Monday, September 19, 2011
by Jennifer Saginor and Jamie Beckman

For most TV viewers, it's obvious that NBC's The Playboy Club, is a network-television spinoff of critically acclaimed AMC hit Mad Men. But take away the scripted melodrama, and there are universal issues boiling below the surface. Under the bunny ears and cotton tails lies a larger commentary about gender: America's obsession with female sexuality, beauty, and money. In our modern culture, from reality TV shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians to the upcoming special on Hugh Hefner's thwarted wedding to Playmate Crystal Harris, women are unapologetically marketed as sex objects, just as they were in the 1960s. The fascination with buxom bunnies can in theory be chalked up to nostalgia, but in reality it's something more dangerous.

Devoid of the thoughtfulness and historical context that are hallmarks of Mad Men's view of the 1960s. The Playboy Club has the potential to be simply a showcase for pretty women in an era when women had few real major money-earning opportunities — other than wearing bunny outfits and fishnets for tips. Similar to life at the Playboy Mansion, women are not rewarded for working hard but for maintaining lithe but nubile bodies and oozing sexuality.

Lead actress Amber Heard insists bunnies who worked at the club were encouraged to chart their own paths in life with the money they made at the club. Feminist leader Gloria Steinem, who worked as an undercover journalist at one of the clubs in the 1970s, says the clubs were anything but empowering, and has called for a boycott of the show.

After years of trying to reverse society's image of women via the women's movement, the push for the Equal Rights Amendment, and third-wave feminism, it seems we are back to perpetuating image of women as sex objects. When we study the society-imposed roles for women in past decades, we see them as victims subjected to a man's world. Today, it's quite the contrary. Women are accentuating their best features and selling them for a packaged price. Women are marketing and franchising themselves as superficial tokens who can be bought and sold as a high-concept commodity.

Tabloid stars such as Kim Kardashian, Kendra Wilkinson, Holly Madison, and Heidi Montag are building their own empires and franchises by marketing their bodies. They're empowering themselves by downplaying their intellect, increasing their market value by reducing themselves to frozen silhouettes and caricatures — just like yesterday's bunnies. Worse, is this fascination with beauty in exchange for money merely another form of high-class prostitution? These women didn't have to work at a job to achieve their lifestyle. Even college students are looking for their piece of the supposedly strings-free prize they see every day in the media: Using websites like SeekingArrangement.com to find their own sugar daddies, young women are using what they've got to buy what they want, be it a college education or Louboutin pumps. But at what societal cost?

America continues to be fixated on the Playboy brand as a way of life. But are we breeding future bunnies by idealizing the past? By glamorizing Playboy bunnies, socialites, and the Kardashians, is America secretly longing to go back to the days when women were best known for their sex appeal?

Finding power in sexuality is not a new concept. The difference is female consumers — and we as as a nation — are supporting it. As a society, we're endorsing the notions that we once fought against: that women must use their physical assets to get what they want, that women should marry rich rather than navigate a career path, that women should never be seen in public unless their hair is done and face appropriately painted and contoured.

Just like we did in the 1960s.

For the sake of the younger generations, and instilling greater values, we need to emphasize education, travel, and self-esteem and downplay excess. At the end of the day, in this particular decade, it's our choice whose legacy and achievements we promote to young girls: Hilary Clinton's or Paris Hilton's? Gloria Steinem's or Kendra Wilkinson's?