The Danger of Celebrity

[Dan Stiffler]

Last November, for this forum, I wrote a piece on PLAYBOY Celebrity,
detailing how the magazine's covers have reflected its gradual but decided
drift towards the cult of celebrity.  What I want to do here is briefly
explain why I think this drift, now a rush, is dangerous to the long-term
health of PLAYBOY.

1.  The Sales Factor:  It is undeniable that certain celebrity pictorials
create a sales spike.  These spikes, when they happen, make the accountants
happy.  However, sales spikes, based on topical interest in a celebrity du
jour, do not build a permanent readership.  Case in point: May's Torrie
Wilson issue has sold better than twice the normal numbers at my local
newsstand.  My dealer put a stack behind his register because he knew that a
certain crowd would be coming in to ask for it.  Rather than send them into
his back room, where all the adult magazines and videos are shelved, he
could just hand over the issue.  In at least one case that I witnessed, a
Torrie Wilson fan was also interested in a Chyna back issue, which he bought
for $10.  But do any of these buyers care about PLAYBOY?  Hardly.  They buy
the magazine to see what their favorite wrestler looks like without her
shorts.

Thus, PLAYBOY is in constant search of the next sales spike.  This month it
is the WWE; next month, a reality show reject; next month...  But the very
nature of spikes suggests that the process is doomed to cycles of boom and
bust.  Those who bought the February issue to see Clint's daughter are
probably not motivated to seek out Torrie Wilson.

When PLAYBOY was building a readership, it did so with its playmates.  Each
month, the reader was excited to see the girl next door revealed in the
centerfold.  She would be fresh and she would be available and she would be
part of the PLAYBOY family.  Then it was on to the next playmate, the next
surprise--a building process that PLAYBOY could maintain with consistency.
It was a workable paradigm, but PLAYBOY's addiction to celebrity has now
overwhelmed it.

2.  The Control Factor:  At one level, PLAYBOY exhorts its considerable
power whenever it gets a celebrity to drop her panties.  In most cases, the
implication is that only for PLAYBOY would she do so.  This exclusivity is,
I think, what accounts for part of the addictive rush of PLAYBOY's
obsession.  Wow, the power the magazine would project if it could get
Britney to show her nipples!

Unfortunately, not only is this control adolescent by nature but it is also
misleading.  Unlike the playmate, whom PLAYBOY christens for the first time
to the world, the celebrity has already been displayed by the larger media.
Thus, PLAYBOY does not really decide who the celebrity is, the media does.
PLAYBOY is left to wait for the next celebrity du jour, putting the magazine
at the mercy of the star-making machinery.  True, PLAYBOY can pick and
choose among those currently enjoying their 15 minutes of fame, but the pool
is necessarily limited to the culture of celebrity.  And then there are
those cases where all of the power of PLAYBOY fails conspicuously--as will
most likely be the case with Britney's nipples.

How much better it was for the magazine when it controlled its own
star-making machinery, the centerfold.  Now that the emphasis has gone
entirely over to celebrities (if the magazine's covers have not been making
that shift clear for the last decade or so, then the quotes--most damningly
by Hefner himself--in the recent NY Time article do), PLAYBOY has lost much
control over its primary content, the content it is emphasizing to the
public.  Now it's all about undressing those who have been already anointed
by the general media.

>From my point of view, celebrity pictorials are a quick fix, one that has
pushed PLAYBOY away from the very principals that gave it a loyal readership
in the first place.  While I am not in favor of eliminating the celebrity
pictorial, I do think that the editors need to reconsider the long-term
effects of placing *primary* emphasis on that feature in the magazine.
PLAYBOY could be in danger of becoming just a high-class version of
Celebrity Sleuth.

regards,

Dan Stiffler