September 29, 2017
Lets Talk About Hugh Hefners Political Legacy - New York Times

Since the news that Hugh Hefner died on Wednesday night, at 91, the obituaries and tributes have been pouring in. While many have focused on the pajama-clad avatar of sybaritic male pleasure, others have paid tribute to a less familiar figure: Hef the progressive.

No less a liberal lion than Norman Lear praised him on Twitter as “a true explorer.” Jesse Jackson hailed him as a strong supporter of the civil rights movement, while Larry King called him “a GIANT” of free speech. Others noted that while Hefner loved to excoriate feminists in the pages of Playboy, he was a supporter of some of their causes, including abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment.
It was an image Mr. Hefner himself was keen to promote, especially in recent years. But how well does the idea of Hef the liberator of women really hold up? The New York Times Culture writers Amanda Hess, Wesley Morris and Taffy Brodesser-Akner joined me in a discussion of Hefner’s social and cultural legacy.

JENNIFER SCHUESSLER First, a disclosure. I grew up outside Chicago — the original seat of the Hefner empire — but my primary exposure to Playboy was furtive glances at houses where I was babysitting. (I’m pretty sure I wasn’t looking at it for the articles.)
But the magazine, at least in the beginning, wasn’t meant for us ladies, of whatever age. The editorial in the first issue, in 1953, put it bluntly: “If you’re somebody’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies’ Home Companion.”

O.K., that was then. Today, Playboy’s tagline is “Entertainment for All.” What has Playboy done for women?
TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER I have a disclosure, too: I wrote for Playboy (proudly) at the beginning of my career. They gave me my first celebrity assignment, in fact, which has become my bread and butter (not to imply that celebrities eat either bread or butter). Playboy was a magazine for men. Whatever its political stance, it didn’t pretend it was going for inclusivity. Why would it? Does Redbook have a column for men (wait, does it?)? Does Vogue give back-hair grooming advice?

AMANDA HESS I suppose I should disclose that I once wrote an article for Playboy.com about straight guys who are into butt stuff. Moving on ——
BRODESSER-AKNER Wait, why would we move on from that?
HESS Welcome to The Times, Taffy. I’m interested in Mr. Hefner’s legacy as an architect of the sexual revolution, a claim that’s been repeated so often, for so long, that at this point it goes unexamined. What he did was more like a sexual pivot. He rebranded the objectification of women as both intellectual and cute. He kicked off the magazine by buying a nude photograph that Marilyn Monroe had posed for when she was unknown, desperate and broke, and reframing it as an object of public celebration.
When his fans list all the progressive causes that Mr. Hefner championed — civil rights, gay rights, “sexual freedom”— gender equality is not among them, because he was never invested in a revolution of sexual relationships. His project ultimately had very little to do with sex. His brand, to me, was about power — he was a guy who kept a collection of living dolls in his playhouse, an environment that he could fully control, so he never left.

WESLEY MORRIS Amanda, that’s deeply true. Have you all ever seen the syndicated shows “Playboy’s Penthouse” or “Playboy After Dark?” They ran from 1959 through the 1960s and were part talk show, part haunted house. Guests are drifting around the set while the camera follows Mr. Hefner around the apartment, where occasionally Lenny Bruce or Nat King Cole or Buddy Rich might show up and have a conversation about what they’re up to. Once, Mr. Hefner gathered Cole, Bruce and the composer Cy Coleman in the living room area. Cole and Bruce did a lot of the talking, and behind them is a woman, lounging on the floor, gripping a railing and smiling.
Meanwhile, on the sofa, is Rona Jaffe. Her book “The Best of Everything” had just become a movie with Hope Lange and Joan Crawford, and she’s there to promote it. It’s not until most of the famous men have left that Hefner addresses her. It’s just a strange crystallization of the Playboy ethos. Women are people who make and do things. They’re also décor.
SCHUESSLER Can we talk about how much of a time capsule that all is? It seems like a lot of the celebration of Mr. Hefner now is nostalgic. Creepy as some may have found him, he was pretty benign compared to a lot of what else is out there now. Today’s men’s rights/bro-culture crowd doesn’t pretend to be interested in taking their porn with a side of Picasso.
BRODESSER-AKNER What’s remarkable is that much of that nostalgia was fomented by Playboy itself. I don’t know if there was a more self-referential magazine around.
HESS It makes sense, then, that Mr. Hefner would become an early reality star with “The Girls Next Door” — though I’m not sure that the bright lights of TV did much to preserve the allure of the grotto, or his silk pajamas.

BRODESSER-AKNER
I love that the Playboy website tries to reset that image with just one photo: Young Hefner, staring straight into the camera, phallic object out of side of mouth. And with this quote: “Life is too short to be living someone else’s dream.”
This would be inspiring, I suppose, if not for the fact that it is now the page for every Playboy link, meaning on some level it’s the middle finger to everyone who’s ever read Playboy. Get your own fantasy. This was mine. It’s over now. Go make something yourself. This is probably not what the post meant, but Playboy has been so clumsy these last few years, when the magazine became something that tried to be modern. How do you make this modern? You know what’s modern? Porn.

SCHUESSLER It’s really too bad about that placeholder, and not just because I want to read both of your articles. Vice ran an interesting story just last month about Playboy’s recent “woke” rebranding under Cooper Hefner, one of Hugh’s sons. The tagline “Entertainment for Men” became “Entertainment for All.” (Well, maybe not all: They brought back nude photos, which had been banished in 2015). Cooper said the battle to allow topless women on the cover of Playboy, just like topless men are allowed on the cover of Men’s Health, was a “feminist fight.”

BRODESSER-AKNER I don’t know. Did we really need Hef to let us be naked? The nudity came with so many conditions: It wasn’t just a woman who conformed to our ideals of beauty. It was a woman who conformed to his ideals of beauty, made even more Hef-perfect in photoshop, giving her digital labiaplasty and making her belly button — her belly button! — more adorable.

MORRIS This is where I should say two things. First, I’m pretty gay. Playboy was a depiction of women that baffled me. As a kid, I couldn’t even make the joke about reading the articles, because I didn’t know there were any. Playboy was kryptonite, and the boys I was around preferred Hefner’s mutant offspring. (As a grown man, I did discover the Playboy Interview, which had the intoxicating, sometimes flabbergasting candor of the show.)

Second, I grew up in a Johnson Publishing household, which published Jet magazine at the time. It still features Beauty of the Week. As much as I thought it’d be fun to type “John H. Johnson was the Hugh Hefner of black America,” that would be untrue, since Johnson’s progressiveness was more evident in that he wanted to elevate a race and showcase all it could be. Hugh Hefner might have had Nat King Cole come by the penthouse, but it took a while for him to invite a nonwhite woman onto his pages. There’s progressive, then there’s progressive.

BRODESSER-AKNER This idea that Playboy was feminist is also really strange. Yes, Hef told Esquire in 2007 that he was “a feminist before there was such a thing as feminism.” He gave money to abortion rights causes and to the A.C.L.U. In 1965, the magazine came out in favor of a woman’s right to choose. That’s great, but there are reasons to support abortion rights outside of feminism, right? If, let’s say, you were running a magazine in the pre-Pill era that advocated as much sex with as many female partners as possible.

HESS It seems appropriate that our final cultural image of Hugh Hefner is a sexless one: The geriatric puttering around the house in his pajamas, surrounding himself with young women who made him seem even older, only achieving actual coitus with medical intervention. Now he’ll be laid to rest in the crypt next to Marilyn Monroe’s — he paid $75,000 for the plot back in 1992. He used her body to launch his brand and now he’s used it to retire it, too. Let’s not forget that Mr. Hefner’s whole branding “relationship” with Ms. Monroe — from the magazine centerfold to the crypt — were undertaken without Monroe’s consent. It’s a morbid symbolic coupling. This time, though, both partners are objects.

BRODESSER-AKNER Ugh, is that true, Amanda? I didn’t know that. When I wrote for Playboy, I went to the Playmate of the Year party. It was decorated like a bat mitzvah: pink tent, chocolate-covered strawberries, squealing young women. Hef was always at the center, surrounded by blondes and then another layer of security. People stood near the grotto, talking about the good old days. Playboy fell like Rome — slowly, then all at once.
Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Politic
'Trump tax': MSNBC host Chris Hayes shows how Trump winning would increase costs
Mar 28, 2024
How much would former President Donald Trump's proposed 10 percent tariff plan actually cost the average American household?The wave of tariffs Trump enacted when he was last president caused chaos, but there are many complexities that muddy this somewhat. However, MSNBC's Chris Hayes took an educated and simple guess at just how badly the country would be hit in the pocketbook under Trump's second-term plans."We don't know exactly how much everything would cost," said Hayes, but "just add 10 percent on the back of the napkin. Here's the cost of living under the Trump Tax."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills"Start with groceries," he said. "A dozen eggs cost about $3. Once you apply the Trump Tax, that is up to $3.30, with the U.S. importing over 4 million eggs a year, but cost consumers over $1.2 million. If you like oranges, they currently go for about $1.53 per pound. With the Trump Tax, that would be $1.68 per pound, which would cost American consumers almost $71 million for the nearly half a billion pounds of the import. Bananas. We don't really grow them in the U.S., do we? They average about $.63 per pound and going up to $.69 per pound with the Trump Tax, thanks to the U.S. importing more than 10 million pounds per year, that could cost Americans at $609 million and that's a $609 million tax on American consumers. Then there's tomatoes. They go for about $2.13 per pound. Apply the 10 percent Trump Tax. They would be $2.34 per pound, potentially costing Americans $3.5 million thanks to the 6.8 million pounds we import per year. If you are spending $1,200 on groceries, add another $120 to the bill. That's more than the peak of inflation in 2022, which topped off at 9 percent. This is 10 percent."Groceries are just the start, he continued."How about the refrigerator?" said Hayes. "You need to keep the groceries fresh. The average cost of a new fridge is about $1,300. With the Trump Tax, that could go up to $1,430, costing Americans $1.95 billion for the 15 million refrigerators that we import. Again, $1.95 billion of new taxes. What about the car that you need to drive to the grocery store? On average, a new car costs about $48,808 today. With Trump Tax, it costs $53,684, with Americans potentially taking a $66.3 billion hit across the board on the 13 million cars we import. That's not including the 50 percent tariff which would make it another $25,000. Even the smartphone in your pocket cost on average about $940 right now. With Trump Tax, it can go up to $1,034, with Americans potentially paying an extra $13.2 billion for the nearly 141 million smartphones that we import per year.""Everyone hates when you have to pay more for things," he added. "Inflation is one of the biggest liabilities for a sitting president. Yet here is Donald Trump, in the Year of our Lord 2024, running against President Biden, promising to make things more expensive for every American."Watch the video below or click here. Chris Hayes breaks down "Trump Tax" www.youtube.com
READ MORE
Politic
Trump-endorsed candidate says Beyoncé is teaching women 'how to be hyper-sexual'
Mar 28, 2024
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson had yet another group of extremist comments unveiled — this time about legendary singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.According to The Root, "During a series of rants spanning multiple years, Robinson —who is Black —insulted Beyoncé’s singing abilities, called her a 'skank,' and said she was teaching 'young women how to be hyper-sexual w----s.'"For example, in 2017, Robinson posted to Facebook, “Person; Beyoncé is a role model!” Me; “The only person that butt shakin’, devil worshipping, skank is a role model to is people who want a fast track to Hell.” This is on top of previous reporting that he referred to her music as sounding like "Satanic chants."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsThese revelations come at a moment when Beyoncé herself has found herself at the center of some national controversy, having written a country music inspired album known as Cowboy Carter, and some country radio stations refusing to play singles off of it because of her race.Robinson, who is challenging Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein for the governorship of North Carolina, has been put under the spotlight for a number of bizarre and offensive comments throughout the years.Among other things, he has referred to school shooting survivors as "prosti-tots," pushed QAnon and "lizard people" conspiracy theories, questioned the Holocaust, and suggested American politics was better in the era when women couldn't vote.
READ MORE
Politic
'Some prosecutor should be looking into' Trump's latest legal defense scam: expert
Mar 28, 2024
Former President Donald Trump's sprawling network of ostensibly independent political groups raising money for him, much of it in service of paying legal expenses, seems to walk right up to the line of breaking the law, former prosecutor Kristy Greenberg told MSNBC's Alex Wagner — and may in fact cross it."Kristy, how is this legal?" asked Wagner. "How can he keep saying this one thing and doing another?""Well, I think the big question here will be looking behind all of this as to who is coordinating it," said Greenberg. "If Donald Trump is coordinating between his campaign and these PACs that are supposed to be third parties and independent — the Save America PAC is independent, even though he directs it, independent third-party — if there is sufficient coordination, you could prove that, then maybe you would have something to say these expenditures are not purely personal, these are really campaign contributions. And therefore they should be subject to the limits of $5,000 that campaign contributions are subject to."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsWhat it looks like, Greenberg went on, is that Trump and his allies are "just trying to do an end-run around these various regulations, and it seems so transparent.""[Special counsel] Jack Smith ... had served some subpoenas in connection with that nonexistent, as it turns out, election defense fund," Greenberg said. "He served some subpoenas and then he withdrew them and it was unclear why, because that seemed like such a clear-cut fraud. I questioned why that happened. Perhaps it was optics. Perhaps he thought like he had such strong cases, the January 6 case and the national security case, that he didn't want to seem as though he was trying to drain Trump of the ability to legally defend against those cases. Hard to say. But I questioned it at that time because that seemed like such a clear wire fraud case that it seemed like it should be looked into, but maybe they just had limited resources and didn't like the optics of it.""But I agree with you, this raises a lot of questions," she added. "Someone, somewhere, even if not the special counsel's office, because they are pretty busy — some prosecutors should be looking into this."Watch the video below or at the link. Kristy Greenberg on the legality of Trump's PACs www.youtube.com
READ MORE
Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Millie Bobby Brown & Jake Bongiovi Celebrate “Three Years of Bliss” Ahead of Wedding
March 24, 2024
C4Ehegcq1-A
Kate Middleton & Prince William "Enormously Touched" by Public Support
March 24, 2024
s8fig-RCjFc
Gisele Bündchen Denies Cheating on Ex-Husband Tom Brady
March 23, 2024
_SpRMagA8BM
Eminem, 50 Cent & Snoop Dogg Present Dr. Dre with a Star on the Walk of Fame
March 19, 2024
4bNLs1hxVp8
Opening Remarks for the Variety Summit October 20th, 2023 Jay Penske
March 18, 2024
c6Z707iLq8E
'Everybody Was S----ing Their Pants': Nick Thune Jokes About Being Born in the '70s and Fatherhood
March 16, 2024
mm7Baf6o2d8
Gunna Says Tour Will Up Creativity in Rap, Endorses Flo Milli | TMZ
March 22, 2024
QfMU24fw-Qo
Reporter Taylor Lorenz Says Palace Botched Kate Cancer News Rollout | TMZ Live
March 22, 2024
o43ZucdiyEo
Riley Strain's Body Found After Going Missing in Nashville 2 Weeks Ago | TMZ NOW
March 22, 2024
1m1zM-4_Cs8
Kyle Richards hasn’t spoken to co-star Dorit Kemsley, denies sending her a ‘manipulative’ text
March 24, 2024
LqLZzDP1hm4
Jordan Emanuel on her connection to 'RHOSLC' star Meredith Marks, advice from Amanda Batula
March 24, 2024
5NPAwlOov1Y
Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary apologizes after slamming ‘fickle’ Meghan Markle in scathing interview
March 24, 2024
JWG9kitALZk
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SK Brann W - Barcelona W
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Hacken W - PSG W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SL Benfica W - Lyon W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Ajax W - Chelsea W
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Brighton - Manchester City
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
11
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Chelsea - Newcastle United
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Liverpool - Manchester City
10
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Real Madrid - Celta Vigo
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Aston Villa - Tottenham Hotspur
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Atalanta
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Fiorentina - Roma
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
AC Milan - Empoli
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.