More thoughts on the Interview

[Dan Stiffler]

On 7/22/03 1:56 AM, "Peggy Wilkins" <mozart@lib.uchicago.edu> wrote:
> 
> I have a new suggestion.  I think it is fairly obvious that the
> content of the PLAYBOY Interview has been diluted quite a bit in
> recent years.  Nowadays it tends to be used much like the talk show
> circuit, with most Interview subjects being whatever actor or sports
> figure or musician is in the news or (more notably) has something to
> promote.  For instance, Tobey Maguire is interviewed in the August
> issue.  He is in the news because he starred in Spiderman recently and
> now has a new notable movie just coming out, Seabiscuit.  I see this
> as a primarily promotional feature, and so it is disappointing when
> viewed in the PLAYBOY Interview tradition (it just doesn't have the
> weight one would really want).

Peggy, the content of the whole magazine "has been diluted quite a bit in
recent years."  Your observations here go hand-in-glove with PLAYBOY's
addiction to celebrity.  Why should PLAYBOY go after a "real Mover/Shaker,
thinker, person of some controversy" when the mindset at PLAYBOY is
celebrity-oriented?  Why interview Howard Dean or Noam Chomsky when PLAYBOY
can interview a hot, sexy Tobey Maguire and ask him questions about Kirsten
Dunst?  Indeed, would Dean or Chomsky even sit for a PLAYBOY interview
anymore, now that the magazine has become the nude version of Entertainment
Weekly?

You seem to want it both ways.  Pander to the "general public" whose
fixation on celebrity apparently drives newsstand sales; throw in a bone for
the people whose world view exceeds their TV screens.

You might remember that I suggested that the 20Q be used for the celebrity
interviews (how many full-length interviews have you read recently that had
more than 20 worthwhile exchanges?) and that the main interview be with
someone who has something original or important to say.  But PLAYBOY
frequently does the opposite (Representative Charles Rangle as 20Q subject).

And it does the opposite because it believes that celebrities sell the
magazine.  You apparently buy this notion, even to the point of suggesting
that the PMOY cover may be a thing of the past.

At what point did PLAYBOY's content begin its decline?  We all know it has
declined.  No use arguing about Wil's perceived "nadir" of the seventies,
which was in fact based only on a photographic style and centered primarily
on the playmate.  The content of the magazine in the seventies was first
rate.  In the middle of Wil's "nadir" we have Patti McGuire as playmate and
Jimmy Carter as interview subject.  Oh, for the good old days of "nadir."

No, the decline began with PLAYBOY's desperate appeal for newsstand sales,
desperate because PLAYBOY was willing to stoop in order to conquer.  Think
Madonna, Jessica Hahn, Tai Collins, Uma Thurman, Suzen Johnson.  These
pictorials are unquestioned low points in PLAYBOY's decision making, but
they also represent a general loss of class, a loss that has poisoned the
well.  If you are a "mover or shaker," are you really going to sit for an
interview with a magazine that has the mindset of the National Enquirer?

> I know full well this is unlikely to be particularly well received,
> but I think it is a very interesting start of an idea that could be
> developed.  It would preserve the integrity of the Interview while
> allowing more flexibility in both content and layout.

Well Peggy, not many of my ideas are "particularly well received" either.
My idea about PLAYBOY stores in malls probably got the most positive
response, but even then some thought the Disney failure would be a paradigm
for PEI.  The two ideas I feel most passionately about about have received
virtually no support in this forum or elsewhere.

1.  Even though reverting to 60s standards for nudity (i.e., dropping the
full frontal explicit photos) would certainly increase marketplace and ad
revenue, nobody seems to like the idea because it is perceived as
retrenchment.  Doesn't matter that PEI would still have plenty of outlets
for explicit material, if the flagship magazine returns to the fig leaf, it
will have admitted defeat.  Well, from my point of view, this is a matter of
retreating in order to win the larger war.  I have even gone so far as to
suggest that PLAYBOY print two versions: an explicit version for
subscribers, a sixties version for the newsstand and the advertisers.  All
of this to increase revenue, to save jobs at PEI (something about which some
of us have been accused of being indifferent).

2.  And, of course, my strong feelings about PLAYBOY's addiction to
celebrity are generally met with disdain or incomprehension.  Since I am not
"in the business," I don't understand that PLAYBOY has to follow the
culture's preoccupation with celebrity.  It's everywhere and, if PLAYBOY is
not everywhere, then it's nowhere.  Well, I may not be "in the business,"
but I have my own damn business and it just happens to be studying and
commenting upon this great American culture of ours.

I ask one thing, for the sake of PLAYBOY.  Skip the next reality show series
that tempts you and do a little research into the decline of Our Favorite
Magazine.  You don't have to take my word for it.

PLAYBOY was once a proud monthly, compared to the top magazines in the
country by those in the know.  Now it is considered "irrelevant," a magazine
"gone bad."  How and why did this happen?  For those of us who are truly
fans, it's time to drop the blinders and look around.

PLAYBOY will not become good again and will not become relevant again just
by adding sidebars and changing fonts.  Neither will it improve by
continuing down the same road that led to its decline in the first place.
The magazine needs a wholesale rethinking of its mission.  Without it, the
next celebrity pictorial will be about as useful as yesterday's newspaper:
something with which to line the bird cage.

regards,

Dan Stiffler