September 28, 2017

"There are many pornographers, but what, within the realm of pornography, earns you a substantial obituary in The New York Times?"

"Some day we'll see how they treat Hugh Hefner, who made pornography clean, commercial and classy, but today we read about the death of Al Goldstein: '... The manifesto in Screw’s debut issue in 1968 was... 'We promise never to ink out a pubic hair or chalk out an organ...'... Apart from Screw, Mr. Goldstein’s most notorious creation was Al Goldstein himself, a cartoonishly vituperative amalgam of borscht belt comic, free-range social critic and sex-obsessed loser.... ' In later years, it became impossible to get famous for being a loud sleazy guy with a magazine, and the idea of anyone 'inking' out pubic hair seems mostly puzzling...."

So I wrote back in 2013, and now the day has come when I can read the substantial obituary for Hugh Hefner in the NYT. I've already written 2 posts, the first 2 of the day, on the death of the gargantuan cultural icon Hugh Hefner. Let me then, at long last, get to the NYT obituary:
Hefner the man and Playboy the brand were inseparable. Both advertised themselves as emblems of the sexual revolution, an escape from American priggishness and wider social intolerance. Both were derided over the years — as vulgar, as adolescent, as exploitative, and finally as anachronistic. But Mr. Hefner was a stunning success from his emergence in the early 1950s. His timing was perfect.

He was compared to Jay Gatsby, Citizen Kane and Walt Disney, but Mr. Hefner was his own production. He repeatedly likened his life to a romantic movie; it starred an ageless sophisticate in silk pajamas and smoking jacket, hosting a never-ending party for famous and fascinating people.

The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953, when Mr. Hefner was 27 years old, a new father married to, by his account, the first woman he had slept with.

He had only recently moved out of his parents’ house and left his job at Children’s Activities magazine. But in an editorial in Playboy’s inaugural issue, the young publisher purveyed another life:

“We enjoy mixing up cocktails and an hors d’oeuvre or two, putting a little mood music on the phonograph and inviting in a female acquaintance for a quiet discussion on Picasso, Nietzsche, jazz, sex.”
A boy's fantasy of adulthood and sophistication.
Mr. Hefner began excoriating American puritanism at a time when doctors refused contraceptives to single women and the Hollywood production code dictated separate beds for married couples. As the cartoonist Jules Feiffer, an early Playboy contributor, saw the 1950s, “People wore tight little gray flannel suits and went to their tight little jobs. You couldn’t talk politically.... You couldn’t use obscenities. What Playboy represented was the beginning of a break from all that.”...

In “The Playboy Philosophy,” a mix of libertarian and libertine arguments that Mr. Hefner wrote in 25 installments starting in 1962, his message was simple: Society was to blame. His causes — abortion rights, decriminalization of marijuana and, most important, the repeal of 19th-century sex laws — were daring at the time. Ten years later, they would be unexceptional.

“Hefner won,” Mr. Gitlin said in a 2015 interview. “The prevailing values in the country now, for all the conservative backlash, are essentially libertarian, and that basically was what the Playboy Philosophy was. It’s laissez-faire. It’s anti-censorship. It’s consumerist: Let the buyer rule. It’s hedonistic. In the longer run, Hugh Hefner’s significance is as a salesman of the libertarian ideal.”
Born in 1926, he was raised "with a lot of repression" by Methodists, but he found his way through drawing comics, first as a child, in high school (where he "'I reinvented myself' as the suave, breezy 'Hef,"  and in college as the editor of the humor magazine. He came up with Playboy as "a vehicle for his slightly randy cartoons."

What did his cartoons like like? I found this (click to enlarge and read ("This is me, dreaming about women in general!"))

More here.

The NYT devotes the mid-section of the obituary to the feminist challenge. Gloria Steinem did undercover research as a "bunny" in the Playboy Club in 1963 and discovered that it's hard work, the outfits are uncomfortable, and the customers are (as the Times puts it) "vulgar."
Another feminist critic, Susan Brownmiller, debating Mr. Hefner on a television talk show, asserted, “The role that you have selected for women is degrading to women because you choose to see women as sex objects, not as full human beings.” She continued: “The day you’re willing to come out here with a cottontail attached to your rear end. …”

Mr. Hefner responded in 1970 by ordering an article on the activists then called “women’s libbers.” In an internal memo, he wrote: “These chicks are our natural enemy. What I want is a devastating piece that takes the militant feminists apart. They are unalterably opposed to the romantic boy-girl society that Playboy promotes.”

The commissioned article, by Morton Hunt, ran with the headline “Up Against the Wall, Male Chauvinist Pig.” (The same issue contained an interview with William F. Buckley Jr., fiction by Isaac Bashevis Singer and an article by a prominent critic of the Vietnam War, Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana.)

Mr. Hefner said later that he was perplexed by feminists’ apparent rejection of the message he had set forth in the Playboy Philosophy. “We are in the process of acquiring a new moral maturity and honesty,” he wrote in one installment, “in which man’s body, mind and soul are in harmony rather than in conflict.” Of Americans’ fright of anything “unsuitable for children,” he said, “Instead of raising children in an adult world, with adult tastes, interests and opinions prevailing, we prefer to live much of our lives in a make-believe children’s world.”
The 3 quoted sentences from that internal memo are fascinating. The first 2 talk tough, calling for a hard fight, but the third one makes an argument that belongs in a sweet, soft fight: The feminists want to say that we're alienating men and women — with domineering men and oppressed, insignificant women — but we're the ones who are for "the romantic boy-girl society." What do women want? A lot of us love the ideal of a romantic boy-girl society. It's interesting that Hef wrote "boy-girl" and yet later publicly talked about the "adult world" and rising above the "make-believe children’s world."

Marilyn Monroe appears twice in the obit, first as the nude model in the first issue of Playboy and second as the long dead body in a mausoleum next to which the newly dead body of Hugh Hefner will lie.

49 comments:

MAJMike said...

Articles!?! There were articles!?!

Wince said...

The women in that cartoon all appear very uptight.

Ralph L said...

This blog is overhetted today.

Sebastian said...

“The prevailing values in the country now, for all the conservative backlash, are essentially libertarian," If we measure Hef's influence simply by the spread of pornography, perhaps. But Gitlin exaggerates: whatever destroys the prior bourgeois consensus, goes; anything else must be strictly controlled. Sexual expression favored by progs, goes; other kinds are liable to be used politically.

Of course, sexual liberation and oppression can go hand in hand: didn't the NYT just tell us that women had better sex under communism?

Laslo Spatula said...

Hefner's life followed the arc of a French revolutionary, except for the being guillotined part.

I am Laslo.

MikeR said...

"As Tom Cruise gets older, his on-screen love interests stay the same age"
http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-cruise-much-older-than-love-interests-2017-9
It's a fact of biology, but one that I can well understand that feminists resent. And that Hugh Hefner refused to acknowledge that.

William said...

I've got a vague sense that much of what went on in the Playboy Mansion was borderline sordid. Rich, important men met with attractive, unimportant women to see who could get the most out of a transient symbiosis. The men were shrewder and a generation older, so they probably came out ahead, but perhaps some of the women won a few rounds. Kind of sleazy, but there was an overhang of hedonism and fantasy to make the transactions seem liberating and allowed the participants to make their bargains with minimal fuss and bother to their consciences.

William said...

Hefner certainly led an enviable life. Goldstein not so much.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

If Americans were as close-minded as Hefner said they were, he probably wouldn't have been as successful as he was. The American D.H. Lawrence, more successful in his life than Lawrence, probably partly because his timing and marketing were both better. (Lawrence's sexual orientation was probably a problem for him.) Offering a short-cut to European sophistication; who doesn't want that? An episode of Cheers: Diane dreams of a sophisticated Sam. The next day to Sam: do you by any chance own a smoking jacket? Sam: Hey, I'm smokin' in any jacket. Nietzsche? Three or four lines are often quoted in movies, and then what? I think for creative people Nietzsche recommended "semen in the blood," i.e. sexual abstinence. Rome made it possible for some (rich) people to live as libertines and (to some extent) libertarians, but Rome wasn't built by such people.

Anonymous said...

Hefner always gave off creepy old mummy vibes to me, long before he aged into a creepy old mummy. He's a pretty good exemplar of the '60s cultural flatus being memorialized in obituaries nowadays - people who seemed to pass from adolescence to decrepitude through a weird twilit teenager-hood, by-passing the golden prime.

Robert Cook said...

Speaking of pornographers, I know several people who worked for Al Goldstein at SCREW Magazine, either as editorial staffers and writers or as free-lance illustrators. I visited SCREW's 14th Street offices on a few occasions. It seemed like it would have been quite a fun place to work...a bunch of spirited young people. They made daiquiris for everyone in a blender one day when I was there.

Goldstein, from all accounts, was mercurial and could be challenging to work for. However, he worked on a different floor from the offices I was familiar with, so I never saw him, (and the staff said he didn't appear in their offices very often). Usually, if they had to see him for any particular matter, they would go to his office suite several floors away.

MikeR said...

"Hefner certainly led an enviable life." He certainly succeeded in amassing a lot of pleasure. So I might envy that, just as I might envy someone who ordered the fried chicken when I'm munching on my low-calorie salad.
But twice divorced, broken engagement with his third wife who was sixty years his junior? Overall that's a mess of a life, and no rational person would envy it. I'm satisfied with my wife that I've been married to for my whole adult life. Not always as much pleasure but a lot more satisfaction.
In terms of his professional life, well, yeah. He was an important driver of the shift of Western Civilization to hedonism. If you're a hedonist, that's quite an accomplishment, greatly to be envied. If you're not, that's the same kind of accomplishment as Hitler conquering France.

Freeman Hunt said...

Hef's conception has never struck me as romantic. I've always conceived of the Playboy Mansion as a teenage boy version of Never Never Land. "There are pretty girls everywhere wearing hardly any clothes. With little effort, they'll talk to you, and some of them will even have sex with you!" Always seemed a little strange that adult men would allow themselves to be photographed at the place. Seems similar to allowing oneself to be photographed drunk.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

“Instead of raising children in an adult world, with adult tastes, interests and opinions prevailing, we prefer to live much of our lives in a make-believe children’s world.”

Heh. He had no idea. See Adam Carolla on the nummification of everything. Mr. Pants' office hosts weekly Fun Fridays events~you'd think highly paid professionals would have, I dunno, work to do, but they evidently have time for big-wheel races down the halls. Not making that up.

Birkel said...

Found the logical stopping point with all those statues, yet, Freeman Hunt?

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Always seemed a little strange that adult men would allow themselves to be photographed at the place. Seems similar to allowing oneself to be photographed drunk.

Agree with this, and would add my own observation that the whole Playboy Mansion shtick seems anything but sophisticated, and in fact infantile and corny. I mean, doesn't a real adult man act like he's seen a set of hooters before?

Gahrie said...

I've never understood strip clubs, (I can be sexually frustrated for free) but the Playboy mansion was different..no need to be frustrated.

I've always seen Playboy as an attempt to take the hippie ethos and merge it with high society.

Robert Cook said...

"I've always conceived of the Playboy Mansion as a teenage boy version of Never Never Land."

Yes! And a square's version of Bohemia.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't Playboy all about teenage male Onanism ?

rcocean said...

Hefner was a life-long adolescent, putting out a porn magazine, screwing his Play-mates, and lounging around in his pajamas.

Meanwhile, the real men were out there raising families, defending the country, and inventing stuff to make life better for everyone.

And I think the sexual revolution would've occurred regardless, I don't think a silly magazine with "dirty pictures" had much to do with it.

rcocean said...

Hefner was however a "Good face" for pornography. Some of the other Porno kings like Goldstein and larry flynt made your skin crawl they were so skeevy.

Earnest Prole said...

American freedom versus American puritanism, a story almost four hundred years old.

mccullough said...

So Hefner had a repressed Methodist childhood and his mom gave him $1,000 to start a tits and ass magazine? I'm not buying this origin story

Ann Althouse said...

"I've always conceived of the Playboy Mansion as a teenage boy version of Never Never Land."

"Yes! And a square's version of Bohemia."

I agree with both statements.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

I've never been a fan since the day when, after one date while attending UCLA, Barbi Benton dumped me for Hef.

Ann Althouse said...

But I don't think it's that bad to go through adult life with a romantic longing for childhood and Bohemia.

As long as you don't hurt anyone and you pay your own way and don't steal, why isn't it fine to seek beauty and pleasure — and to find it in the physical reality of another human being?

The main argument against him seems to be that he didn't love women deeply enough, but let those who want to make that argument take care that they have loved deeply enough.

The other argument against him is that he was too indoorsy, that his sexuality lacked masculine vigor. He was lolling around in pajamas and his women were brought to him by his nerdy scribblings.

Also, did any of those Playboy people really seriously give a fuck about jazz?

mccullough said...

Howard Hughes was a more interesting shut in than Hefner. And that skipper's cap he wore evoked the Captain and Tenille.

buwaya said...

Its got a lot to do with the unconscious Bohemian obsession with the aristocratic liberties. Because, really, thats what they were and are, aristocrats manque.
Hefner wanted to be at the top of that fake aristocracy, a monarch of his kind.
Hefner figured out how to live, in part, like Louis XV or Augustus the Strong or an Ottoman Sultan, without being an actual monarch and without a monarchs worries.

Gahrie said...

Also, did any of those Playboy people really seriously give a fuck about jazz?

Well Hef held his first Jazz festival in 1959, and it has been an annual event since 1979.

It's now being run by the L.A. Philharmonic Association.

So I'd say that's a yes.

Gahrie said...

his sexuality lacked masculine vigor

I thought you feminists see that as a good thing.

Earnest Prole said...

Also, did any of those Playboy people really seriously give a fuck about jazz?

To answer that question, check out Hugh Hefner’s Playboys' Penthouse from 1959, which can be viewed in eight parts on YouTube. It features several great jazz performers including Ella Fitzgerald. Don’t miss Lenny Bruce as well.

tcrosse said...

Did any of those Playboy people seriously give a fuck about Leroy Neiman paintings ?

Anonymous said...

The main argument against him seems to be that he didn't love women deeply enough, but let those who want to make that argument take care that they have loved deeply enough.

Lol. No, I think the main argument against him was that he was a pornographer.

This po-faced attitude toward pornography is such a Boomer thing. It's just porn, for cryin' out loud. In Hefner's case, a particular schmaltzy genre of porn. You enjoy it, or you condemn it, or maybe you do a bit of both, but it takes a special kind of soixante-huitardation to treat the arrested-development drivel that was the "playboy philosophy" seriously.

Mountain Maven said...

Hefner had a profoundly destructive impact on the culture morals and values of America. And the world.

Oclarki said...

Of course there's really no need to ink out any pubic hair at all anymore. Does it even exist?

Darrell said...

Name another business where female employees are made sexually available to management who are legally protected because of the Lefty status and contributions of the owner, by a wide array of Lefty judges and lawyers.

readering said...

Jazz was big in the fifties and sixties. No so much since.

Earnest Prole said...

Name another business where female employees are made sexually available to management

Fox News? I guess Rupert Murdoch must have failed to make enough contributions to Lefty judges and lawyers.

walter said...

"He repeatedly likened his life to a romantic movie; it starred an ageless sophisticate in silk pajamas and smoking jacket"
The original "pajama boy"?

Ann Althouse said...Also, did any of those Playboy people really seriously give a fuck about jazz?
--
Especially the "female acquaintance" in the bunny suit. Fun to imagine that discussion.

Despite the selectivity and manipulations, the imagery of Playboy served as a fairly benevolent 1st exposure to the full female form for many a boy.

Bilwick said...

People who see PLAYBOY as pornography mustn't ever have seen real pornography.

rcocean said...

"The main argument against him seems to be that he didn't love women deeply enough, but let those who want to make that argument take care that they have loved deeply enough."

My impression is that the Playboy Mansion was pretty much of whore house, where the Naive Whores got paid with empty promises of stardom in Hollywood or marriage to wealthy Hef.

You can talk all you want about the "Playboy philosophy" - but take out the naked pictures and no one would've bought it.

I will give Playboy, one thing, they often had good interviews of celebrities and others. Of course, even those were somewhat fake, since the writers would usually "Edit" the responses to make them concise and interesting. The Brando interview was based on almost 2 days of talk and "edited" with Brando's approval.

Freeman Hunt said...

"Found the logical stopping point with all those statues, yet, Freeman Hunt?"

It was found from the very beginning. Can't help it if others pretend it isn't there.

John Nowak said...

In Hefner's defense, he did an amazing interview about comics.

Believe it or not, it's in the outtakes of Mark Hamill's mock documentary the Comic Book Movie. He talked about Cole and his own introduction to Comic books and it was actually fascinating. You can see Hamill dropping character and getting annoyed with a co actor who tried to stay in it.

Mrs. Bear said...

I was the right age in 1973 for seeing Playboy as a sort of rite of passage. I think that Mr. Hefner's effect on the culture was not entirely bad, but not entirely wholesome either. He was probably as relatively benign as a skin merchant could be. Also, I definitely find him less destructive than Gloria Steinem. Had I ever met him, I would probably have rather talked comics with him than sex. (Actually, he and Stan Lee remind a bit of each other.)

Sebastian said...

"soixante-huitardation" ISWYDT, and I like it.

Danno said...

I'm surprised the post wasn't tagged "young Althouse", as I have read that Playboy was a staple on the coffee table as she was growing up.

Bix Cvvv said...

The true evil that Hefner did was approaching young women and encouraging them to strip for, basically, the whole world - he was a charismatic guy, albeit intellectually limited guy - and he was good at that - without caring how much emotional pain he inflicted on the parents of the young women. Most of the time, there was no emotional pain, but sometimes, there was a lot. Everyone, even Ann with her middle of the road Dad, knows that. Pornography is what it is, but I for one have much more respect for the pornographers, disgusting and unloveable as they are, who stick to getting strippers to do sexual things for the camera, than I do for evil men like Hefner who caused so much pain to those who loved some of the more innocent young women he basically seduced and used, for his business. Imagine how the Dad or Mom, grandchildren of people born in the 1820s through the 1890s, felt when they heard - they never looked - when they heard of their beautiful daughters' naked bodies being used to make Hefner richer. I am all for people understanding the beauty of the human form, but Hefner was not a kind person, much of the time --- Well I pray for his soul - when someone dies at 91 you can be sure they have experienced a lot of physical pain, and that is sad; how nice it would be if we could repent without having to suffer, all the time - well, leaving aside the question of the morality of pornography, I hope he repented for the harm he did to individual human beings. Probably not - like a skinnier Michael Moore, he seemed to be a charismatic buffoon filling a role, rather than a person who wanted to be a real person, and "filling a role" is the royal highway to wasting your life - but "probably not" is different than "definitely not", and God forgives much.

EMyrt said...

NYT "The first issue of Playboy was published in 1953, when Mr. Hefner was 27 years old, a new father married to, by his account, the first woman he had slept with."

"slept with"? was the obit written in 1953?
Or is that euphemism still in the NYT style sheet?

EMyrt said...

As for Nietzsche, back in the 80s, I would follow an insightful conversation about Also Sprach Zarathustra with a semi-naked interpretive dance to the Midnight Dance of Science waltz section from the eponymous Richard Strauss tone poem.

Take that, Hef.