond.
James Bond in particular is interesting because he embodies our collective fantasies in two ways. He embodies the fantasy of impunity: of showing up to an exotic location, killing, shooting, gambling, and fucking without an end to his financial reserves or legal license to kill. According to Robert McCrum in The Guardian, the fascination with spies (he focuses on the Brits, but I think this extends to a lot of the Western world) can be tied to late-Victorian imperialism and the kind of gentleman adventurer that was inspired to take up spying out of fervent patriotic desire and fear of the invading other. Watch too much James Bond and it is hard to avoid seeing the parallels to colonialism, particularly in the first movies. In the words of IDLES, “I don’t care about the next James Bond/He kills for country, Queen and God/We don’t need another murderous toff.”
By contrast, the other fantasy that Bond embodies is that of the spy as an objectively good person. James Bond is always fighting supervillains. Granted, a lot of them have the trappings of Cold War paranoia (Dr. No being half-German half-Chinese deserves its own essay), but they are objectively bad. It’s a comforting fantasy to think about spies protecting us from supervillains turning Caribbean islands into nuclear weapons and terrorizing the local population. James Bond is much easier to root for than people working for the intelligence agencies of my own country that have organized coups in countries because the people dared to vote for a president that was a little too red or spied on Muslims in our own country just for practicing their religion.
I’m not knocking spy movies by any means. Dr. No is actually one of my favorite movies that I watched in 2021. It’s pretty fun. I just think it’s interesting to think about what they say about our culture and what using him as a framing device for a travel show (a decision I’m willing to bet was done in a moment of producerly panic) says about us.
Anthony Bourdain would have made a terrible James Bond anyway, as shown by my favorite shot in the episode. After a harrowing van ride, Tony finally arrives in the Montagnard village deep in the Vietnamese countryside. When he steps outside of the van, his face fills with awe that he’s allowed to come to places like this. The jaded veneer, attempted man of the world facade that he’s built up during the rest of the episode cracks with genuine wonder. Bourdain was not perfect by any means and was still a bit of a privileged white man when he traveled, but he tried. Tony wasn’t James Bond. He was better, because he saw the beauty that was around him instead of just thundering through it.