Celebrities on the Newsstand

[Steve Sloca]

Alfred Urrutia wrote:
"I don't get the distinction.  Yes there are guys who only care about
the pictures.  That works for celebrities and Playmates.  There are
also guys who are interested in the backstory, the details of the
model's life.  That, too, works for celebrities and Playmates.  I
still don't see how Playboy worked the very special style of fantasy
that no other magazine could do."

I'll try once more, although I thought Dan made it pretty clear.  With
a *real* celebrity, such as a movie star like Cameron Diaz or Halle
Berry, there is almost no chance that the average man could ever meet
her, much less date her and take her to bed.  Yes, if he lived in LA
he might catch a glimpse of her in a Ralph's some time, but she would
be "unapproachable," with a bodyguard or boyfriend to keep strangers
away from her.  Plus, being a big star, she would only date other
Hollywood hot shots; so even if you could say "hi" to her or get her
autograph, that's as far as you could ever get in real life with such
a star.  So any fantasies the average man might have about bedding
such a celebrity have to be "unreal" fantasies that he knows can never
happen in real life.

The Playmate, though, is different--at least as presented in the past
as the GND.  First, she is a "nobody," who is plucked off a street
corner in Podunk, Iowa or some similar town, made up to look
glamourous, placed in an elegant setting, and is taking off her
clothes *for the very first time* to show her body to strangers like
the Playboy readers.  She is no different then from the girls you or I
might meet on Podunk, Iowa street corners, just lucky enough to have
the right kind of beauty to be selected by Playboy.  These GND's are
pretty girls, but they are not--at least in the old
days--"unattainable goddesses" like a movie star is generally imagined
to be.  Janet Pilgrim, the first GND, was an attractive woman (and
still is for her age); but I knew hundreds of girls who were prettier
than she when she posed for Playboy.  She just happened to be a
secretary/circulation manager in Playboy's offices and thus got a
chance to pose.  That is true for almost all of the '60's and '70's
PM's--they are cute or sexy-looking, but not any more beautiful or
desirable than the receptionist in my office or the girl at the
cosmetics counter at The Broadway.

Second, their "story" tells us that they are secretaries, college
students, real estate salespersons, or have some such "normal"
occupations, and/or that they hope to finish college and become
teachers or nurses or even lawyers, and/or that they are looking for
the right man to settle down and have children with.  In short, the
"story" suggests that after posing and completing their PM duties,
they will come back to Podunk, Iowa or wherever and be "normal" people
again.  This makes them very accessable to the average man, at least
in his imagination; and thus he can fantasize about "really" meeting
such a woman, having a relationship with her, and having passionate
sex with her.

Now, in these latter days, we have learned that many of these PM's
went to Hollywood after being selected as a Playmate, hung around
trying to be movie stars, dated B-rated actors and the like, married
crappy husbands and divorced them one or more times, or became Mansion
habitues, etc.  But none of that was ever in the "stories" about the
PM's in the magazine.  The "stories" always portrayed them as "normal"
women, looking for "normal" husbands or boyfriends, and intending to
live "normal" lives.  So in their PM features, we are being given an
exclusive look, and the first and maybe the only look (before the
NSS's, PM's rarely were featured again unless they were chosen as
PMOY), at the nakedness of a girl who was the same kind of woman we
could and did meet in real life.  THIS was the lure of the GND
mystique.  And men's fantasies about such PM's wove the fabric of
their "stories" into the fabric of their own real lives.

True, you could look up the backgrounds of movie stars or rock music
celebrities.  Tabloids and movie mags gave fans descriptions of their
latest exploits.  But they were still "unattainable."  What good would
it do the fantasizer to know that Sally Stardom was born in Manitoba,
Canada, when he also knew that she now lived in a mansion in Bel Air,
dated Cary Grant and "hung out" only at A-list celebrity functions.
"We" the average Playboy reader could never get to know her.  But we
could get to know, and even marry, a Playmate or someone like her,
because according to her "story," she was just a normal hometown girl.

That is what I think Dan meant.  The "story" made the Playmate into
someone who was NOT a "celebrity," but only a normal pretty girl.
Thus Playboy's current focus on "celebrities," coupled with its
selection of Playmates who are nothing but Hollywood want-to-be's or
Mansion bimbos, has destroyed the aura of normalcy about the "Playboy
women," which was its uniqueness and its appeal to "normal" men.
Sure, you can fantasize about running into a movie star's car and
having her fall in love with you on the spot or some such pipe dream
of bringing them into your real life, but those fantasies are so
"unreal" as to be unsustainable for long.  However, the fantasies men
have about a girl who, after posing for Playboy, goes back to being
the bank teller at a bank just a few states away are much more "real,"
longer-lasting, and emotionally satisfying to the fantasizer.  (I will
bet that long-time Playboy readers who fantasized about a '60's or
'70's PM still remember those fantasies; and some may even have used
those fantasies in choosing their own real life mates.)

When Alfred says "How many people could say that they could
conceivably meet a drop-dead gorgeous girl who 'would pose nude for
Playboy' and not be living in L.A. or New York in this country?" it is
apparent that he is a recent Playboy reader, used to thinking of
Playmates as being "celebrities" just like the Survivor losers, as
being "drop dead gorgeous," i.e., more beautiful than any real life
woman could hope to be, and as being just as unattainable as any movie
or TV star.  But Dan and I and those whose loyalties to Playboy go
back more years to the era of the GND, don't see Playmates in that
light.  Or, at least, we don't want Playmates who are "celebrities,"
just those who are normal pretty women who might be found on the
street corners of the Podunk, Iowa type towns around the country.