The Spy Within

As a kid I was obsessed with spies.

I had a notebook of observations like Harriet the Spy’s, which I wrote in cipher. I reveled in the film Spy Kids, where the daughter of retired operatives unlocks a bunker coded to her name, and claims her heritage. My friends daydreamed about being princesses—in my dreams, I knocked out large, armed henchmen in seven seconds flat, before outwitting their brilliant, sociopathic commander.

Spies have become more complicated over the decades, with martini-sipping, free-skiing womanizer James Bond giving way to hot-wiring, rampaging devoted dad Jack Bauer and lethal-yet-sensitive amnesiac Jason Bourne. They’re now women, like Homeland’s badass, bipolar Carrie Mathison, Marvel’s man-killing big sis and best bud Black Widow, and Black Doves’ deep undercover wife and mom Helen Webb. They’ve crossed age lines with Old Man’s world-weary retired operative Dan Chase, and blended genres with animated sitcom Archer, family drama The Americans, and single-mom sci-fi saga In From the Cold.

And they’ve grown steadily more human. Compared to the cliched, heteronormative dynamic in the 2005 Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Donald Glover’s reboot last year presents the couple as silly and egotistic, vulnerable and judgmental, error-prone, greedy, and overreactive. “Shaken, not stirred” is the catchphrase made famous by the polished, charismatic Sean Connery and the humorous, debonair Roger Moore; asked how he wants his own martini, Daniel Craig’s brawling, moody, increasingly damaged Bond snaps, “Do I look like I give a damn?”

Spies were once superheroes offering answers to the threats and uncertainty of the world. Today, they’re misfits and misanthropes, estranged moms and overcompensating dads, who kill and steal, eavesdrop and break in, lie and cheat and let down their loved ones. They struggle with addiction, mental illness, trauma, their sense of identity, duty, and morality, the strain on their souls, the darkness in their hearts, and the terrifying mess of the world, which cannot always be resolved.

I still find excitement and solace in the fictional world of espionage as I did as a kid, but as an adult, I realize the true power of spies is in their secret identity: not anomalies or superheroes, but you, and me, and all of us.