This issue of National Bulletin published today in 1972 features a cover touting rapists going on strike. Do we have any doubt that this sprang from the brows of middle-aged editors with smoker’s coughs, fallen arches, and no dates? As we’ve documented before, cheapie tabloids often trafficked in such imaginary stories. This one is akin to comedy—unamusing, tone-deaf comedy. The gist is that the head of RUFF—the Rapist’s Union for Fun and Frolics—says raping women isn’t fun anymore because they’re too liberated and actually enjoy it. It would have been crude already in 1972 (that’s why the editors did it), but these days such sentiments send a cringe through the deepest recesses of your body. The honchos at National Bulletin would, of course, say they’re just riffing, yet the fact that the idea was considered by them to be viable as humor still says so much. And what it says isn’t good.
So why share such items? Well, we’re mainly interested in the art and graphics of old paperbacks and movie posters, and the rare photos of celebrities found in period tabloids. There are starphotos in these publications that literally don’t exist online until we upload them. As lovers of old Hollywood, it’s mandatory that we do so. But also, in our view, it’s important to document vintage social attitudes. And here’s why—after enough time passes it’s easy for bad faith entities to pretend such beliefs never existed. Sharing these tabloids reminds us both of where we came from, and where we’re going. In terms of promotional art and aesthetics, we believe we’ve ended up someplace worse than before—no matter how many book design awards are given to whichever Photoshopped covers of whatever year. Conversely, in terms of social development, we believe things are generally—despite an eddy of a few years or a decade here or there—improving.
So we’re presented with divergent movement—trains traveling in opposite directions on parallel tracks during the mid-century era. On one track is excellent and commemorable visual content, and on the other is a set of social attitudes with which we tend to disagree. While it’s true we could separate the art from its context, we think that’s a bad practice. Many of the emails we’ve gotten from students, researchers, filmmakers, writers, and history buffs curious about these magazines indicate to us that without context, understanding the true characteristics of art is impossible. It’d be like looking at Picasso’s “Guernica” without knowing there was such as thing as the Spanish Civil War. Yeah, it’s still a great painting. But knowing its political genesis makes it more interesting. Knowledge is armor.
Bulletin moves on from the fictional rape story to offer up slightly less horrible fare in its other pages. Readers learn about lesbian communes, consensual bondage, prostitute conservationists, and sexually depraved athletes. Editors also tell readers Americans are losing the “sex race”—i.e. formerly virile men are becoming weak and impotent. If you’re thinking you’ve heard similar masculine moaning on modern cable television, you’d be right, but the sad difference is that Bulletin‘s story is meant to be farce, whereas modern cable news is deadly serious about “feminization.” Accompanying the text is a photo of a woman taking the pants off a smiling wax figure of Richard Nixon. That is legitimately funny. We’ve enlarged it below. Feel free to spread that marvelous image far and wide. More tabloids to come.
