I disagree. For me, while both these characters are flawed, the worst Bond Girl is one who rarely gets mentioned. It's Lupe Lamora in Licence To Kill.
Goodnight and Stacy get a raw deal because, in both cases, the actress is miscast and there is another female role in the film which is vastly superior. Goodnight is a comic character, and if she'd been played by someone with a natural wit - a Teri Garr, or a Goldie Hawn, or a Madeline Kahn - we'd laugh with her, not at her. Britt Ekland is extremely beautiful, but being married to Peter Sellers doesn't make you a comic genius by proxy. We end up feeling sorry for this poor dopey girl, instead of finding her charming.
Stacy, meanwhile, is apparently a trained State geologist who has time to get full make-up and extensive hair styling. She has a lot of grand speeches about tectonic plates and unfortunately Tanya Roberts doesn't look like she understands any of them. There's just something missing, an intelligence behind the eyes, which means she's far more convincing squealing "James!" than telling us about the Hayward Fault. Plus, next to Grace Jones, Tanya Roberts is nothing.
What both these characters have that Lupe doesn't, though, is a bit of gumption and action about them. I'm not talking about physical prowess - the idea that a Bond Girl can only be 007's equal if she kicks arse is utterly tedious - but a drive and movement within the film. Goodnight and Stacy might be annoying, but they both have a bit of gumption about them. Goodnight knows about Hong Kong, acts as an efficient liaison, tries to plant a homing device on Scaramanga's car off her own back, and, let's not forget, she flat out murders Kra. It might have lead to the destruction of the island, but Goodnight didn't hang around waiting for Bond to rescue her: when he encounters her after killing Scaramanga she's already half-way out the door.
Stacy might be played by an actress who's best being seen and not heard, but her entire role is vital to the film. If Bond hadn't met her, would he know what Main Strike was? Would he have any idea what Zorin's scheme was? If Stacy hadn't been on board the airship, it wouldn't have crashed into the bridge, and Bond would have been left out to die of exposure.
However, you could take Lupe out of Licence To Kill and it's hard to believe anyone would notice. She does something of importance exactly three times in the film. At the film's start, she's absconded with Alvarez, and this is what gets Sanchez to leave Isthmus City. Halfway through, she provides a distraction so Bond can escape. And towards the end, she lets Pam and Q know that Bond is still in Isthmus and on Sanchez's trail.
What's notable about these is how utterly passive Lupe is in all of them. She's not luring Sanchez out of his home base deliberately; she's just buggered off with someone else. She helps Bond get away by dropping her handbag so he can run across a living room unmolested - it's hard to believe the world's greatest secret agent would have found getting past that one guard difficult. And when she goes to speak to Pam and Q, it's not because she has a plan for them, or an idea of how to help Bond; she just drops the info then is hurried out the door, leaving the far more capable characters to actually do something.
Lupe is quite astonishingly vapid. She exists within the context of the film to look pretty and bat her eyelids. She has no actual purpose beyond showing that Sanchez really isn't a nice guy. Compare her with other examples of the trapped villain's girlfriend - Domino, Andrea, Severine. Each of those women hates their circumstances just as much as Lupe, and each of them is far more active in trying to get away. Domino is romanced away from the villain and then, when she's finally given in to 007, she works against him, taking a geiger counter onboard, refusing to talk under torture, and then finally rescuing Bond from Largo. When Severine discovers Bond can help her, she is insistent: "Will you kill him?" And let's not forget, if it wasn't for Andrea Anders, Bond wouldn't have gone after Scaramanga at all - she was the one who sent the golden bullet at the start.
Lupe on the other hand drifts from man to man and asks him to rescue her. First it's Alvarez, and when he is killed, she wanders back over to Sanchez. Bond turns up, and she attaches herself to him. By the film's end, she's a millionairess, having somehow inherited Sanchez' estate (do you think he left a will?). But she still needs a man, and so suddenly she's holding President Lopez' hand. According to Krest, she can't even win Miss Galaxy without someone fixing it for her.
Look at yourself, Lupe! Look at how utterly weak you are! Bond girls are never weak. There is an idea that all they do is lounge around in a bikini and wait to be rescued, but that's not true in the slightest. All the best Bond Girls - Honey, Pussy, Tracy, Anya, Kara, Pam, Wai Lin, Vesper - are strong and gutsy and brave. They work with Bond and have lives and independent spirits. Honey Ryder might emerge from the waves in a bikini, but she also brought herself up after being orphaned and killed the man who raped her. She's not a damsel in distress.
Lupe wanders around in pretty dresses, getting passed from person to person, making cocktails and coffee and dealing a few cards. She doesn't really help Bond. She doesn't really hinder him. You could say that this is the classic victim of abuse, but she doesn't seem that traumatised. (Admittedly part of this could be down to the inexperience of Talisa Soto, an actress who literally looks down the camera lens at one point). In fact, after being torn away from Alvarez and whipped, she seems to slip right back into the role of trophy moll quite well. The most disgust she can manage is directed towards Sanchez' iguana, and her revenge against that is to take off his pretty diamond necklace and wear it herself. Take that!
A good Bond Girl needs to push herself and Bond and the audience. She has to have some fight in her, some bravery, some actual inclination to shape her own role within the narrative. Lupe is utterly disposable; she doesn't even have a death scene to make us miss her. Kill a girl - a Paula, a Jill, a Tilly - to remind us that the villain is a really bad man, and to give a slightly written character a bit of purpose within the script. Lupe survives. She lives to host expensive parties and wear diamonds. How is that a victory?
Thank goodness for Pam, who is everything Lupe isn't. No wonder she was so furious that Bond slept with her. Lupe is nothing, and she doesn't deserve their attention.
Thank goodness for Pam, who is everything Lupe isn't. No wonder she was so furious that Bond slept with her. Lupe is nothing, and she doesn't deserve their attention.
