Do you have hot takes coming for #RIPHEFNER, or would that be too much of a rehash of something for everyone?
His remaining plotlines fizzled in the ‘90s with the abandonment of “obscenity” as a conceptual category and the Internet changing everything; people had been putting out past-tense takes on his role in American culture for years.
It’s a shame people focus on the magazine and forget the Playboy Clubs, there’s something important there: Hef wasn’t the one to invent the idea of a club where nubile waitresses in tight slinky outfits served executives, with the suggestion their career path continued to “wife” or at least “mistress”
That’s a cocktail bar! You know, “♫ you were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, when I met you… ♫” (and what do you think finance bro bottle service lounges are today?)
It makes a point that Hef didn’t introduce the idea of women as consumable accoutrements to the good life, he just brought it into public view and into regular order.
And really, looking at today’s consensus: “He tore down an old order he saw as rotten and doomed, and replaced it with a new order that was no less a power-driven hierarchy but with himself and people like him at the top. Then he retired to his chateau to indulge his aristocratic affectations and cavort with celebrities, courtiers, and courtesans.”
Guy should be a reactionary ICON