To what extent do both Spooks and Casino Royal rely on racial and other stereotypes?

Spooks and Casino Royal are both very patriotic, they are very similar in some of the more subtle ways they represent Britishness, but for the main display they are totally different. Casino Royal is more of an action thriller while Spooks is more of a drama. The main difference between the two is not so much the way they represent Britishness, but the way they go about entertaining and glorifying the British Intelligence Services.

Spooks is very political, it is made by the BBC, however it would have to be said that it is much more liberal and left wing. For example in the episode I watched, the Bendorf group consisting of eight members, own 75% of the worlds resources put together, they have more political influence than anybody in the world. Although this is just a drama, this could actually be a political message and representation of a real group in the USA called the Bilderburg group. The Bilderburg group have one hundred and twenty five members of some of the richest people in the world, together they own about 75% of the worlds resources. Within this group there are CEO's of massive corporations, incredibly powerful politicians such as Hillary Clinton, corporate banking CEO's, lots of business men in the general world of natural resources such as oil and gas and CEO's of private corporate military contract organisations such as Blackwater. There have been massively bold claims against this group for being the new world order, but also lots of proof that they have done lots of mining in places like Africa which fund and fuel wars and mass genocides there. Almost exactly like the terrorist group in Spooks said. In the episode though, it portrays the terrorists and the Bendorf group as being bad, the audience sympathise a lot with the terrorist group, but may not agree with the way in which they're doing it. So the only real good guys in episode are the MI5 agents, who are nearly all white British. The Bendorf group was American, Russian and Chinese and the terrorists were French.

In Casino Royal and also Spooks, all the main characters have a lot in common. They are nearly all "White British Men" who are upper middle class and will almost certainly have come out of Oxbridge. The security services used to actually only recruit students out of Oxford and Cambridge, now they are more open but it's still the stereotype of an MI5 agent. It's as there is an elite culture of middle class men and women who are defending Britain intelligently, morally and technologically in secret. Both Spooks and Casino Royal fit massively into those stereotypes, but the way they go and represent the jobs of the security services is totally different. Casino Royal glorifies violence, action and also the view of women being sexual objects. The incredibly beautiful and intelligent accountant who at first is meant to be repulsed by James eventually falls for James, it's as if going around being a spy is killing people, being reckless and chasing women. But non of this is meant to be taken literally, it is all adding to the thrill of James Bond. One of the main ways for instance is the promotion of James Bond being turned into a double o (007) or the way his incredibly expensive cars have machine guns and rockets on them. Spooks however, although it also glorifies being an intelligence agent, it does it in a very different way. To a degree Spooks is meant to be taken more literally, it has real political issues within it, it also has a bigger sense of realism. The actual truth of working for the security services, is that it will most of the time be quite boring and sometimes exciting, but to make good drama they have to glorify it. Most episodes do take they're time to get to there final goal, but it's always very intense which is what makes it good, Casino Royal turns everything into action or sexualises it.