Out of Their Hats

Nothing annoys me more than uninformed people 

not considering the effects of what they say.

— Charlotte Ritchie

The Golden Age of Hollywood is a delightful Facebook group that posts "lost" movie-studio stills.

A still posted yesterday showed an ashen and attenuated Humphrey Bogart, riding on a swing with his seven-year-old daughter. 

One inconscient commentator wrote, "How could this pipsqueak ever have been a romantic interest in film? I will never understand."

Her comment unleashed a predictable torrent  of rejoinders to the effect that Bogie had been the heartthrob of millions, and that the poignant still had been shot only days before the beloved actor's early death from throat cancer.

Granted social media gives a grandstand to goofballs, I still must ask: why do so many uniformed nobodies feel the need to tear down adored icons? 

And why do they always seem to be speaking out of their hats?

The reason is deep-seated: iconoclasm is a handy form of ego defense, a band-aide for wounds received in childhood at the hands of critical parents, caretakers, siblings, and peers.

When those wounds go untreated, the child grows up to be an asshole: an unrestrained critic of all the things others hold in esteem.

And she can't help but come off as a mean-spirited fool.