In the days before digital photography, people used all sorts of tricks to get the effects they wanted. For example, if a photographer wanted to make an older woman look younger, he or she often smeared the camera lens with Vaseline to give her an attractive, if hazy, softened look. Think Joan Collins in Dynasty. Or Lucille Ball in Mame.

That’s not the real reason for the Vaseline, of course, but it will have to do, since it is totally against my nature and better judgement to ever explain a visual joke.