{"id":27396,"date":"2018-12-01T13:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=27396"},"modified":"2018-12-01T13:00:46","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T13:00:46","slug":"saying-goodbye-to-playboy-bunnies-in-print","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/saying-goodbye-to-playboy-bunnies-in-print\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying goodbye to Playboy bunnies (in print)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_27510\" style=\"width: 2505px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27510\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27510\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/9291893283_2b74ee41ce_o.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2495\" height=\"1768\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27510\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hugh M. Hefner, Editor and Publisher of Playboy, is shown with Cynthia Maddox, the blond cover girl on the February issue of his magazine, arriving by TWA superjet from Chicago.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>More than half a century ago, the very first issue of <em>Playboy<\/em> magazine was published, with iconic actress Marilyn Monroe on the cover. It was left undated by Hugh Hefner because he feared it might be unsuccessful. The issue sold out in just a few weeks. Now, however, the magazine is in trouble.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Marilyn Monroe on the cover of the first ever Playboy, December 1953 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3ZqEmO5OHt\">pic.twitter.com\/3ZqEmO5OHt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; throwbacks (@timelessbae) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/timelessbae\/status\/886062313123577857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 15, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>With growing competitors throughout the years, such as <em>Penthouse<\/em> and <em>Oui<\/em>, as well as the growing availability of free pornography on the internet, <em>Playboy<\/em> has managed to hold their brand as one of the most iconic magazines aimed towards men.<\/p>\n<p>Described initially as an \u201centertainment for men\u201d magazine, the overall outlook of the publication has certainly gone through many changes since it was first published, especially in the last few years.\u00a0The magazine has changed visually \u2013 and not just in the issues\u2019 physical appearance and design.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, for example, <em>Playboy<\/em> announced that they would no longer be featuring full frontal nudity in their magazines from the March 2016 issue onwards. The reasoning behind this, according to Josh Horwitz from <a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/522672\/china-not-online-porn-is-why-playboy-is-dumping-nude-photographs\/\"><em>Quartz<\/em><\/a>, was in order to attract a higher Asian market, a location where governments take on a tougher attitude towards pornography. In the forefront were China, a country where many anti-porn campaigns have been announced in recent years yet were profiting from sales of items with the Playboy bunny logo, and India, where attempts to open Playboy-branded clubs was swatted by authorities twice.<\/p>\n<p>Less than a year after, the company\u2019s chief creative officer claimed that it had been a mistake to drop nudity, with the magazine announcing their return to featuring nudity in their issues on social media with a the hashtag #<em>NakedIsNormal<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/Playboy\/status\/831155991064506368<\/p>\n<p>The dropping of a major characteristic of the magazine, the subtitle \u201centertainment for men\u201d, made the publication more gender neutral, as it meant that <em>Playboy<\/em> was now not just &#8216;aimed at men&#8217;, but anyone who expressed desire to read it, meaning that this change was made to stay in line with the evolution of gender roles, due to the growing awareness of gender neutrality around the world. The dropping of the subtitle could also imply that the company was trying to seem less sexist, as the&#8217;ve been hit with claims multiple times that it was.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Hugh Hefner is no &#39;hero&#39; \u2013 he built an empire on misogyny, argues <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ClaireShrugged?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@ClaireShrugged<\/a>  <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XnAy2uE6tp\">https:\/\/t.co\/XnAy2uE6tp<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/lDZVunBJTD\">pic.twitter.com\/lDZVunBJTD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; British GLAMOUR (@GlamourMagUK) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GlamourMagUK\/status\/913376643548200965?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 28, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The second characteristic, although temporary, was definitely the fact that they decided to drop full frontal nudity from their magazines. During the year of 2017, annual sales dropped from 700k to 500k, and they didn\u2019t seem to recover well when they introduced nudity again, as sales only raised slightly to a mere 579k. These <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2015\/12\/11\/playboy-magazine-by-the-numbers.html\">numbers<\/a>, in comparison to a decade ago where they would sell around three million yearly, are extremely low.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_27466\" style=\"width: 732px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27466\" class=\"wp-image-27466 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/Screen-Shot-2018-11-30-at-13.13.30.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"722\" height=\"609\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-27466\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Data from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2015\/12\/11\/playboy-magazine-by-the-numbers.html\">CNBC<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>When Hefner died on September 27 last year, however, the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2017\/09\/28\/what-hefners-death-means-for-future-of-playboy-magazine\/\"><em>New York Post<\/em><\/a> found out that the magazine might be close to its demise. Rapidly decreasing numbers in both advertisers and readers in have meant that <em>Playboy<\/em> has found itself in a sticky situation. And, when Rizvi Traverse bought a controlling stake in <em>Playboy Enterprises<\/em> in 2011, he promised the print version would remain alive as long as Hefner was, too.<\/p>\n<p>Since January this year there has been constant chatter about whether or not the print version may be discontinued, but if circulation numbers continue to dwindle\u2026 they might be better off spending this money somewhere else.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-27396 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/22303385871_941b95e5a6_o\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/22303385871_941b95e5a6_o-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-27440\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-27440'>\n\t\t\t\t&#8220;Playboy. May1994.&#8221; by Elvert Barnes, on Flickr\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/22105128308_daa2d9ff7f_o\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/22105128308_daa2d9ff7f_o-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-27436\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-27436'>\n\t\t\t\t&#8220;Playboy. July1994.&#8221; by Elvert Barnes, on Flickr\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/22105136348_92e63ba77b_o\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/22105136348_92e63ba77b_o-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-27437\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-27437'>\n\t\t\t\t&#8220;Playboy. December1995. Front.&#8221; by Elvert Barnes, on Flickr\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><br style=\"clear: both\" \/><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/22266818226_b0eb89bc71_o\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/22266818226_b0eb89bc71_o-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-27439\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-27439'>\n\t\t\t\t&#8220;Playboy. January1997.&#8221; by Elvert Barnes, on Flickr\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl><dl class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<dt class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/21670113314_369643ca12_o\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/21670113314_369643ca12_o-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-27435\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/dt>\n\t\t\t\t<dd class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-27435'>\n\t\t\t\t&#8220;Playboy. April1998.&#8221; by Elvert Barnes, on Flickr\n\t\t\t\t<\/dd><\/dl>\n\t\t\t<br style='clear: both' \/>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><strong>Words: Sissi Yi Hu | Subbing: Maria Campuzano<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Featured image: Photo by Tullio Saba, on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/97453745@N02\/9275193023\/in\/photolist-f8BMK6\">Flickr<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than half a century ago, the very first issue of Playboy magazine was published, with iconic actress Marilyn Monroe on the cover. It was left undated by Hugh Hefner because he feared it might&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":27510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,52,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-featured","category-specials"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}