Katharine Hamer

News Reporter
khamer@usnews.com

PENELOPE Buitenhuis
decided to make her fat-
est film, Tokyo Girls, after
meeting “all these intelli-
gent, artistic, adventur-
ous women” in her trav-
els who had worked as
hostesses in Japan.

The documentary was the
director’s way of debunking the
awth that women who please
men for money are inevitably
downtrodden and pitiable.

“T thought it would be
interesting to look at a protes-
sion that doesn’t necessarily
involve sex, but involves
women as a kind of fantasy tig-
ure,” she says, “and also
women who are not necessarily
victims — they are often the
opportunists.”

Hostessing — in which
Western women entertain
Japanese men in clubs, lighting
their cigarettes, laughing at
their jokes, and engaging in
general flattery — is “quite a
phenomenon,” says Buitenhuis.
“te's like this huge under-
ground that is not spoken of
but everybody knows about it.

“Everybody thinks it must
be sex, it must be escort ser-
vice, it must be sleazy, it must
be dangerous... all these sort of
cliches about women going
abroad to work in a club.”

With the help of a friend

NEWS photo Poul McGrath who had worked as a hostess,

VANCOUVER director Penelope Buitenhuis took a break from television series and feature film work to create Tokyo Girls, a National
Film Board production about Canadian hostesses in Japan. The documentary airs at the Vancouver International Film Festival. See Releasing page 18

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