F

ifty is a funny number. For marriage, it’s celebrated as the golden anniversary (in these days of rampant divorces we might as well call it diamond anniversary, but let’s not get too cynical so early on the column).

When it comes to age, though, it’s a sign that things are downhill, over and out. Maybe because pension ages range in mid to late 50s. Maybe after running on second lease, thanks to the much-hyped “life begins at forty” adage, one needs a proper wake-up call. Oh wait, didn’t I say not to get too cynical yet?

Back to the funny number. Guess who’s turning 50? Lo and behold, James Bond. Not the character, as silver screens have continued showing him young and vibrant, but the movie series. The low budget Dr No, which script had been turned down by many Hollywood studios for being too British or blatantly sexual, premiered in 1962 casting then unknown, unrefined-looking, Scottish actor Sean Connery as the spy.

Fifty years and few actors later, here we are. I’ve loved Daniel Craig’s gritty portrayal since the beginning, so refreshing after years of Pierce Brosnan’s uber-suave Bond, and actually wrote a praising piece in this publication. I found Craig’s bare-knuckled Bond served so well alongside the cold Evil Queen of Numbers, though grew more intuitive over the years, first female M, that I barely noticed Q and Moneypenny’s absences.

So, if you’ve watched the latest Bond installment, you’d understand why it was like my sky that was falling at the end. Why, Sam Mendes, why?

A male British pal of mine wryly noted that, with this year’s seemingly never-ending Jubilee festivities of the longest-reigning Queen to date, which cherry on top was arguably that Bond helicopter rescue skit during the Olympics opening party, and the fact that the nation’s public figures successfully transpired onto the global silver screens in recent years were Jane Austen, the previously longest reigned Queen Victoria, the whole caboodle of cantankerous Tudor women, not to mention Maggie Thatcher on her senile days, an aging female M on James Bond’s 50th anniversary would just subconsciously cement “the country of old women” image.

When I replied that the UK’s 2010 population pyramid already showed only 9 percent of population is female under the age of 14, partly the reason “pension crisis” had been hitting the country since 2006, my pal squinted his eyes in utter dismay before ending our Skype chat abruptly. Had he reserved more restraint he would have heard me saying that gifted graying girls might just be golden when it comes to executive power.

Just look around at the world at large. The UK’s closest neighbor is the EU, which tattering economies now largely depend on the astuteness and resourcefulness of Angela Merkel and Christiane Lagarde. Merkel may look much more matronly than the Hermes-toting Lagarde, but when three countries beyond Greece are on the brink of collapse, who’d care about those little details?

Over the pond, the UK’s so-called “special friend” has seen Obama rely his foreign policy on, though not as stylish as Lagarde, yet equally silver-haired Hillary Clinton. Even her much rumored replacement is also another much-accomplished lady above the age of 45. Further down south, Latin America’s largest and world’s sixth economy has been under the leadership of its first female president, now into her sixties, showing that Brazilian women are much more than beach babes.

Even in Africa, where 40 percent of population is under the tender age of 15, the first democratically-elected female leader was also 60 something Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who successfully got reelected as President of Liberia last year.

And back to the last M portrayed powerfully by Dame Judi Dench, wasn’t she herself modeled after Stella Rimington, a real former spy who made it as MI5’s first female head in 1992 at the ripe age of 57? So again why, Sam Mendes, why?

My British pal resumed enough patience to text me that as a well-trained brand marketing manager I should have understood the power of young audience. I do – which was why I barely bat an eye at the cliché teen geek the movie offered for Q. Or increasingly waiflike Bond girls in recent years that would make Ursula Andress looked in serious need of liposuction. But to take away the female lead who was professionally been more accomplished and decorated than our alpha male, in addition to sending a promising, young, female minority colleague behind the secretarial desk, egad, what that would teach our young daughters and nieces? Aren’t even Downton Abbey society swans getting more independent season by season, working at farms and eloping with the political chauffeur?

The worrywarts behind James Bond franchise could have won both. Instead of retiring Dench, they could have let Eve not morph into Moneypenny. They could also have caste a young, female Q. 29-year-old Emily Blunt, whose professional debut in her teens was playing opposite Judi Dench anyway, would look credible in crisp white lab-coat, matching Craig’s own steely blues. Or Juno Temple, latest seen as Catwoman’s sidekick Jen, as a purple-haired, mad-scientist-in-the-making, and dressed in Portobello vintage finds? Both would look brainy enough as Q, cold enough for Bond and young enough to current viewers.

Yes, Hollywood — I’m sending my resume to be the next ingenious casting director. No worries, I’m far from fifty. Just gimme back my golden M.

Lynda Ibrahim is a Jakarta-based writer and consultant, with a penchant for purple, pussycats and pop culture.