dagblog - Comments for "Hef & the Culture Wars"

Survival o' Prettiest -

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 06:58:29 +0000

In reply to There's an article open under

Survival o' Prettiest - Darwin's most despised theory. Paglia I think might approve.

Wow, simply wow.

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 01:27:00 +0000

In reply to thank you for sharing that, I

Wow, simply wow. A lot to digest, thanks Lurker.

I tried to convey some of this, the Midwest aesthetic, etc. I do think she airbrushes quite a bit. She talks about the horrors of the breakdown over the intern thing, but ignores that the whole bunny thing *is* that intern, that secretary, that girl given up to a man's definition of their standing. Hef never went to work, but all those mothers and daughters did, both stay-at-home cook and clean, and the next-generation of the non-manored and the employed. That's why Hef's world faded so quick, as did the post-war comfort zone.

One thing hit me that I've always noticed coming from Europe, that many girls make themselves too unattractive and too uninteresting to breed. I mean going out in crappy stained bland white t-shirts or awful uncombed hair or otherwise simply not playing the game and showing no basic self-respect. Not Saturday morning, though even there there's a limit, but even Saturday night - it just simply doesn't happen in Europe like this - women will always take that moment at least.

Someone said something over here one day, "that's the first time some girl mentioned her boyfriend and it wasn't a come-on". Kind of the direct antithesis to "no means no". In another world, "no" was always a challenge, understood by both sides to some degree, not a final word, though there are definitely rules to what's acceptable or not in pursuing that challenge. That tango is expressed beautifully in Once Upon A Time in America, where DeNiro's character can never rise to the needed seduction, to the male role in his life-long love, always makes his selfish mistakes, and then substitutes a pathetic obscene desperate violation for what should have been an erotic culmination.

That's probably the Trump part as well - he wants to be Hef, but you don't imagine Hef abusing his toys, ruining the setup, just as you don't imagine Trump understanding or enjoying the jazz or the stereo and car or the intellectual discussion - his money took him from cover to foldout, workers bringing in gold crap everyewhere with no finesse. He'll always be the grasping boor from Queens, and it shows, so it's painful to see this boorishness succeed. Not in Chicago, not in LA, not really even New York, but in the hinterlands the unsophisticates took his seelf-evident carny seriously.

Steinem was fighting against Larry Flynt's version of violent rape and murder porn, not just Hef's fuzzy bunnies, and Paglia skips over the abhorrent sexism of the traditional Italian world - similar to Hef's comforting mama mansion and girl next door and never growing up. It's funny that I never got the Peter Pan naīvete of Holden Caulfield until I helped my kid read Catcher, nor grasped how it applies to the not-properly sexed, either the eunuched or the undeveloped puerile, insufficiently erotic. Parties of frat boys indeed - how the world is stymied.

Her take on objectification and art is illuminating and the gay example illustrative. I think it's ironic that we're having a much easier time codifying gay rights than women's or racial minorities. Is it our latent love of Greek classicism?

Great essay and response, PP

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 00:59:55 +0000

In reply to This is a very good

Great essay and response, PP & AA. I also don't think you're very far apart. Cultural revolutions generally include mainstream and fringe currents, and I imagine that both are necessary to create change.

And to Cleveland's point, agents of change are not necessarily admirable even if the change itself is beneficial (or perhaps a mixed blessing).

thank you for sharing that, I

artappraiser — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 23:59:20 +0000

In reply to Here is Camille Paglia's take

thank you for sharing that, I am always interested in what she has to say about pop culture issues, especially ones from her youth which she has thought about (and babbled steam of consciousness about, hah!) the longest (she's about a decade earlier than me, so she supplies a view of things for me which I only experienced as a kid, and therefore may have warped.) The part on Trump being influenced by Hefner world view was very intriguing, I think she is supplying some nuance there that a lot of us have been missing.

Here is Camille Paglia's take

Lurker — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 22:28:29 +0000

In reply to Hef & the Culture Wars

Here is Camille Paglia's take on Hefner:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/camille-paglia-hugh-hefners-legacy-trumps-masculinity-feminisms-sex-phobia-1044769

Also an interesting take;

artappraiser — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 19:04:40 +0000

In reply to For a different view of

Also an interesting take; thanks. I've got to give that some post-war men might have felt that way, that it was their liberation movement.

Texas dicks over Houston -

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 17:33:20 +0000

In reply to "they can speak for

Texas dicks over Houston - too black, too Dem. This is war, folks. People are dying.

With 2/3 of white men voting

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 15:44:32 +0000

In reply to For a different view of

With 2/3 of white men voting Trump this last election, I'm not sure creating the "Modern Man" is the achievement 50's Hefner would have applauded. Somehow we didn't advance as far as hoped, and don't seem to be so open and free. Or as Lennon once said, "still fucking peasants as far as I can see...."

For a different view of

Lurker — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 14:03:59 +0000

In reply to Ross Douhat @ NYTimes.com

For a different view of Hefner, try:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/opinion/hugh-hefner-playboy.html

I'd be careful about

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 01 Oct 2017 09:54:00 +0000

In reply to I've always thought Playboy

I'd be careful about trivializing prostitution and mangling several situations, even though I don't care if you call Hef a pimp of sorts.

First, the prostitutes I'm worried about are desperate, often beaten and drugged out, sometimes immigrants brought in with their documents then taken, etc.

If a woman who's not under duress wants to sell her body, that to me is her business, whether she particularly enjoys the sex and the environment or not.

2) Work is often a transactional affair, including bodies working in sweatshops and coal mines under horrific unhealthy conditions. Taxi and truck drivers pump speed to keep going, as do nurses, while football players end up walking medicine chests and lobotomies. Even in the entertainment fields we end up with the Judy Garland was notoriously pumped full of drugs to keep filming and Marilyn Monroe ended up a mess, Amy Winehouse taking her failed rehab to hitdom and the grave. Where the Mansion turned this into a drugged out orgy of hooked and largely nowhere-to-go people, I don't want to make excuses, but many chose to be there, chose the work and the "family", accepted the sexist tawdriness of it all. I hate Vegas, but many people love it - I won't deny them, aside from supporting or demanding certain basic ethics and laws.

3) Even marriages are frequently transactional, whether we call it "love" or not - someone who's good enough looking, can pay the mortgage and take me to dinners and the occasional vacation, makes me laugh sometimes, doesn't bore me too much or cheat (too much?), doesn't ignore the kids too much. And occasional excitement in bed. Many marriages end up in spousal abuse and irresponsible bankruptcy, some have sex as the only reason while probably more end up as loveless routines. YMMV, in all human interactions. We can separate flings and normal sex and childhood infatuations and long-term dating now from marriage, no longer with virginity tests - an improvement from the 50's.

4) Fetishes - well, that's a loaded word like "cult". Perhaps big breasts is a fetish, or just a preference. Penthouse was described as size B girls who tried harder, or maybe were just airbrushed less. But if people like golden showers or facials or spankings or whatever, great for them as long as they work out the consenting part. That perhaps to me is the most significant contribution Hef's enterprise made was supporting the idea that adults could do what they want in private at least and it was none of our business if not abusive. The wild times of hippies in the 60's and swingers/disco partiers in the 70's and hookup culture ever after likely cemented that much more than the aging irrelevance of Playboy over time. Sex is normal, doesn't need to be private, nudity is normal and doesn't need to be continually sexualized, vaginas and penises - even erect - don't have to be stygmatized or overly glorified - including interracial and homosexual, and where health and psychological well-being and normal maintenance require, need to be taken care of and discussed openly.

5) yes, Hef was a sleazeball, and I know someone who emulates him as best he can and I still feel the same ick personally. But while many of Douthat's complaints are accurate, the fact remained that Hefner built this more on the willing rather than the coerced or abused, good ol'American commerce, and for those problems we need to build a more attractive enlightened model, not just begrudge that humans are slimier than hoped.