Failure™ Magazine

The Playboy Book

“Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America.”

Written by Jason Zasky   Filed under History, Life

What should readers expect from your book?
They should expect a very careful investigation of Playboy magazine and its significance in postwar American society. It uses biographical material about Hefner, but it’s not just a biography, nor is it just the history of the magazine. When you really pay attention to everything Playboy said and did it becomes this wonderful window into all the important issues of postwar America. It’s a very rich source in terms of understanding much larger issues in society.

How many issues of Playboy did you read?
A lot more than I ever imagined I would. I read every other issue cover-to-cover. The rest of the issues I did a more selective reading based on the table of contents. Certain features, like the Playboy Forum, I looked at on a regular basis. My major focus was from the first issue [published in late 1953] until 1986, when Playboy’s last Playboy-owned club closed, and when the Meese Commission created problems for Playboy with its investigation into pornography. Then I went into the 1990s and up-to-date to bring the story to a close in the epilogue.

What was Playboy’s agenda in the postwar period?
The kernel of that agenda was there from the very beginning but it really came to fruition by the late 1950s and early ’60s. From the get-go, Hefner was trying to create a magazine that he felt didn’t really exist in American culture. He felt that most of what you saw—whether it be in popular magazines or literature or television—was geared toward families. There wasn’t anything that spoke to the kinds of things in which men were interested. Hefner wanted to create a magazine for adult men but he also wanted to create a vision of a lifestyle that showcased the pleasures one could enjoy in a blooming, blossoming postwar consumer society. So that it wasn’t just about showing up for your job every day and bringing home a paycheck to support a wife and kids. He wanted to have this alternative world where one could indulge in pleasure and materialism.

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