When a trend isn’t a trend
This survey, featuring Halle Berry, a Bond girl in 2002, is running on the cover of this weekend’s Metro, and it’s annoying me to no end.
I get the premise. Let’s see if a bikini signals an impending death in a Bond movie, and then let’s stick Halle Berry on the cover in an effort to move papers. But the headline — “You only wear it once” — isn’t misleading; it’s just wrong.
The results of Metro’s survey showed that 45 percent of all Bond girls who wear a bikini on screen die. That means 55 percent don’t die. In my world, 55 percent is more than 45 percent. Therefore, the majority of Bond girls do not in fact wear it once.
Anyway, even if the numbers were reversed, a 45-55 split doesn’t really show any correlation between death and a bikini. The Bond girl’s choice of on-screen bathing attire is purely coincidental and has nothing at all to do with her life expectancy.
OK. Glad I could get that off my chest.
The Media | Benjamin Kabak, December 25, 2008 4:29 am
dan — March 10, 2009 @ 11:49 pm
“Died before the end of the film.
As opposed to… after the end of the film?