That's just silly!

I'm sure I can't be the first to have noticed this, so forgive me if you've seen this complaint elsewhere. 

Look at the new U.S. Postage stamp that was recently issued honoring film star Bette Davis and tell me what seems to be missing:

Give up?  Look at the odd way she's holding her hand.  How stupid do they think we are?  Did they really think nobody would notice that someone had Photoshopped out the cigarette?!

Look, I loathe everything about smoking.  I hate the smell, the mess... and don't get me started on the health issues associated with both active and passive smoking.  I am a champion of just about any legislation that limits smoker's ability to inflict the byproduct of their habit on those of us who don't wish to partake.

But...

This business of the thought police trying to sanitize the past in such a way as to try to make it seem as though famous people didn't smoke way back when... well, that's just plain silly!  I mean, the next thing you know they'll be taking away Churchill's (or Groucho Marx's) cigar, for crying out loud!

I remember when they did something similar to the stamp honoring James Dean.  At the time I wondered why they'd bothered.  Anyone who had ever watched a James Dean film or seen a publicity shot of him knew that he smoked.  The same can be said of one of my favorite movie stars, Humphrey Bogart, who was rarely seen on or off screen without a cigarette in his mouth of hand.  It was part of his persona.

If you are going to honor someone like Bette Davis, either pick a picture of her without a cigarette (if such a thing exists) or simply leave the cigarette alone.  That was her... and that was then.  Full stop.

But that isn't to say I am against all tinkering with history when it comes to smoking. I have no problem with cleaning up historical fiction so we don't make old vices seem too attractive to modern consumers.

My wife (as strident an anti-smoker as I am) has recently started watching of a TV series about the Madison Avenue ad world of the 1950s called Mad Men.  I watched it once and immediately felt like I needed to take a shower and wash my clothes.  You see, everyone in the show smoked. EVERYONE! ALL THE TIME!!!  In meetings, on the street, during meals, in bed... there was literally no on-screen respite or refuge from the filthy habit.

Look, while the show may be historically accurate (I loved the Danish modern furniture and snappy clothes), these are fictitious characters who don't absolutely have to be smoking during every moment of the show!  Unless, of course, the goal is to completely desensitize the viewer to the whole smoking thing... in which case bravo, mission accomplished! 

I can't help but be bothered that such a show is offering a whole new generation of viewers (who weren't even born in the 50s) an attractive glimpse of well dressed, successful, beautiful people who seem to subsist on a steady diet of nothing but cigarettes. 

Looking back over this post I see I'm doing a bad job of expressing myself... maybe even contradicting myself.

On the one hand, I have no problem watching 'Casablanca' or 'All about Eve' with my kids and explaining to them that they were filmed at a time when people didn't fully understand the dangers of smoking.  I trust them to be able to see the cigarettes as an anachronistic prop of the era, and then look past them to enjoy the story.  But on the other hand, to build a modern television series almost entirely around the act of smoking among actors who are not otherwise known for promoting this habit... well, like airbrushing the cigarette out of Bette Davis' hand, I just found it silly.