Playboy The Cultural Impact Of Playboy - 1430 Words

A mid-October surprise greeted print media with the announcement that Playboy magazine would no longer feature nude women. CEO Scott Flanders noted â€Å"You re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it s just passà © at this juncture.† The magazine will continue to picture women in provocative poses; the running joke that men read Playboy â€Å"for the articles† will now carry more credence as the magazine attempts to compete with the likes of Vice. Playboy is struggling. Distribution is down from a high of 5.6 million to 800,000 copies today. Despite the decline of America’s foremost men’s magazine, the cultural impact of Playboy is extensive. Best known for nude pictorials, Playboy created an idealization of straight masculinity, through consumerism, that hoped to change American views on feminism, monogamy and romance. Let’s examine how. The forerunner to Playboy was Esquire. Launched in 1933, Esquire made stylish consumption its forte. Ironically, in the midst of the Great Depression, its circulation jumped to more than 728,000 in 1938. Esquire’s novelty was created by pulling together fragments of male consumerist culture. Osgerby quotes Esquire’s first editor Arnold Gingrich’s recollection that he attempted to â€Å"deodorize the lavender whiff coming from the mere presence of fashion pages.† To accomplish the balance Gingrich sought, Esquire regularly covered sports, boxing and baseball in particular and focused on masculine pursuits likeShow MoreRelatedA Brief History of Playboy Enterprises1003 Words   |  5 PagesThere are many different aspects of American Culture. One part of this culture is the idolization of beautiful women. Playboy is one of many examples of how Americans idolize women. Playboy Enterprises, recognized by their iconic Playboy Bunny symbol, started off as j ust a men’s magazine that includes journal articles, fiction, and of course, photographs of nude women. Playboy Magazine was founded by Hugh Hefner in Chicago, Illinois in 1953. Hefner incorporated HMH Publishing Co., Inc. in DelawareRead MoreGender, Gender And Sexual Norms1399 Words   |  6 Pagesprevious gender and family dynamics were shifted when Playboy started releasing magazines that urged men to live a bachelor lifestyle. When describing the roles within the family â€Å"the adult sex roles—wife/mother and male breadwinner— were presented in popular culture as achievements, proofs of the informed acquiescence praised as ‘maturity’ or, more rarely, lamented as ‘slow death’† (Ehrenreich 45). The idea that the roles within the family were cultural achievements and were symbols of maturity but wereRead MoreStrategy of Playboy8446 Words   |  34 Pagesï » ¿ Is it getting cold for girls in bikinis? Playboy struggling to remain competitive in changing environment Group 4: Luca Curtarelli Gergana Dimitrova Michele Mazzoni Beatrice Strazza TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦.2 2. Playboy history†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦..3 3. Five Forces Analysis..........................................................................4 4. Playboy’s resources and capabilities†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Read MoreLimitations on BMI Model Bodies1084 Words   |  5 PagesHow many men do you see ogling over the ultra skinny models on a Vogue magazine? They aren’t, most men are ogling over the centerfold of a Playboy magazine. So why do young girls and women all over the world struggle psychologically and physically to look like those models? And what effect does this have on our society? Should the use of models with a low Body Mass Index (BMI) be banned from fashion, media, and print? I will answer all of these questions and more, to support my view on why thereRead MoreSome Like It Hot Movie Refection Essay661 Words   |  3 Pagesgood job pushing cultural boundaries by taking the typical conservative look and making it sexy. These were just some of the cultural changes that she had contributed in this film. Some Like it hot was a movie based upon two men wanting to escape from potentially being killed by mob leaders. During this they find a music company that is hiring and claim to be women so that way the two of them can be casted. The movie’s main plot is centered on this but I feel that all of the cultural influences thatRead MoreThe Musical Aspects Of Frank Sinatra1505 Words   |  7 PagesChapter Two: Sinatra as a Cultural Icon In the first chapter, this essay primarily addressed the musical aspects of Frank Sinatra. This section will examine his celebrity image, and how it reflected the values of popular culture that spanned his career. Sinatra was the first musician, more specifically a singer, to achieve this kind of fame and notoriety among his audiences. Intentional or not, he started a trend in popular music that would later be replicated by many artists, including Elvis,Read More Body Image Essay1966 Words   |  8 Pagessuggested that men are falling victim to media and societal pressure, and are developing insecurities traditionally associated with women. Much of the body dissatisfaction that we see today can be attributed to the enormous disparity between our current cultural beauty ideals and our actual bodies. Although most of the research surrounding the influences of media on body image has taken the form of analyzing exposure through the examination of such things as magazine content, recent research has begun toRead MoreSociology And Its Effect On Society3599 Words   |  15 Pageswinter, and was called Samhain. Samhain was believed to be a night in which the realm between the living and the afterlife overlapped, allowing passage between the worlds. The annual rituals of Samhain allowed temporary deviation from constructed cultural values. The customs of Samhain migrated to the New World from English Catholic, Liberal Protestants, and Irish immigrants (Magliocco 2006). The tradition of wearing costumes to celebrate the festival of October 31st began during the Victorian EraRead MoreIdeology and American Television: Analysis of Nip/Tuck2306 Words   |  10 Pagessuccess One of the most shocking, yet consistent themes in Nip/Tuck is the unforgiving visuals of surgical procedures. Although it is plastic surgery, the depth in which Nip/Tuck creators go to depict every aspect of these procedures seems to have an impact both on the meaning, and the ideological views the show portrays. Vanity being the most common motivation for plastic surgery, the question posed to the audience is–does this turkey-carving type of surgery really justify the means to becoming a betterRead MoreHistory Of American Comic Comics Superheroes1191 Words   |  5 Pagesscholars claimed the period spans from 1938 to 1949 and others say up to 1956. Despite its range of year’s controversy, they all agreed that, during this period the popularity of comic books reached its peak, both in terms of commercial success and cultural significance. The starting point for this period is usually associated with the coming of man in a red and blue costume, lifting a car over his h ead- Superman. Superman was the first comic superhero character to have powers far beyond a normal human