Just read that Shannen Doherty is on the cover of this month’s US edition Playboy magazine… and that she doesn’t much show anything but tops ! Come on !
I have noticed that the US edition rarely put celebrities and when they do its pretty boring. Speaking of which… the playmates all seem artificial… I know there is alot of digital photo editing… but the US edition goes pretty far sometimes. The way skin shines and looks is absurdly false. To be fair our playboy here is doing the same thing… looks very wierd sometimes… they have kept it more limited due to criticism.
Well I want to nickpick on the celebrity issue. Brazilian Playboy puts on celebrities practically in every edition... showing up on the magazine means a lot of media attention and is considered a career booster. Married actresses have shown up quite frequently and we even had the original "Garota de Ipanema" posing with her daughter too.
How is the Playboy in other countries as local celebrities go ? Am I wrong in calling the US Playboy boring ? Why the lack of celebrities ? (There must be a lot of actresses needing renewed attention) Or like me do you read it only for the articles ?
I’m not a big fan of how Playboy (and Maxim and FHM for that matter) use so much airbrushing or Photoshoping on their pictorials. The girls all end up looking like plastic Barbie dolls, which I find kinda creepy. IIRC, Penthouse has a little more “natural” look (as natural as a naked chick riding a horse or tearing off her business suit to reveal sexy lingerie is, I guess).
and the way they airbrush, that now includes the models themselves!!!
exactly, that is why i no longer get it. Hef needs to get over his blonde thing. Boooooring.
yes, i have bought issues solely for an interview (the first one being Jesse Ventura’s interview).
The problem is now the swing seems to be towards Maxin and Stuff and the ilk, which show even less, and are full of articles i could care less about. Porn as a print media is dying. The internet will cure all.
I never liked the women in PB. I think the pictures in Rolling Stones are usually sexier. I always thought they should stop the skin shots, and reduce the price. They have had some great short stories and science fiction.
Playboy stopped being interesting when they eliminated the wide-open beaver. Americans are certified prudes, but in some ways the Brazilians are worse.
There are numerous nude beaches throughout the USSA, and here in Austin, Texas we even have a government-run nude beach, but all of Brazil has only about a dozen; the modern naturist movement there was started by Celso Rossi around 1988. See www.naturis.com.br for info & links.
Brazilian males are still suffering from severe machismo that expresses itself in numerous ways. One of them is that they won’t take off their clothes (a requirement there to enter a nude beach!). They would much rather stand at the gate and stare all day long!
I never liked the women in PB. I think the pictures in Rolling Stones are usually sexier. I always thought they should stop the skin shots, and reduce the price. They have had some great short stories and science fiction.
As much as its a joke to say “I only read it for the articles” thats really the only reason I’d even consider it reading it. The women are boring, plastic and samey.
I had a brief moment of envy when hearing that Hugh Hefner at 77 has a harem of seven young women in their 20s. I say brief because it turned to pity on seeing him in a picture with all seven of them. Cant find pic with all seven now but did find this one with him plus five of them:
In fact nude/nudism beaches are still illegal… most of them being either agreements with local authorities or just plain defiance of the law… so in that sense we’re conservative. Topless was never normal here. NOW where Playboy is involved we are way ahead
I don’t think Playboy in America ever had wide open shots. I don’t even think they showed pubic hair until the 70’s and magazines like Hustler and Penthouse started to seriously compete with them.
Most of the celebrities who pose in Playboy are either experiencing a career slump, getting a little long in the tooth, or were never really big stars to begin with. Do really big stars in Brazil pose for Playboy? Also, just because a celebrity chooses to pose for Playboy doesn’t mean they’re planning on showing the whole kit’n kaboodle.
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During the 50’s and through the 60’s most of the women in Playboy looked like the girl next door. Well, maybe not my next door neighbor but they actually looked like women you could meet on the streets. I don’t know exactly when all this changed but I imagine it started when plastic surgery became so cheap and reliable.
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I don’t believe it is really a career booster. Shannon Doherty has actually appeared in Playboy before and it didn’t seem to do much for her. As I said earlier we don’t get celebrities in their prime to pose for Playboy. Farah Fawcett didn’t pose until she was well past the height of her popularity, Latoya Jackson was never really all that big a star, and the same goes for those chicks from Survivor.
Marc
PS: I’m sure this will be moved to the Cafe at any time.
I’ve heard the theory that the downfall of the “Girl Next Door” Playmate was when Hef moved permanently from Chicago to LA. Because then the GNDs became all part of LA’s army of aspiring starlets.
However, Hef does have an, um, unsettling penchant for identical-looking multiples. The Dahm Triplets probably were as close as this planet could provide to his ideal woman.
The sad part of it is that in, for instance, the various “The Girls Of _____” features, where you’d expect some variety, they ALSO aim for a particular pattern (as in: if we relied on Playboy, we’d cponclude there is not ONE 20-something woman in America WITHOUT a navel piercing).
Anyway, the trend among celebs is to appear in Maxim/FHM or some other such “lad mag” where th eeditorial content is lightweight (i.e. no chance of being across the page from an exposé on Haliburton) and the pictorial can be just simi-nude. Because, American “major” or “serious” actresses/singers do NOT want to do “full” nudity. It’s considered “bad” for their careers, or a symptom of being in desperate straits.
(And PB is having some sort of schizoid thing going, unsure as to whether it’s mature or adolescent when it comes to the sex content. They do retain the Advisor and some great articles, but at the same time they HAVE been copying the “lad mags” on some things like layouts and lifestyle “Sex on Campus” features. Plus they now have the “Playmates on Sex” page, where former centerfolds write about their blowjob techniques or things like that.)
I, unfortunately, still have a subscription, bought one a couple of years ago and got one as a gift, so it’s still running out. I can’t wait for that to happen fast enough. I used to especially enjoy the college issues, but even those seem to have gone down hill the last 2 or 3 years.
And, yes I did read it for the articles. Or used to. Where they used to have interviews with interesting people (Mohammad Ali, Jesse Ventura, the Chechnyan (sp) leader whose name eludes me at the moment, etc.), now we get a vapid parade of Will Smith’s and Mike Piazza’s.
Oh, and I’ve noticed that they have recently switched to a very low grade paper, without (obviously) lowering the price.
