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give us the old
Oh, you hep cats in Chicago, you dudes, how sad
By Jeff Bercovici
There’s something to be said for aging gracefully, especially when the alternative is a headlong dive into juvenility.
To be sure, Playboy has never exactly gotten the hang of the former. For the past couple decades, it has been like the middle-aged swinger at the party, sure that his leisure suit and mustache are the ticket to picking up chicks, unaware that he has become something of a joke.
Now imagine if someone were to take that middle-aged guy, slap a backwards baseball cap on his comb-over and swap his polyester trousers for baggy Levi’s.
That pretty well summarizes what James Kaminsky, Playboy’s new editorial director, has done since taking over last fall.
Kaminsky, former executive editor of Maxim, was hired with a simple mandate: Get men under 40 to start reading Playboy again. Its median reader age is 32.7 versus Maxim’s 26.5, according to Mediamark Research.
More alarmingly, newsstand sales have been plunging, falling 19 percent in the second half of last year and 26 percent in the six months before that.
Most observers expected that Kaminsky would import Maxim’s formula of infoblurbs, factoids, charticles and quasi-humorous captions.
He has done so, at least in the front section of the magazine, and the result is truly awful -- so awful it makes Maxim and the other lad titles seem positively sophisticated in comparison.
Judging from the August issue, the new Playboy won’t be winning over the twenty-something set anytime soon, but it should do quite well with middle-schoolers.
Consider a feature called “Indecent Proposals,” on page 20, which asks readers to put a price on their dignity. It’s a variant on the “Would you rather…” game played by pre-teen girls at sleepovers and summer camps everywhere. Sample question: “Would you French-kiss your dog for $25? How about for $50?”
Immediately above “Indecent Proposals” is a mini-article on discontinued trading cards. The accompanying illustration shows a 1977 Star Wars trading card depicting C3PO with what appears to be – ha! – a large, metal boner.
The magazine’s indisputable low point, however, is the list of hip-hop songs with mentions of Hugh Hefner, found on page 19.
“Our man gets more props than a helicopter pad,” reads the text. “Check these lyrics, dawg.”
Reading wannabe-relevant stuff like this is like watching a favorite high school teacher try to ride a skateboard: so pathetic it’s not even funny, just embarrassing.
On the other hand, such blatant kissing-up may be the only way Kaminsky will keep his job if this is the best he can come up with.
Playboy’s makeover isn’t yet complete. The front of the book is the only part to get a complete revamp so far, with a new design that brings Playboy all the way up to 1999. Deeper into the magazine, the changes consist mainly of added sidebars and text boxes.
The nude spreads haven’t changed much; they’re just as unerotic as ever, unless your turn-ons include excessive lip gloss, bad dye jobs and vacant expressions. This month’s big “gets” are singer Carnie Wilson, who’s no longer morbidly obese thanks to gastric bypass surgery, and cover girls Jenna and Heidi of “Survivor.” Maxim, meanwhile, has Anna Kournikova on its cover.
If Kaminsky is looking for problems to fix, that would be an excellent place to start.
July 16, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life
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