Playboy: Rise of the World's Most Infamous Magazine

In nine seasons of widespread success, “I love Lucy’s” Lucy and Ricardo never slept in the same bed. (Brooks 1999) This decasualization of sexuality was central to the push for the “nuclear family.” Despite this, the fifties saw the founding of some of the most famous sex symbols of all time. Just two years after the viewers tuned in to the first episode of I Love Lucy, the most infamous magazine in the world, Playboy, was founded. Featuring a topless Marilyn Monroe as its centerfold, the 1953 issue of Playboy reached a circulation of well over fifty thousand and made Playboy, as well as founder Hugh Hefner, an immediate success. (Playboy Enterprises 2012)  In this lies an apparent dichotomy, that in the sexually repressive 1950’s, a magazine filled with infidelity, lust, and sex can become so wildly popular.

 

However, this is not the case. Playboy gained such massive popularity due to Hugh Hefner’s careful, calculated movements regarding the “Playboy Image,” from the magazine itself, to interviews and lawsuits pushing for “personal freedom” above all else. Due to this, Playboy came to perform two important tasks, it represented the sexual undertones of its target audience, as well as their individual identity and expression, in cohesion with representing this identity and expression in both the news and courtrooms.

The 1950’s hailed the “return of the family.” Society revolved around the “nuclear family” – a unit strong enough to overcome homosexuals, communists, and The Bomb. Conformity permeated both day to day life and the mass media. The gentrification of pop culture mandated that, in the media, not only was sexuality only to be shared between married couples for purposes of procreation, the ideal couple wouldn’t even share a bed.  Regardless of this, Playboy garnered a two thousand, five hundred percent return on Hefner’s initial investment, and was wildly popular for the entirety of the decade. (Playboy Enterprises 2012)

Despite widespread political controversy, and demonization in the media, Playboy and its ilk were embraced by the public. In its goal to be the perfect magazine for the “modern man,” Playboy came to represent not only the sexuality of the young men of the 1950’s, but also as a symbolic “freedom fighter,” pushing for not only a less sexually repressive society, but for a less conformist society as a whole. While the statement “I read it for the stories” may not have been entirely truthful, Playboy published many works pushing for less overbearing governmental control of the media, and in doing so modelled itself not as a sleazy monthly, but as an embodiment of American individuality and expression.

Partially due to these efforts, Playboy brought in its wake the sexual revolution of the 1960s. As the generation raised on Playboy came of age, they arose to embody the ideals it so lauded. Sexual expression, liberation from authoritarian governmental oversight, and the freedom of “dress and press” were all key aspects of the Sexual Revolution, and all were present in Playboy.

             

Via a careful analysis of three of the most important aspects to the Playboy story, not only can the widespread growth and popularity of the magazine be explained, so can the apparent dichotomy it created. In looking through the most circulated Playboy’s of the decade, a dissemination of the Congressional Record, detailing the hotly contested debate as to whether or not Playboy could be banned, and a detailed inquiry into the mind of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner through interviews, arguments, and statements made by the man himself during the decade, Playboy’s rise is shown to have been made with calculated movements pertaining to the “Playboy image,” via Playboy’s relationship with the courtroom, and through Hugh Hefner’s statements in the public eye.