Playboy is one of the most difficult magazines to accurately describe. When most people hear the name they think of a softcore porn magazine that just happens to have some articles so it can get mainstream distribution.
The truth is Playboy is a regular men’s magazine that just happens to have naked pictures of women in it. But if all you want to see is nude women you can go onto the Internet and find some adult web pages within seconds and all for free. In fact, I don't know why adult magazines are even published anymore.
PLAYBOY MAKES NUDITY BORING
The old cliché of "I only read it for the articles" has never been more true than today. Does anyone REALLY buy Playboy just to ogle the pictures? I think I speak for all heterosexual men when I say the female body is a beautiful thing and we appreciate God’s artistry. However, a static, two-dimensional image of a nude woman, no matter how beautiful she is, can be quite boring.
In fact, my biggest problem with this magazine is that it’s so obvious that the photographs have been touched up. It's clear they're in an expensive studio with access to the latest technology, so the pages are radiating with such rich color it's almost blinding. All this is done to make the women look as perfect as possible, but anyone with half a brain can tell how fraudulent these pictures are. Admittedly, the pictures are nice to look once, but after I've seen them I'm just kind of like, “Yeah, so?”
C and D-LIST CELEBRITIES NAKED!? (meh)
After having subscribed to Playboy for a year or two I realized just how boring the photos really were and began to shrug them off before I even opened the magazine. Really, the only reason to look at them is the occasional celebrity who poses for the magazine since by doing so they really want you to see them in their birthday suit.
But let's look at WHO poses. Usually, it's washed-up, has-been actresses and models whose 15 minutes of fame expired years ago who are just looking to get some publicity, or a paycheck... or both.
For example: Shannen Doherty; LaToya Jackson; Debbie Gibson; Tiffany; Gena Lee Nolin. Even when Drew Barrymore posed it was long before her comeback days and the media just laughed it off.
Then there are the women with moderate name recognition but who are ONLY known for being sex kittens: Jenny McCarthy; Carmen Electra; Denise Richards; Torrie Wilson (and most of the women of the WWE); Brooke Burke, etc.
Who cares?! A diva posing for Playboy is just stating the obvious, isn't it? As if we didn't already know what they looked like in the buff from their filmography (or couldn't take an educated guess).
Although Playboy has been known for landing a few A-list celebrities unexpectedly, especially Madonna and of course Marilyn Monroe from their first-ever issue (which were pictures Hugh Hefner bought or stole from someone else), I just don't see the point in wanting to see what a celebrity, no matter HOW famous she may be, naked. Perhaps out of some shock value if it was someone you would never expect to pose, but isn't simply knowing they posed exciting enough?
PLAYBOY MAKES BEING HIP AND TRENDY BORING, TOO
When it comes to the worlds of fashion, technology, and trends, everything mentioned in Playboy is months ahead of the times and always involves things that are really expensive and intended for the upper class. Of course, if you are part of the rich elite you’d probably look to Playboy to let you know what’s on the cutting-edge. But if you’re just a regular guy like me you might feel like a failure if these things aren’t applicable to your day-to-day life (much less affordable).
Typical bourgeois features include: the latest trendy dish to order at an expensive restaurant; upcoming Broadway plays; new techniques and procedures in plastic and cosmetic surgery; latest trends at the trendiest clubs and bars; “drink of the month;” soon-to-be-released expensive technological gadgets such as MP3 players, digital cameras, wi-fi and other stuff you might see at stores like "The Sharper Image;" "Babe of the Month" (I’m not sure what the point of this is such there are “babes” all over this magazine); "Raw Data" - one of the most fascinating regular features in the magazine - a list of astounding statistics and numbers about recent surveys and trends.
ENTERTAINMENT REVIEWS MADE BORING
There are reviews of upcoming albums and concert tours from artists that fall somewhere between modern rock and adult contemporary in almost every issue. I've yet to read a review of an album I'd consider buying because the artists featured don’t fit my tastes and seem to be included only for their name recognition.
Veteran film critic Leonard Maltin serves as the resident reviewer and manages to do a fine job in writing reviews that are long enough to give you a good sense of why he liked it, but are also short enough to not bore you with in-depth analysis (as a film critic myself that's what I'm more interested in). Of course, most of the films reviewed are independents or low-key mainstream films that don't get much attention because it's much more elite to watch movies the mainstream has never heard of.
Maltin also pens a brief column relevant to the current movie industry, which I find interested, but I think he needs more room to elaborate. The problem is, Maltin likes just about everything (his second lowest rating is "worth a look").
THE PLAYBOY ADVISOR: HONEST SEX ADVICE
This is my favorite part of the magazine. Readers write in to the mysterious advisor who helps them with their love life, sex life and occasionally answers non-sexual questions which I can rarely relate to, but always get a kick out of reading.
The questions are fascinating and the answers are even more so because sometimes the question will go on for five paragraphs and the adviser will reply with one sentence (or one word). This column is a great source of information on how men can make themselves desirable to women; how they can drive them wild in bed; hot to re-ignite the heat that's gone out of their relationship; or how to tell if a spouse or girlfriend might be cheating. The advisor pulls no punches and is frank with his answers. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes he comes across very abrasive.
There's also discussion of non-sexual issues which are inherently bourgeious in nature like the rest of the magazine, which usually include: fashion; wine; high tech gadgets; cigars; cultural trivilaties; etc. I don't know what the point of these questions are since they can all be answered via a simple Google search these days.
THE PLAYBOY FORUM: WHINY LIBERAL RANTS AND THE OCCASIONAL INTERESTING NEWS
I don't think I have to tell you that the people behind Playboy are quite the leftist liberals. But isn’t this complete and total double-think on the editors’ part? Ask any feminist if they think selling a magazine with naked pictures of women in it, sexually explicit or not, is objectifying women, and most likely the answer will be yes. So why does Playboy get to slide?
I find it ironic and quite funny that nearly every month there will be editorials written on a feminist-related issue or taking a mainstream social issue and putting a feminist spin on it. There is just nothing funnier than reading a Playboy editorial on why pro-lifers are chauvinist and close-minded who think of women just as baby-making machines and yet this entire magazine is based on that same chauvinist attitude of women as sex objects!
Regardless, "The Playboy Forum" sometimes offers new perspectives on political issues that I hadn’t considered, even thought it just perpetuates the two-party dictatorship that is the United States political system. I wish they would include a more roundtable style of discussion on issues so as to incorporate a variety of perspectives, but apparently this magazine REALLY wants you know that behind all the nudity and sex it really is just a bleeding heart at the core.
Something I find fascinating is that there's a lot of discussion about religion in this magazine. By which I mean sensationalized bashing of the religious right without all the facts and always portraying Christians as the enemy but Jews, Muslims and the occult as righteous. However, I look at this in a positive manner since they're at least they're talking about religion which is more than I can say for any other men's magazine and even most mainstream news mags. Even if "my" side is constantly bashed, it's getting some attention and that's something.
THE PLAYBOY INTERVIEW – STILL SOLID AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
Question and answer interviews are kind of a rare thing in the printed media today. Playboy's interviews are long and full of information you don't really get anywhere else. And how they get the celebrities and newsmakers they interview to fess up about the most secretive details of their lives is beyond me. The interviewers know how to push the subjects' buttons and they're also well-educated on their interviewees' history and background so they can ask them about something they did years ago and how it relates to some specific detail or aspect of their life now.
When you read the Playboy interview you feel like it's a conversation between two friends because it's so easy-going, fluid and stream-of-consciousness. It's not arbitrary questions that have no relation to each other and they don't ask Entertainment Weekly-style stupid questions just to get a funny quote. When it comes to interviews, it's one thing Playboy does better than most other magazines.
FEATURE STORIES AND ARTICLES: INTERESTING BUT POINTLESS
Sometimes Playboy can't fit the subjects of the articles into the regular columns, so they give it the in-depth treatment going on for page and pages. Now, investigative journalism can make for a really interesting read or it can bore you to death. I remember reading a 10-page story about the war between biker gangs in the Midwest which was quite fascinating. But this article would’ve been better sutied for Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, or even Time.
I’ve never understood why Playboy continues to publish one or two feature stories like this every month. I suppose it’s to give the magazine some journalistic credibility, but wouldn’t the typical reader want something easier and lighter to read? Considering the content of the magazine, they really couldn’t include enough sex advice, technology coverage, pop culture gossip or pictorials.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’m curious what the future holds for Playboy. During the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a war to see who could be the most popular men’s magazine (i.e. Maxim, FHM, Stuff, King), but the war seems to have ended with nothing but casualties with FHM and Stuff folding. Heck, even Maxim is nowhere near as socially relevant as it used to be.
With the proliferation of the internet, Playboy’s selling point of having photos of beautiful naked women makes it border on the obsolete. And considering the rest of its content is not all that different from most mainstream men’s magazines I can’t help but wonder how Playboy will stay competitive. Surely its name alone could keep it going, but indefinitiely? Not without some major changes.
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