And I truly don't get it. She's not the prettiest (or even the smartest) woman ever on Star Trek.
T'Bonz, with the new movie coming out last week and me seeing it this week, I've been going through some interesting memories. And because of that, I'm going to try and give you a real, definitive answer:
Mostly it's her smile.
You're right, she wasn't the absolutely most beautiful woman ever to grace Star Trek's screen. Yes, she's very attractive, but it's not just the beauty. If it were, we'd all drool equally over half the female guest-stars of the show.
And it's not her brains: yes, she was smart, but as you say, not the
smartest woman we've seen in TOS. There are several who might qualify, but Noel's not one of them.
She does, however, have this smile.
It doesn't entirely translate to still pictures, either. You have to see her face light up while it's in motion, as a reaction to something.
It's really hard to describe, but I can tell you who currently has that smile and attitude with it and you can see it for yourself. On YouTube, search for "Alejandra Cata". She's a ford model and to be honest, a totally uninspiring print model. She looks like your average super-model: skinny, attractive in an androgenous sort of way, and totally vacuous.
However, get her in motion, and she has that smile.
There are women in this world whom, when they smile at you, is so utterly radiant and beautiful that a man feels like he has a life.
Alejandra Cata has it today. Marianna Hill had it in '66.
Marianna Hill also has something going for her that most women today don't. And again, Alejandra Cata also has this: they're poised. They move like ladies -- something they each learned as a matter of course, having grown up when and where each did.
Most women today have no poise, no grace -- at least not naturally. Those who learn it for a trade such as modelling almost always look fake. Apparently, you need a mother or a teacher constantly saying, "Sit up, Marianna, don't slouch!" or "Well, start with the balance basket on your head again and walk the length of a room. A lady needs to be able to walk as though she's always balancing the basket on her head." Without that early, constant training, grace and poise look fake.
But Marianna Hill's got it. It's real, and it's in the small thing she does as well as the larger.
And then she's smart. Not amazingly smart, but smart enough that you can have a conversation with her and not be bored. You suspect that if you have her talking long enough, you'll actually learn something you didn't already know. This is, I'm sorry to say, not something that women in real life today have. What you tend to hear from them is more of the same general nonsense about the soap opera that she's turned her life into.
So basically, you take all that and roll it together and you have Helen Noel. Near as I can tell, she comes close to being a man's idealized perfect woman -- impossible as we all know that is in real life. But that's why men drool over and fawn over her.
Dakota Smith
