Friendo: “Honest question about this Shampoo one-sheet, which presumably appeared on billboards and at bus stops, not to mention in newspapers and magazines:
“Is it in fact depicting what I think it’s depicting or at the very least suggesting, judging by the towel-draped woman in a kneeling, bent-over position?”
HE reply #1: If I answer your question I’ll be slagged by the HE scolding brigade so maybe I should sidestep this.
HE reply #2: The frankest and fullest answer I can think of is that the ‘70s were the greatest era for hetero nookie in U.S. history and were arguably the most breathtaking era in this regard since the heyday of ancient Rome, but you can’t even talk about it today without sounding like a pig dinosaur.
HE reply #3: There are two suggestive moments in Shampoo in which Warren Beatty’s George Roundy is blow-drying an attractive woman’s freshly-cut hair (at first a foxy 20something client in the Beverly Hills hair salon and later Julie Christie’s Jackie in her bathroom). Both times the women’s heads are not only facing but mere inches away from Beatty’s Sticky Fingers album cover.
Friendo reply: “Yeah, I know, but get a load of that one-sheet. Aren’t you surprised an ad like that would be appearing in newspapers — FAMILY newspapers — in 1975?”
HE response: Those were the’70s, dude! You had to be there. There’s certainly no explaining the social atmosphere of those days to effing Millennials and Zoomers.
