Why Not?

I was thinking about something kind of strange yesterday. I had recently watched a couple of Roger Moore's James Bond movies, and I was struck again by the relationship he has with M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny. Her job in the office consisted of three things, seemingly. First she'd say how Bond had better go in to see M right away, or that M was in some kind of mood. Last she'd caution Bond to be careful. In between was her unrequited longing for Bond.

In the universe of these films, every woman wants Bond, regardless of how old and decrepit he is (and Moore particularly was not looking great by the 80's. With most women, Bond gives them what the want. The cost is that they die somehow at the hands of people who just want to kill Bond, but Bond does give them what they want. With Moneypenny though, he never does. For whatever reason, she's the one woman he refuses.Why is that? Isn't she good-looking enough for him? I guess she's too close to his own age or something.

This is not only to be seen in Bond movies. I'm reminded of Mike Hammer's secretary, who is beautiful and who constantly wants Hammer's body badly, but who Hammer (as far as I can recall) also never gets with. I really don't get this. She is very young and a knockout, and Hammer is no looker. Am I to believe that this cynical, hardened detective is such a shining white knight? He does get with other women, frequently to his detriment.

This is, I suppose, one of those things that only I take much of an interest in. Why focus on a thing like this when there are more absurd, wrong things in any Bond film or Mickey Spillane novel? Well, if you ask me, suspension of disbelief doesn't only entail effort to be made on the part of the consumer. It's for us to suspend disbelief, but it's for them to make that possible. One key thing is to be real as much as possible in the small things so that we can accept the big wrong things. The good guy getting with the secretary sometimes could help. I don't know.