Should we watch old movies with one eye on the time and place in which they were made, or view them through a more modern mindset? That is the question the Twittersphere has been pondering after a video depicting some of James Bond’s most misogynist moments went viral on social media.

In chopping together scenes in which Her Majesty’s top spy takes advantage of vulnerable women, slaps bottoms and physically restrains women until they submit to sex, a YouTube cut-and-paste merchant who goes by the name Guru Kid has even missed most of 007’s nastiest behaviour. For starters, how about when Sean Connery’s Bond tries to beat a confession out of Daniela Bianchi’s Tatiana Romanova in 1963’s From Russia With Love? Or when Roger Moore threatens Gloria Hendry’s Rosie Carver at gunpoint in 1973’s Live and Let Die?

In truth, early Bond films were considered problematic long before the #MeToo and Time’s Up campaigns – and not just for their celebration of sexist attitudes. Live and Let Die would be one of the better 007 movies were it not for its casually racist and ham-fisted riff on blaxploitation. Dr No has equally jawdropping moments, such as the bit where Bond orders John Kitzmiller’s black Cayman Islander Quarrel to fetch his shoes, as well as the casting of Jewish-Canadian Joseph Wiseman as the titular Chinese-German villain.

Bond producers have acknowledged 007’s status as an unreconstructed brute in more recent episodes. When Judi Dench’s M first meets Pierce Brosnan’s suave super-spy in GoldenEye (1995), she lambasts him as a “sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the cold war”, while she describes the Daniel Craig version as a “blunt instrument” in Casino Royale (2006) and berates him for causing the death of “sacrificial lamb” Gemma Arterton in Quantum of Solace (2008).

In many ways, Dench’s M was a a rare counterpoint to 007’s caddish brutality – a righteous, critical female voice. Now that Ralph Fiennes has taken on the role of Bond’s boss, that sense of balance has been lost.

The uncomfortable truth is that many of the secret agent’s grimmest moments are among the spy saga’s most memorable. For it is when 007 is at his cruellest, most savage and, in Craig’s case, his most damaged and unhinged, that the secret agent is most watchable. Moore was never better as Bond than as the lean, mean killing machine of Live and Let Die, rather than the cheesy eyebrow-raising lightweight of the later movies. By contrast, kind-eyed Timothy Dalton seemed to treat the “Bond girls” of his two 1980s appearances with more genuine consideration than any of his predecessors or successors, yet rarely tops the best Bond lists. George Lazenby, the only 007 to get married and fall in love, is often at the bottom, though there are, admittedly, other reasons for that.

If we do enjoy Bond for his dark side, perhaps it is time to accept that this most enduring of characters no longer fits the archetype of a hero. It would be much easier to accept his spiky edges if the dapper secret agent were not sold as the epitome of British suavity and a role model for young men. He simply doesn’t fit the mould in the modern era, but the millions in corporate sponsorship dollars that production company Eon receives every time a Bond movie hits cinemas depend on 007 being an aspirational figure.

Mainstream Hollywood is now more complex than it was in the 1960s and 70s. Is it possible for characters who do not fit the traditional heroic template to flourish today? Case in point: last year’s Logan, which easily had the best depiction of Hugh Jackman’s antiheroic Wolverine, despite his hideous crimes of the past. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki is, when on form, Marvel’s most watchable creation, while Star Wars fans have been clamouring for decades to see the morally dubious bounty hunter Boba Fett get a standalone adventure. If it had not been for director Josh Trank’s unfortunate fall from favour three years ago, they would likely have got their wish by now.

None of the above characters are role models, and maybe Bond fans must accept that 007 isn’t either. Just because we do not always approve of his behaviour does not mean we cannot continue to enjoy his adventures.