Consider this the flipside of our post on vintage afros a few days ago. While the afro was seen mainly on black actors and actresses, particularly in the blaxploitation movies we’re always watching, many non-black actresses also flirted with the style. Celebs from Jane Fonda to Raquel Welch tried out ‘fros, and we’ve even come across the occasional afro/perm on Japanese actresses. For example, here you see Yayoi Watanabe upping her hipness quotient. She appeared in such films as Ero shogun to nijuichi nin no aisho, aka Lustful Shogun and His 21 Mistresses, and was also the star of scores of memorable promo images, such as this one and this one. Probably, a Japanese actress sporting an afro wouldn’t go over quite the same way today, but we like the look, and believe that respectfully experimenting with the styles of other cultures in non-costumey ways is fine. But that’s just us. This shot is from around 1973.
Above: a poster for Noribumi Suzuki’s Ero shogun to nijuichi nin no aisho, aka Lustful Shogun and His 21 Mistresses, aka The Erotic Shogun and His Twenty-One Prostitutes, which starred Tôru Abe, Yasumori Hikita, and also features three of our favorite pinku actresses, Reiko Ike, Yayoi Watanabe, and Miki Sugimoto. We had a bit of a debate here at Pulp HQ as to the actual number of buns 21 women possess. Would it be 21 or 42? The PI girlfriends just rolled their eyes at this question, by the way. But it’s worth exploring. In the strictly physical sense, a bun possesses two halves, right? Thus one woman has one bun, comprising two halves, each of which might be useful for an open face sandwich, perhaps, but which cannot by itself constitute a whole. Alternatively, when referring to a person’s backside, you might observe that she has nice buns. More to the point, if there were, say, a tattoo there, you might say, “She has a tattoo on her right bun.” Actually, first you might say, “Poor girl. That looks really frickin’ trashy and she has no idea.” But then you’d say she has a tattoo on her right bun. Or left bun, as the case may be. Or saddest of all, across both buns. All of which would seem to imply that 21 women have 42 buns. The PI girlfriends suggested we go with the British term “bum,” which is not in any way ambiguous, but also doesn’t rhyme with “gun,” which was really the whole point. Actually, it technically could rhyme with gun, depending on how loose your interpretation of rhyming is. Certainly, a rapper would agree that bum rhymes with gun, but we don’t rap, so in the end, we went with bun. That is, one woman has one bun. All pretty confusing, truthfully. At this point we’d normally do a quick review, maybe show you some still shots of these 21 mistresses that populate Ero shogun to nijuichi nin no aisho, maybe even mention that it premiered in Japan today in 1972, but after dragging you through the cramped, dark spider hole of our editorial process, the least we can do is show you an/some actual bun/buns. So there’s Reiko’s below. Hooray!
The first assembly of the League of Nations, the multi-governmental organization formed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, is held in Geneva, Switzerland. The League begins to fall apart less than fifteen years later when Germany withdraws. By the onset of World War II it is clear that the League has failed completely.
1959—Clutter Murders Take Place
Four members of the Herbert Clutter Family are murdered at their farm outside Holcomb, Kansas by Richard “Dick” Hickock and Perry Smith. The events would be used by author Truman Capote for his 1966 non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, which is considered a pioneering work of true crime writing. The book is later adapted into a film starring Robert Blake.
1940—Fantasia Premieres
Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.
1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found
British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”
1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time
Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.
1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.
