"Hugh Hefner" and the creation of American manhood
30.07.10
With a cohort majority of American men raised between 1950 and 1980, my emerging sexuality - and, more importantly, my sense of what being a man - has been profoundly influenced by the Hugh Hefner Marston, a descendant of a family of conservative Chicago with roots in Puritan New England. Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing is in place for debate, but I think the only possible answer is that it's both.
fascinating documentary by Canadian director Brigitte Berman, "Hugh Hefner: Playboy, activist and rebel," is a very mixed bag.Despite some small gestures in the direction of journalistic balance, it plays like a two hour infomercial for the historical importance of the publisher of Playboy, the deep philosophical and personal greatness. Yes, Hefner may have its flaws, or at least its quirks and peculiarities, the murmurs movie: So, too, was Lorenzo!
But here's the thing: Hefner is really an extremely important figure in the cultural history of the 20th century, both for obvious reasons and those much less obvious. And, as a friend of Hef-rRuth Westheimer notes in the film, the cartoon version of himself he has created in the mid-'70s forward, surrounded by a landscape of featureless Human scientifically enhanced cyborgs blond, almost completely obscured the which had published both authentic and meaningful.
Source: Salon