Pretty bad, according to Gail Dines (Wheelock College). Here’s her take:
There were so many surreal scenes in the pilot of NBC’s The Playboy Club that it is difficult to pick out the most eye-popping . . . . I think the winner is the scene near the end where a kindly, pajama-clad Hefner ruminates about being a rebel out to change America for the better.
This is the image of “Hef” peddled to the media. He is packaged as a pioneer who courageously heralded the sexual revolution with his norm-busting magazine that helped free puritanical America of its sexual hang-ups.
The actual story of Hefner’s success is less sanguine, since Playboy’s initial popularity was based on its embrace of 1940s and ’50s sexist ideas.
Read Professor Dines’s full piece here.
-Bridget Crawford
