Celebrities on the Newsstand

[Dan Stiffler]

On 7/22/03 2:37 PM, "Alfred Urrutia" <rampagingsloth@yahoo.com> wrote:
 
> Sarcasm, my friend.  I understood what you meant but I think you make
> the distinction bigger than it is.  You assume that the Playmate's
> personal story will be somehow interesting to the reader.  While I
> think they are, who knows how many other guys care.

Alfred, the deal is that I know you care.  After all, you hooked up Victoria
Valentino's stereo system, or some such thing.  Of course you care.  And
PLAYBOY should be for the man, like you, who cares about the playmate *and*
her story.  Those other guys?  Why should PLAYBOY cater to them?  Why should
PLAYBOY be just another simple stroke book?

I was at my newsstand yesterday and my dealer showed me a credit card
receipt for a transaction that he had earlier in the day: $900.00+.  All of
it was porn.  Apparently this guy comes in two or three times a year and
buys one of every magazine and a couple of videos.  One of every title?
Does he care about the playmate story?  Hardly!  He is just looking for
pictures of nude women.  Personally, I have no problem with this guy and, of
course, my dealer loves him.  But this is not the guy for whom PLAYBOY was
originally published, even though he bumped PLAYBOY's circulation figures
this month.
 
> You also made the point that Playboy is semi-unique in offering this
> porn crossing when compared to celebrity pictorials.  I don't think
> that's true.  As I said before, other magazines let us know something
> about the celebrity through the accompanying interviews - what they're
> up to, some "secret" or little known aspect of their lives before
> stardom, etc.  So this fantasy fueling is just as effective when you
> learn that Jennifer Garner, a celebrity, took ballet lessons as a kid
> as when you learn that Tiffany Taylor, a Playmate, owns ferrets.

I get your point, Alfred.  And maybe I am making too much of the difference.
It's just a different that has always meant a lot to me and, I suspect, to
others for whom the playmate is PLAYBOY's most distinctive and valued
feature.

Even so, you are learning that Jennifer Garner took those ballet lessons
*after* you have known her as a celebrity.  In our culture, as
celebrity-sick as it is, that labels Jennifer Garner, even stigmatizes and
colors the perception of her.  She becomes an "oh, isn't that?"  Many
celebrities will tell you that their fame has come at the great cost of
personal freedom and individuality.

With Tiffany Taylor, we learn about her ferrets when we *first* meet her.
For me at least, this is a more natural way to develop a relationship.
Steve Sloca, with his comments on my distinction between the celebrity
fantasy and the playmate fantasy, is pretty much on the mark.

Alfred, you live in LA, so maybe the distinction doesn't seem so great to
you.  But I will share with you a personal story that may make my point more
clear and more real.  It may also make it completely idiosyncratic, but I am
guessing that there are many more stories like mine.

When I was in junior high school there was this knockout blonde who had
every boy's fancy.  Naturally, she fancied the top athlete in the class and
they became the "All-American" couple.  She was always on my top ten list of
cutest girls and, later when we were in high school, she became a
cheerleader.  Meanwhile, I was just a regular guy (reading PLAYBOY, as it
happens).

Well, imagine my shock when this girl (goddess, really) asked me to escort
her to the junior prom for which she was part of the court.  I was in an
abject state of panic.  What to wear?  What to say?  How to be cool?  I
wasn't a star athlete (her junior-high boyfriend ended up being drafted by
the Yankees and had a pro career in the NFL, after starring at quarterback
for the University of Oregon).  I was just a regular guy (who, reading
PLAYBOY, was trying to figure out how to behave in the company of a
beautiful girl).

Well, the prom night wasn't a disaster and we continued to date off and on,
even after we went off to college (she went to Cornell and became a lawyer).
But one night, after I had taken her out to dinner, she observed that I
could never treat her just like a regular girl.  I always had to be doing
something special for her.  We had to go to the fancy restaurant, not the
local drive-in.  I tried to make adjustments (we went to the A&W stand the
next time out), but I was never able to get over my earlier conception of
her as cheerleader, All-American girl, local celebrity.  I have seen her
since at high-school reunions, we always chat up each other, and I am still
a little in awe.  (As a side note, this girl borrowed from me the issues
that carried Ian Fleming's Man With a Golden Gun; she was pretty cool with
PLAYBOY.)

Then there was my first true love in high school, senior year.  I had worked
with this girl at Woolworth's for about a year and never really noticed her.
She was a little gawky, a little nerdy.  She damn sure was smart (3rd in our
class of 535).  Then it happened, and this is just so classic as to be a
cliché: she got contacts.  Dropped the librarian glasses.  I immediately
asked her out to a movie and we were boyfriend/girlfriend throughout senior
year and into the first semester of college, when she unceremoniously dumped
me.  My heart still aches.

Now let me tell you something straight.  This true love of mine was absolute
playmate material.  She had a beautiful face and a voluptuous body.  Indeed,
in our high-school yearbook, she is the girl who featured in a full-color
two-page spread, in the city park down by the river, wearing a two-piece
swimsuit.  Not the cheerleader.  My girlfriend (soon to be former-).  She
was amazing: beautiful and smart.  Of course so was the cheerleader.

You see Alfred, I could have probably had a good relationship with the
cheerleader, but her celebrity status always got in my way.  With the
Woolworth's check-out girl, well, I was the stock boy.  We met on equal
terms.  It is my contention that PLAYBOY is at its best when it appeals to
its readers on those terms.  Sure, the playmate is incredibly beautiful and
has a killer body, but if she is presented as the girl next door, without
celebrity trappings, you just might wake up one day and realize that, all
along, you have been working next to *your* playmate.

regards,

Dan Stiffler