I don’t think any of the four (Hef and the girls) are pathetic. They’re all getting what they want out of what they’re doing; especially Kendra, who would be a poor assed white trash uneducated girl, otherwise (now she’s a rich assed…) They’ve all got a splendid place to stay, awesome clothes, rides and food and they’ve all gotten to pursue their careers in ways that they NEVER couldv’e without the backing of Hef. Holly: producing photo shoots/layouts/issues, Bridgette: radio show, audition tapes, Kendra: uh, shaking her ass and meeting her favorite athletes and rappers (eh, she’s too young to commit to a career, anyway.) Plus, they did that workout video and they had all always wanted to be in the mag and they got to. None of them would be doing what they’re doing (much less so publicly) if they weren’t getting anything out of it.
And according to this news story Holly has moved out of the mansion. Bridget is still married to her husband since 1997 and Kendra is dating Hank Baskett of the Philly Eagles.
When Hef was young he was a parody of the swinging guy. Now he’s a parody of that parody. His “girlfriends” don’t make him look virile, they make him a laughingstock. It would be hard for me to imagine a greater monument to bad taste than him.
Sounds like Holly and Hef have parted ways, and she’s still living in the house. He’s looking for new girls…still kind of weird, creepy. Around 7 girls…sounds like Tila Tequila!
"he knew the a split was imminent after he told Madison that they would never wed or have kids’’ :eek:
Ok, I’m going with pathetic now, but I didn’t used to think so.
[QUOTE=Alan Smithee Old people are creepy and disgusting!
I’m old matey and far from disgusting or creepy:mad:
Care to elaborate on your rather stupid statement?[/QUOTE]
To be honest, I didn’t read it as Alan Smithee saying that. I read it as him/ her saying it could be a way people think about older folk. And ihe/ she wasn’t supportive of the idea.
(Bolding mine.) I’ve got to admire that bit, though – the short fiction, precisely because there are very few paying outlets for it these days. During the '60s and '70s, Playboy was known as the highest-paying market for short fiction, attracted top writers, and published a lot of great science fiction.
A couple of years ago I got a one-year subscription, almost out of pity, because they kept begging me. It was something like ten bucks for a year (which tells me they’re making their money from advertisements, since my subscription could hardly have even paid for the printing). I let it lapse, have ignored their pleas to renew, yet the magazine keeps coming to my house.
The interviews these days seem to be mostly with people I’m not interested in; the political stuff I mainly agree with, but it’s telling me what I already know; the fiction isn’t what it once was (or perhaps I’m just remembering the highlights from many years ago).
As for the pictorials – three problems for me.
Frankly, I’ve seen so many naked bodies on the Internet in the past decade that the titillation is simply gone.
The models tend to be young enough to be my children. (I realize, for some 47-year-old men, that would be a selling point.)
The current style of photography and choice of models really doesn’t appeal to me. The latest issue (which includes one of the pictorials of “Top Ten” college girls), seems to come from a world in which every woman is completely hairless from the neck down (and are photographed and retouched in a way that makes them look artificially perfect). I miss the more realistic photography, and models that look like actual women, that I grew up with in the '70s. (Does the name Patti McGuire ring a bell to anyone?)
As for Hef – it’s the fate of most innovators to be left behind, as what was once revolutionary becomes quaint. Surrounding yourself with beautiful women in a fancy mansion sounds great, but anything can get old. (And one problem with the Playboy Channel was that many of the models are, frankly, not that bright. When they open their mouths and chatter inanely, it kind of ruins the appeal, which is based on fantasy.)
Okay, put yourself in Hefner’s place – having established the magazine in 1954, based on a sort of fantasy sophisticated bachelor lifestyle, where would you have gone from there?
I think it’s interesting that Holly moved out. Kind of sad really - she’s spent the better part of a decade transforming herself into Hef’s ideal woman, and for what? From the outside it was obvious that Hef was never going to marry and have babies with her. I wonder if he was giving her false hope for the sake of the show, or if she knew all along and stayed for the fame and lifestyle. Maybe she really was that delusional.
I don’t feel bad about her at all. If she really thought it was a good, plausible, workable plan to marry and have children with an 84 year old man, she’s the stupidest person who ever lived. If nothing else, is it not fairly thoughtless, even cruel, to contemplate bearing children whose father, as soon as they get to know him, will die?
But I don’t think she is, in fact, the stupidest person on Earth (though likely closer to that end of the scale than the other). I think (to quote GW Plunkitt) she seen her opportunities and she took 'em.
Look, what is her skill set? Nil to none. She’s not even very attractive. Yet she is now notorious/famous (same things these days) for no good reason, which is like Kruggerrands for an attention whore. She will continue to make money for nothing as a D list celeb for the foreseeable future. As for her family/children opportunities, assuming that’s important to her? She’s 28. Plenty of time.
Hefner asserting that he’s going to go back to seven “girlfriends” confirms my OP. Is he that desperate for attention, that insecure, that bent on proving his own (non-existent) virility? “If I have one ‘girlfriend’ I’m virile, so seven girlfriends makes me seven times more virile!” Yes "Hef. " Yes, that’s how the math works, you dope. Almost reminds me of Magic Johnson’s press conference after his HIV announcement when he proclaimed (to the awkwardness of his progressive supporters) that contrary to what people were whispering he was “very much a man!” I wasn’t the only one who thought, gee, if you have to make a point of insisting on it, maybe those rumors about you and Eddie and Arsenio aren’t as crazy as they sounded . . . .
Okay, indulge my first taking advantage of the relaxed zombie rule (and yes, thie remains as pointless as it was before), but:
Presumably if he’s going to the trouble to post this stuff, he expects someone to believe it (and, he believes it’s important that they do so), and both notions remain as pathetic as ever (more pathetic with every passing day and the inevitable future humiliating disclosures by Playmates willing to violate their non-disclosure agreements for attention, money, indiscretion, whatever).
Nobody’s doing a reality show about the personal life of Arthur Sulzberger Sr. or any other denizen of a dying old-media publishing empire – 'cause it’d be irrelevant, disgusting, and pointless. How does this odious old fool rate any different treatment, and what’s wrong with our culture for indulging in this train wreck, especially with something as naff and dated as the Playboy brand?
Interesting that her after-the-fact apology didn’t repudiate what she said. Apparently she’s sorry she spoke the truth.
But I give Hef a break because IMO we owe him a tremendous debt. He was among the first American pop cultural figures to celebrate sex, to endorse it outside of the religious confines of marriage and procreation. We are all the better for it.
I don’t think he’s pathetic at all, as others have noted. He created a magazine that has been phenomenally successful and argued usefully for a great many freedoms – including Freedom of the Press and self-expression. You can call him sexist, but he’s as much a product of his times as anyone, and his vision of sexual freedom included that freedom for women, as well.
The thing that amazes me about him is that, when you step back and look at him, Hef was a Nerd, but nobody thinks of him as one.
– He loved science fiction (it’s no accident that his magazine has featured lots of work by noted science fiction writers like Asimov, Clarke, and Bradbury, and has paid top dollar for them – more than the pulps. And Langelaan’s The Fly was first published in Playboy).
– He loved comics, not only featuring plenty of top-notch cartoonists (some of whom he stole from Mad), but in the 1980s running “Pklayboy Funnies”, some elements of which still appear in the magazine.
–He loved James Bond, publishing some of Fleming’s stuff for the first time, and associating his magazine strongly with the Bond movies, featuring pictorials and features on them (and getting featured in the films as well – Bond carries a Playboy Club membership card in Diamonds are Forever). They ran some of Benson’s later Bond stories in Playboy as well.
– His whole magazine was essentially a Guide on How Not to Be a Nerd, including articles on how to dress properly, while restaurants to go yo, which beverages to drink, which music to listen to, and so on.
Well, according to all of the articles linked - the “girls” do have sex with him - for about a minute to two minutes each, on Wed or Fri nights, after he has some viagra, with no condom.
The only thing I find pathetic about Hef is his choice of clothing. The smoking jacket/pajamas-n-slippers-in-velour thing is soooooo played.
The girlfriend-a-day thing I never believed. Not that he cares one way or the other. Hef believes in the “any publicity is good publicity” philosophy.
I was just thinking about the last time I actually saw a Playboy… and I remembered! It was the issue with Elle McPherson on the cover and in a photo layout. She’s a beautiful woman, and they sandblasted her so much in those pictures, I hardly recognized her. (For you Seinfeld fans, it’s the same issue George has in his desk in his office at Yankee Stadium when the bomb squad opened his desk drawers looking for a bomb).
Which takes me back to my thought about Hef. I think he knows that once he dies, the bunny dies. Playboy’s target audience seems to have aged with the magazine. I don’t think 18-25 year olds buy playboy for wank material, simply because what they’ve grown up with on the internet is far too explicit for anyone to get real excited about it. They will buy a Hustler, or a Club, or whatever is out there now that can capture the attention of the average 18-25 year old.
The magazine won’t change when he dies. It will die. It will instantly become irrelevant.
Good point made by CalMeacham - Playboy in its heyday included a lot of material on how to pass for a Hep Cat while being (or thinking you were) actually a longhair.
Huerta88, I disagree with the thread title proposition. I can understand why NOW he may be seen by many as pathetic for various reasons described in other posts and links, but IMO that was not “always so”, there was a time when his persona and style WERE within the realm of the hip. The world changed.
Part of what grates today is his apparent eager (as opposed to clearly ironic or self-parodying) insistence in living out the role of the “Playboy Hef” character. I believe if he were to, so to speak, “add more smilies” to let us know he’s aware this is ridiculous and he’s just playing, it would not cause such discomfort.