Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
One of the cultural legends of the boomer era is gone. Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy, passed away at 91.
Hugh Hefner, Who Built Playboy Empire and Embodied It, Dies at 91
On the one hand, his frankness about sex and relatively liberal leaning (Playboy editorially supported women's rights, racial equality, LGBT rights) certainly played a part in the liberalization of North American culture. And the articles and fiction, jokes about reading it for them notwithstanding, were often top notch writing from A-list writers.
OTOH, while doing so, Hef espoused a lifestyle that was very much oriented to straight, white, affluent males (it's no coincidence that a few James Bond short stories debuted in its pages), so it undercut itself badly at times on some of those very issues, at least in the eyes of those advocating for those issues (e.g. feminists).
Was Playboy a plus or minus in the end? Probably that will be debated a lot in the coming days and weeks.
Was Hefner and Playboy an influence on our culture? Definitely, though that influence waned in the Internet age as Playboy never quite seemed to find its feet online. While boomers and Gen X'ers probably remember Hef well (not always fondly, but well), I wonder if millennials know much more than the image of an old guy in a fancy dressing gown and the rabbit logo. Like many guys my age, I first saw naked women in the pages of his magazine (while reading it for the articles and stories, of course)and its competitors. I imagine that millennials are more likely to have that experience online.
Bye, Hef. Hope you can liven up that afterlife party.
Hugh Hefner, Who Built Playboy Empire and Embodied It, Dies at 91
On the one hand, his frankness about sex and relatively liberal leaning (Playboy editorially supported women's rights, racial equality, LGBT rights) certainly played a part in the liberalization of North American culture. And the articles and fiction, jokes about reading it for them notwithstanding, were often top notch writing from A-list writers.
OTOH, while doing so, Hef espoused a lifestyle that was very much oriented to straight, white, affluent males (it's no coincidence that a few James Bond short stories debuted in its pages), so it undercut itself badly at times on some of those very issues, at least in the eyes of those advocating for those issues (e.g. feminists).
Was Playboy a plus or minus in the end? Probably that will be debated a lot in the coming days and weeks.
Was Hefner and Playboy an influence on our culture? Definitely, though that influence waned in the Internet age as Playboy never quite seemed to find its feet online. While boomers and Gen X'ers probably remember Hef well (not always fondly, but well), I wonder if millennials know much more than the image of an old guy in a fancy dressing gown and the rabbit logo. Like many guys my age, I first saw naked women in the pages of his magazine (while reading it for the articles and stories, of course)and its competitors. I imagine that millennials are more likely to have that experience online.
Bye, Hef. Hope you can liven up that afterlife party.
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