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Hugh Hefner launched Playboy magazine 70 years ago this year. The first issue included a nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe, which he had purchased and published without her knowledge or consent.
Hefner built the Playboy brand on the countless women featured in its pages, whose beauty and display of avant-garde female sexuality have entertained its readers for generations.
Approaching its 70th anniversary in December, Playboy has changed radically. The magazine is no longer in publication, the Playboy Mansion was sold to a developer and London’s last remaining Playboy Club will close in 2021, what is the future of Playboy? The brand is changing to keep up with the post-#MeToo world.
Hefner died in 2017, a month before allegations surfaced against film producer Harvey Weinstein, sparking the #MeToo movement (in which survivors of sexual assault and harassment speak out against their abusers).
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In recent years, Many have reevaluated Hefner’s legacy and relationship with women. The 2022 documentary series “The Secrets of Playboy” (which aired on Channel 4 in the UK) details sexual misconduct allegations against Hefner from several ex-girlfriends, including model Sondra Theodore and TV personality Holly Madison.
Hefner and Playboy’s relationship with women has been complicated. playboy was one early supporters abortion rights, helped fund the first rape kit and sometimes there was a early mover of inclusivity (for example the June 1981 issue featuring transgender model, Caroline “Tula” Kosi). But most of the women featured in Playboy fit a narrow standard of beauty – thin, fair, able-bodied, and blonde.
Meanwhile, Hefner reportedly had a personal relationship with a girlfriend much younger than him. followed the pattern Of control and emotional abuse. Former girlfriend Holly Madison described Hefner as treating him “like a glorified pet” in her 2015 memoir, “Down the Rabbit Hole.”
Hefner’s passing meant that he was spared from the #MeToo movement. However, Playboy responded by issuing a statement In which it affirmed support for the women featured in “The Secrets of Playboy” and called Hefner’s actions “disgusting”.
The statement announced that the brand is no longer affiliated with the Hefner family and will focus on aspects of the company’s legacy that align with the values of sex positivity and free expression.
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Today, Playboy is a very different company from the company Hefner launched nearly 70 years ago. According to the company, approximately 80% of Playboy’s employees identify as female, and its motto has changed from “entertainment for men” to “pleasure for all”. The company’s shares are publicly traded and 40% of its board and management are women.
The company has also moved toward more creator-based content through its app, Playboy Centerfold. Similar to subscription content service OnlyFans, Playboy Centerfold allows subscribers to view content from and interact with its creators, whom it calls “Bunnies”.
On the app, creators – or bunnies – are able to paint their bodies however they wish, putting the power back in their hands. Perhaps the future of Playboy is no longer in the service of the male gaze, but instead Hefner has rejected his audience. first letter to the editor,
“If you are a male between the ages of 18 and 80, Playboy is for you… If you are someone’s sister, wife or mother-in-law and have accidentally picked us up, please let us show you the man inside you. Send it through.” Back to Life and Your Ladies Home Companion.
Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt, stars of the mid-2000s reality series Playboy, are also enjoying a resurgence among fans.
“The Girls Next Door” launched in 2004. The show focused on the lives of Hefner’s three girlfriends, Madison, Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson. It became E!’s best-performing show and created a new female audience for Playboy.
“The Girls Next Door” was a story of complex empowerment despite patriarchal interference. Its three female protagonists went from being known only as some of Hefner’s many blonde girlfriends to celebrities in their own right.
Each of them eventually broke up with Hefner, left the mansion and led successful careers.
The show depicts Madison, Marquardt, and Wilkinson as empowered, fun-loving, and complex individuals who found happiness and agency through expressing their sexuality, which is probably why many female fans liked the show. Attracted towards. However, amid the girls’ fight for the agency, Hefner retaliated.
The series reveals that he maintained final authority over each of the girls’ Playboy photographs, as well as imposing strict curfews and expense allowances.
In Madison and Wilkinson’s memoirs, “Down the Rabbit Hole,” and “Sliding into Home,” they claim that the production continually wore them down. They refused to pay her for the first season, did not credit her until season four and aired her uncensored nude bodies in foreign broadcasts and DVD releases without consent.
Fan interest in “The Girls Next Door” remains strong. In August 2022, Madison and Marquardt launched their podcast “Girls Next Level”, where they interview past castmates and interact with fans. They also recap the episodes from their perspective, highlighting their experiences working on the show.
Reaching 10 million downloads by February 2023, the success of the podcast – 14 years after the last episode of “The Girls Next Door” – speaks to the cultural legacy of the Playboy brand. It also shows that, despite Hefner’s original editor’s note, Playboy corresponded with some women.
Playboy is now in the post-Hefner era, where the images of women found in old issues of Playboy can become an inspiration for others to enjoy their sexuality. No matter what the future holds for the company, the concept of Playboy has become public property – whether it’s the appearance of the Playboy bunny costume every Halloween, the cheeky Playboy logo tattoo or the popularity of branded lingerie and clothing.
In the post-#MeToo era, the women of Playboy are speaking up and taking charge. With the mansion’s doors closed, the bunnies are finally reclaiming the brand as their own.
Top image: Hugh Hefner with Playboy “Bunnies” in London in 1966.