Celebrities on the Newsstand

[Dan Stiffler]

On 7/20/03 9:02 PM, "Donna Tavoso" <dtavoso@earthlink.net> wrote:
 
> More pervasive, it's not more pervasive it's taken over -- when was
> the last time you say even a major fashion magazine (from Vogue to GQ
> to Esquire) with a model (who wasn't also a celebrity) on the cover.
> Go to the newsstand and look at the covers -- everywhere celebrities.

Geez, this is great.  So the best thing for PLAYBOY to do is stick a
celerity on the cover and look just like every other "fashion"
magazine on the newsstand.  Frankly, I don't get this
follow-the-masses mentality to which PLAYBOY now subscribes.  It's as
if the best way to design a magazine cover is to trot off to the
newsstand and see what everyone else is doing.  Then when your
magazine looks like everyone else's you can compete for the
"camouflage of the month" title.

Btw, Brian Wallace has just posted on the PML that the September issue
has "the girls of Starbucks" featured on the cover.  Love that idea
(can't comment on the design, which he apparently doesn't like).
PLAYBOY has a long tradition of "girls of..." pictorials and I just
happen to think it is a good one.  Bravo for the Starbucks idea!  And
I don't even drink coffee!

Now, it will be interesting to see what happens in October, which has
recently been the "girls of X conference" issue.  Is it possible that
we might have two "non-celebrity" covers in a row?
 
> Mature or not, I have to say that you and Steve are rare among the men
> I know and as a single woman in new york I spend a great deal of time
> hanging out with men, all of whom are educated and mature and they all
> would run to the newsstand to get the issue.

Educated? maybe.  Mature? sorry.
 
>> As many of you know, feminists have for a long time criticized PLAYBOY
>> on just this point.  I never thought the argument held water with
>> respect to the playmates, but PLAYBOY is filling the bucket by its
>> addiction to celebrity.
> 
> I don't understand this statement, it's okay for an unknown Playmate
> to be nude, but it furthers the feminist arguement if there are
> C-level or reality stars nude.  How does that work?  As a feminist, I
> will go on record that every arguement I have ever heard against
> Playboy has never held water and it doesn't matter who is posing.

Okay then, I will explain it.  Since Donna snipped the first part of my
statement (where the "point" was), allow me to repeat myself:

"Again, PLAYBOY is supposed to be entertainment for men, not for
adolescents who have yet to experience the real world.  Unfortunately,
most of the recent celebrity pictorials are appealing to an adolescent
fantasy.  As many of you know, feminists have for a long time
criticized PLAYBOY on just this point.  I never thought the argument
held water with respect to the playmates, but PLAYBOY is filling the
bucket by its addiction to celebrity."

Let me begin with a perversion of Gertrude Stein: a nude woman is not
a nude woman is not a nude woman.

Most readers of PLAYBOY see the playmate as a girl next door.
Certainly, they don't see her as a celebrity.  She may be an aspiring
actress or model, but she has not yet reached celebrity status.  She
has a story that accompanies her pictorial layout (these stories
started as early as Dec 54 and soon became regular features; Lynn
Turner [1/56] was the last unchronicled playmate) and the stories,
whether true or not, give the playmate a life apart from her role as
centerfold.

When a reader of PLAYBOY meets a playmate, he is meeting her for the
first time.  He has no preconceived fantasies about her, as he does in
the case of celebrities.  He has never said about the playmate, "Boy,
I sure would like to see her without her panties on."  She is new and
fresh and he meets her on her own (and the magazine's) terms.

To my way of thinking, PLAYBOY's approach establishes a relationship
that goes beyond the simple "what does she look like without her
clothes?"  question.  Indeed, I would argue that it was the pictorial
layout and text that separated PLAYBOY from other men's magazines in
the 50s and 60s and has allowed the magazine to maintain its distance
from the others even to this day.  Thankfully, PLAYBOY has never
departed from this formula and started calling its playmates by a
first name only with "come on, big boy" cut lines for text (Steve
Sullivan is nearing a state of cardiac arrest at the thought!).

So when a man ogles the centerfold in PLAYBOY, he also has the
opportunity to learn, for the first time, about the girl who is
sharing her charms with him.  It is my contention that the serious
PLAYBOY reader takes advantage of that opportunity.  The man who
simply ogles will eventually go elsewhere.

So the difference is this: feminists have long argued that PLAYBOY
appeals to adolescent male fantasies (Barbara Ehrenreich probably does
the best job of this in her Hearts of Men), that PLAYBOY fixes a man
in an adolescent frame of mind and does not allow him to grow up
(Peter Pan syndrome).  I am arguing here that feminists like
Ehrenreich have never understood the role of the playmate story in
fulfilling the relationship that a serious reader of PLAYBOY has with
his playmate.  The playmate is not just an object of desire, although
she certainly is that.  She is also the potential girl next door, the
girl who is cute or drop dead beautiful, but who is also within reach
and with whom the PLAYBOY reader might have a relationship based on
the information he has about her life's story.  In other words, she is
a real woman.

On the other hand, the celebrity pictorial does in fact appeal to the
adolescent fantasy of wondering what the girl looks like without her
clothes.  With a celebrity pictorial only the baser instincts are
functioning.  This is not a girl next door whom the reader is meeting
for the first time.  It is a girl about whom the reader has already
fantasized and for whom the nude pictorial offers an affirmation of
his power.  He has wondered what she looks like without her panties
and now, with a $6.00 purchase, he gets to see.

To put this at its most simple: With a celebrity, the reader has
already met the girl in the limelight and has a preconceived fantasy
about her body: the nude pictorial offers a payoff, but only that.
With a playmate, the reader is meeting her for the first time with no
preconceived fantasy.  Whatever fantasy develops is the product of the
playmate's story and PLAYBOY's presentation of her.

To not see this difference (i.e., to think a nude woman is a nude
woman is a nude woman) is to not understand the singular power of
PLAYBOY's playmates.  It's an error that some feminists continue to
make.  However, if PLAYBOY continues its own obsession with celebrity
pictorials, it will in fact obscure this important distinction because
the magazine will become known for its celebrities, not its playmates.
And then the book will become nothing more than an adolescent fix.

Regards,

Dan Stiffler