Playboy Faces Reality
As those who follow this blog regularly know, I am an aficionado of all things salacious, and I got started with Playboy. I've been a faithful reader for over forty years, when I snuck looks at my father's copies. I remember looking at the pictures and not fully understanding what they were making me feel, but I knew it was good. I got my first subscription while I was still in high school, and kept it up until recently, when I switched over to the digital version, if only to save space.
I am fully aware of the dichotomy of being a liberal, a feminist, and a fan of Playboy. Hugh Hefner, who founded the magazine sixty years ago and even now, at age 89, decided to stop the nudity, was a key factor in the sexual revolution. There were nudie mags before Playboy, but they were all low-rent and completely in the shadows. Playboy took a cue from Esquire and melded pin-up photography and intellectual pursuits. A whole lifestyle was created--the bachelor, who knew all about great wine, had the latest hi-fi equipment, was sartorially impeccable, and wasn't interested in marriage.
Through the '50s and '60s this image was viable, as heretofore the boring dad of TV sitcoms was the male role model. Playboy gave an alternative, and also used the illusory concept of the "girl next door." The Playmate, featured every month with a staple through her navel, embodied the male fantasy. I certainly fell for this--she was a woman we could project our own ideals on. Surely if she only met us she would fall in love with us.
This act hit its stride in the '60s, though there were many detractors. Feminist leaders, rightly so, derided Hefner for his chauvinism. He may be a champion of the First Amendment, but he's never been a feminist. You can read between the lines of his many statements through the years and his bizarre behavior with women he keeps like exotic pets in his mansion. Objectifying women by having them dress as bunny rabbits in the clubs was not any kind of advancement for women. Some women may say they are empowered by posing nude, but not by wearing a powder-puff on their ass while serving drinks.
The magazine reached its popularity in the 1970s, with six-million subscribers. Hefner bought a jetliner, and the company went public. But then something happened along the way, and their are less than a million subscribers today. The Internet is blamed for most things that have wrecked the publishing industry, but I think Playboy started its downward slide before that. Maybe it was when they published the old nudes of Madonna, in a race with Penthouse. A magazine that once had interviews with Yevgeny Yevtuskenko and Malcolm X was now just another entertainment magazine trying to hustle for readers. The interview subjects became actors shilling their latest movie. Sure, every once in a while they'd land someone who actually had something to say, but the die was cast.
The Internet was the final nail in the coffin. Anyone can see naked woman anytime they want, for free. Magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler were obsolete. Why walk into a newsstand and buy a porn rag when you can surf in the comfort of your home? Playboy's content--the whole "I read it for the articles"--had long since past, as the new Norman Mailers and John Updikes can't be found in its pages (T.C. Boyle is about the only reputable writer who still publishes his work there).
I've kept up with Playboy because of the nudity. Naked ladies may be all over the Internet, but Playboy still has the best of them. The great photographers, like Steven Wayda and Arny Freytag, have died or retired, and the new breed, like Josh Ryan, aren't worthy to shine their boots, but the girls are still fantastic. They are not the girls next door anymore, unless you live next to fashion models, but they are the epitome of a certain kind of beauty that I appreciate. The nudity, to use an overused word, is tasteful. There are no gaping gashes, no close-ups of assholes--I can see that elsewhere if I want to. I like to see beautiful women in classic pin-up poses, and to think that will be gone is disheartening.
Is it a good business decision? I doubt it. Magazines like Esquire, GQ, and especially Maxim have photos of scantily-clad but non-nude women and manage to exist. Maxim is geared toward the college boy mentality, while the other two skewer much older. Playboy's audience was graying, and supposedly since they have done away with nudity on their website (they do have another website, Playboy Plus, which is operated by a company called Manwin, which still has plenty of nudity) there audience has grown and gotten younger. But would they really get rid of the centerfold? The Playmate of the Month? If they can get major stars to partially disrobe, who otherwise wouldn't have posed naked, that would be good. But what will the editorial approach be? Will they go back to being a magazine catering to the more intellectual among us? Or will they wallow more in the Maxim model, with endless articles about the best party colleges, extreme sports and beer?
Playboy only exists now because of its brand, which is hugely recognizable. The irony is that the purchasers of items with the Playboy logo are women--I don't think any self-respecting man would walk out of the house with a Playboy bunny on him. This has become a classic example of the tail wagging the dog--the magazine, which began it all, is the least important part of it now. I suspect that the magazine will last as long as Hugh Hefner is alive, and after he goes, it will disappear, or exist only in modest form, just to give the logo a reason to exist. The time has come.
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