General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHugh Hefner Dead At 91....
just announced on the 10 pm news here in Chicago.
RandySF
(57,661 posts)BannonsLiver
(16,162 posts)I think that's a great way to remember him.
dalton99a
(81,091 posts)He had fun
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,281 posts)But it seems like he's been around forever, unchanged.
Kaleva
(36,147 posts)RIP
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)I'm old enough to remember those, and getting a peek at somebody's Playboy magazine was a big thrill back in the 1950s.
Girard442
(6,059 posts)lastlib
(22,982 posts)(But Miss September 1977 was LUSCIOUS......! )
Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)I remember.
lastlib
(22,982 posts)underpants
(182,285 posts)and agree.
spanone
(135,637 posts)jcmaine72
(1,773 posts)Oh...and for wearing those tasteless smoking jackets he thought made him look debonair. He was an unabashed misogynist.
But far be it from me to prevent anyone from mourning the passing of this great humanist who elevated our culture to such stratospheric heights by publishing photos of women he obviously valued as equals and as complete human beings, rather than just a mindless collection of orifices and curvy parts.
TheMadHatter
(29 posts)Playboy wasn't Hustler. It was tasteful and high-brow. Cliche aside, it did have a lot of good writers working for it. The beautiful women were the main draw of course, but the rest of the pages weren't filler.
It's OK to admire attractive women (and men, if that's your thing).
moonscape
(4,664 posts)by about 20 years. It's not as if Playboy entered a Hustler environs and decided to be high-brow ... it's more that Hustler et al took what Playboy was doing and ramped up. For its time though, Playboy was plenty ramped.
TheMadHatter
(29 posts)It still doesn't change the fact that Playboy was tasteful and remained so throughout their run. Even in the 70s and 80s when Hustler and Penthouse were big they stayed true to their format and didn't go into the gutter. They showed naked women, yes, but no spread genitalia or anything else graphic. Additionally, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, Jimmy Carter, etc, were interviewed or featured in the articles that lent a refined air to the whole enterprise.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,706 posts)Hefner's legacy is complex. We can debate if he objectified women. However removing the suggestion that the naked body is obscene or that sex is for procreation only was a good thing.
DLevine
(1,788 posts)I think we can take him at his word.
I agree with you that there is nothing obscene about the naked body, but objectification of women is about more than that.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,706 posts)DLevine
(1,788 posts)Orrex
(63,086 posts)I'm not doubting you at all--I'm certain that he did say it.
But if he said it in 1959, the culture was a lot different at that time than in 2017.
Of course, he probably said it all the time, so...
DLevine
(1,788 posts)ETA: He said "The notion that Playboy turns women into sex objects is ridiculous. Women are sex objects."
Well, there you have it. Women are sex objects. Glad that's settled.
He could have really made a statement if he'd said "people are sex objects," but nope. A dinosaur from a (hopefully) fading era.
Thanks for the link.
DLevine
(1,788 posts)BannonsLiver
(16,162 posts)But I would guess many who would criticize Hefner would say many of the same things about Larry Flynt. They would look like fools in the process given that Flynt has been a dogged advocate for the first amendment and a thorn in the side of the religious right for decades. I've never been one to judge a book by its cover.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Or did.
I don't think he hated women at all.
bluepen
(620 posts)Response to bluepen (Reply #11)
Skittles This message was self-deleted by its author.
HipChick
(25,485 posts)Buns_of_Fire
(17,121 posts)Where Disney got enabling legislation passed in Florida that basically made Disney World a fiefdom almost unanswerable to government authorities. How they patiently bought up small plots of land, piece by piece, until they got their 27,000 acres. Fascinating.
I think there were some pictures of nekked wimmen in there too, but being pure of mind, soul, and body, I never looked at them.
PragmaticLiberal
(904 posts)Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)Pages and pages long, full of five-dollar words, with everyone from Don Rickles to Eldridge Cleaver and Fidel Castro, conducted by the likes of Alex Haley.
Great short fiction, too. I discovered JG Ballard and John Irving in those pages.
Yes, some of us really DID read it for the articles! Honest!
imanamerican63
(13,671 posts)Orrex
(63,086 posts)She'll be born any day now.
Whiskeytide
(4,459 posts)... some good qualities, some not so good. Not everyone's cup of brandy in a mountain chalet hot tub.
While I was in college in the 80's, my roommates and I found a box in a closet with more than 100 issues from the early to mid 60s. Reading the articles, interviews and humor about the war, civil rights, JFK's assassination, the space race and all the rest from that decade was incredibly cool and thought provoking. Like a time capsule. I probably learned more from that than my studies.
I might have looked at a pictorial or two as well.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)SharonClark
(10,005 posts)were serious. What claptrap. There is plenty of serious reading out there that doesn't degrade woman.
bluepen
(620 posts)And no, they werent stupid.
Orrex
(63,086 posts)Oh, wait...
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)Later on, as I met and interacted with more and more actual women and women-to-be, I realized how narrow Playboy's view of women really was and dropped it from my list of magazines to pore through.
Ilsa
(61,676 posts)WhiskeyGrinder
(22,153 posts)Why anyone would be either sad or grateful to him is beyond me.
SharonClark
(10,005 posts)of women. Such progressives, don't you know.....
BannonsLiver
(16,162 posts)RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)....to help find the bodies of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964.
But yeah....it's beyond you. So carry on.....
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,153 posts)Thank you SO MUCH.
RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)Have a nice day. You need it.