Abstract
Kamal Khan in the 1983 film Octopussy says to James Bond: "Mr Bond, you have a nasty habit of surviving." And, to this statement, the latter answers, "You know what they say about the fittest." Every James Bond fan shall acknowledge there is something magical about staying alive like he does in film after film. Here is the key to the account for the series of success throughout the world: James Bond is a kind of modern hero, a superman without extraordinary abilities but phlegm and braveness. His answer "You know what they say about the fittest" is particularly relevant to analyze his spirit of survival and tends to introduce a Darwinian vision in the movies. This theory asserts that evolution is the result of a struggle between the strongest and the weakest, in which only fittest people like dominant males can survive as they adapt themselves to the environment. Actually, Bond's witty answer to Khan in Octopussy is a clear reference to Herbert Spencer and his selection theory, often summed up as "the survival of the fittest".
