Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern AmericaLaunched by Hugh Hefner in 1953, Playboy promoted an image of the young, affluent, single male-the man about town ensconced in a plush bachelor pad, in constant pursuit of female companionship and a good time. Spectacularly successful, this high-gloss portrait of glamorous living and sexual adventure would eventually draw some one million readers each month. Exploring the world created in the pages of America's most widely read and influential men's magazine, Elizabeth Fraterrigo sets Playboy's history in the context of a society in transition. Sexual mores, gender roles, family life, notions of consumption and national purpose-all were in flux as Americans adjusted to the prosperity that followed World War II. Initially, Playboy promised only "entertainment for men," but Fraterrigo reveals that its vision of abundance, pleasure, and individual freedom soon placed the magazine at the center of mainstream debates about sex and freedom, politics and pleasure in postwar America. She shows that for Hugh Hefner, the "good life" meant the "playboy life," in which expensive goods and sexually available women were plentiful, obligations were few, and if one worked hard enough, one could enjoy abundant leisure and consumption. In support of this view, Playboy attacked early marriage, traditional gender arrangements, and sanctions against premarital sex. The magazine also promoted private consumption as a key to economic growth and national well-being, offering tips from "The Playboy Advisor" on everything from high-end stereos and cuff-links to caviar and wine. If we want to understand post-war America, Fraterrigo shows, we must pay close attention to Playboy, its messages about pleasure and freedom, the debates it inspired, and the criticism it drew--all of which has been bound up in the popular culture and consumer society that surround us. |
Contents
1 | |
Sex Gender and the Family Ideal in Postwar America | 15 |
Modern Living and the Morality of the Playboy Life | 48 |
Playboys Urban Answer to Suburbanization | 80 |
Gender the Workplace and the Single Girl | 105 |
The Ascendant Playboy Life | 134 |
Playboy the Permissive Society and Womens Liberation | 167 |
Americas Playboy Culture | 205 |
Notes | 217 |
265 | |
287 | |
Other editions - View all
Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America Elizabeth Fraterrigo No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
advertising African-American American culture appeared August bachelor pad Brown Bunny cartoons centerfold Chicago Press Christie Hefner consumer society consumption counterculture critics Dear Playboy decade December domestic Dream economic editorial enjoy Esquire explained February female feminine feminism feminist film Folder gender Girl’s Helen Gurley Brown Hugh Hefner images interview issue Janet Pilgrim January jazz July June leisure lifestyle living magazine’s male man’s March marriage married masculine men’s magazine ment middle-class modern moral nude obscenity October offered one’s photographs pictorial play Playboy Bunny Playboy Club Playboy Enterprises Playboy magazine Playboy Mansion Playboy Philosophy Playboy readers Playboy’s Playmate pleasure popular culture pornography Postwar America promoted racial role September sexual revolution showcased Single Girl singlehood social space Spectorsky status suburban television tion University Press urban Victor Lownes woman women women’s liberation women’s movement workplace young