PLAYBOY: Sophisticated and Urbane

[Dan Stiffler]

When we have Mark sitting at a stop light thinking about the future of
PLAYBOY, we are starting to move forward.  (OK.  So it's a paradox.)

I think that Steve Sloca has recently raised an important question:
just who is the "sophisticated, urbane man" at the turn of the 21st
century.  We have plenty of evidence about who PLAYBOY thought he was
in the last half of the last century, but who is he today?  While I
disagree with some of Steve's positions, I am in agreement that the
contemporary male lives in a post-feminist world, something that the
original playboy could not have imagined--although, ironically, he was
in part responsible for the feminist revolution.  Freedom in the
bedroom, always a key theme of the PLAYBOY philosophy, was part and
parcel of freedom in the boardroom.

Who will be the "sophisticated and urbane" audience of the 21st
century PLAYBOY?  It is a life and death question for the magazine.
If we all stop at the light often enough, we might begin to shape a
response to that question.  Otherwise, how will we feel if PLAYBOY
becomes something other than, well, "sophisticated and urbane"?

This may apply: Back in PLAYBOY's "platinum" years, the magazine
promoted its own stable of writers and cartoonists.  Consider the
cover of 12/60 when Jules Feiffer, Shel Silverstein, Alberto Vargas,
Erich Sokol, E. Simms Campbell, and Gahan Wilson are headliners.
These are all artists who had become regulars for PLAYBOY (Vargas and
Campbell most recently), names that the regular reader would
recognize.  Sharing the headlines on 12/60 were writers such as Ray
Bradbury, Art Buchwald, Roger Price, William Iversen, and Larry
Siegel, again contributors whose names would be familiar to the
regular reader in PLAYBOY's early years.  Interestingly, Marilyn
Monroe's name is also on this cover, but it receives no special
attention.

By featuring a stable of writers and artists, PLAYBOY built a
readership who began to anticipate the next Vargas painting, the next
Feiffer sketch, nearly as much as the next playmate.  The playmate
appealed to the reader's interest in beauty and pleasure, but so did
the artists and writers.  Add to these headliners such regulars as
Thomas Mario (food) and Robert Green (attire) and PLAYBOY began to
develop a refined identity, one to which its readers could subscribe,
both literally and metaphorically.

As someone who came to PLAYBOY in the early sixties, I was profoundly
influenced by this identity.  My friends and I circulated the magazine
not only to lust after the centerfold but also to read the latest
Bradbury, Fleming, or Shepherd; to laugh at the latest Silverstein,
Wilson, or Shoemaker; to wonder at the latest Vargas.  Reading PLAYBOY
was an experience, one that had been cultivated.  We came in through
the centerfold, only to discover a much larger world--one that became
familiar and comfortable because of our repeated exposure to PLAYBOY's
stable of writers and artists.  Able to navigate the world of PLAYBOY,
we thus believed that we were "sophisticated and urbane."

regards,

Dan Stiffler