Gloria Swanson and Eartha Kitt ever so sincerely mugging for the camera with Ira Hawkins backstage at Timbuktu c. 1978. Though I've seen another photo of the same scene which is far more a picture of insincere affection, ol' Glo's face in this one does the job. I'm sure if I went looking I'd find many other such icons of insincerity from Broadway and Hollywood, probably of two people who are known to have hated each other.
Here I was hoping that among the best possible positive things that might come out of this terrible pandemic would be killing off the 1970s as-seen-on-TV- psychologist bull shit that introduced all of that social hugging and kissing that gets geezers like Joe Biden in trouble as they find it hard to shed bad habits gained in their relative youth. I have always hated that stuff. I hate that permission given to people who bought into that figuring they were doing you a favor as you tried to fend off their embraces and, worse, as they buss you. Something that plagues us yet, though not always as literally as it could be said to just now.
Some of those psychologists were "real" psychologists, in so far as some educational institution credentialed them. But many were given their authority by writing crap self-help style books and appearing on TV talk shows. The same way that Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil became aribitors of such stuff despite their academic credentials.
And, talk shows being an aspect of show, a lot of it was show-biz people who did so much to introduce casual, insincere displays of affection that normalized all of that huggy-kissy which, in the ways of show biz, led to touchy-feely of the kind that, it being show folk, quickly became sexual assault. The kind of thing common in show biz that will lose a perfectly fine Senator such as Al Franken his Senate seat but won't have the least negative impact on Republicans, not even Trump's infamous "locker-room" patter with Billy Bush did a thing to damage him being given far more power. If only Franken had gone directly into politics instead of show biz, he might be on his way to becoming a good president. I can only wish that Me_Too would get rid of that among the show folk but that would probably be wishing for too much. Show biz is a world inhabited by 12-year-olds and governed by a jr. high mentality.
Anyway
I was thinking too modestly in hoping for an end to the tyranny of that 1970s huggy-kissy stuff. Still-working National Treasure, Dr. Anthony Fauci is thinking big and hoping that it will kill off hand shaking, something which I couldn't have dreamed could be done away with. I don't know if the old story is true, that hand-shaking originated as a means of two possible deadly enemies demonstrating that they weren't holding a weapon as they met but considering that now we know about how viruses and other pathogens are transmitted by bodily contact, especially those parts of the body which might touch the mouth or nose - all the more reason to want to stop doing it - maybe they had even more deadly weapons than they knew of.
Ending the custom of hand shaking, of course, makes as much common sense as it is sensible in terms of medical science and epidemiology as hugging and kissing.
Yeah, I admit I threw in the show-biz stuff because I knew it would annoy the guy who's trolling me. He hates it when someone disses show-biz. Though I think a lot of that huggy-kissy stuff did originate with them. I don't remember much of it around here before TV came to govern peoples social lives and thinking. Mix in the pseudo-science of the social sciences and it can swamp even the most apparent and obvious of public health practices.
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