Back in early October, we shared our thoughts on Marge Simpson's appearance on the cover of this month's Playboy Magazine.
The November issue hit newsstands October 16th, and it may very well become a collector's item: after all, Playboy's featured Jerry Seinfeld on its October cover back in 1993, but never before a cartoon character or illustrated woman. We doubt too many of Playboy's readers will be playing with 'their little guy' as Marge likes to say. But we do think it's likely November will long be remembered as the month when yet another glass ceiling was broken.
Marge's Playboy spread will certainly be doing no favors for the magazine's subscribers, who are on average 35-year-old males, although subscription copies of Playboy will be more cautious and feature a traditional 3-D woman instead of Homer's wife on their cover.
Playboy hopes not to loose their standing readers by featuring Marge in all her implied nude beauty, but to attract new readers, primarily Gen Y males in their twenties. Frankly, they need it: Playboy's readership has fell from 3.15 to 2.6 million in 2006, and has been declining since. With Marge on the cover, Playboy's clever concoction of pop culture marketing has insured a broader reach for their struggling magazine -- even convincing 7-11 to stock the Marge issue in all of their 1,200 corporate owned convenience stores nationwide.
As previously blogged, magazines are only looking at the short-term where their survival is concerned, and Playboy's new marketplace is itself only a temporary fix. In the broader scope of Popular Culture, Marge's centerfold may not do much for Playboy's continued circulation, but her time astride the staples has done much for the future of the women's movement. Make that, the animated women's movement.
Illustrated or 2-D females have rights, the same as their flesh-and-blood sisters in the three-dimensional world, and like 'real' women, face similar restrictions, stereotypes, and even fewer opportunities than their male counterparts. Given our comic boom sensibilities, abbracadabbling's very aware of these issues, but to a political 3-D public, the struggles of animated women are mostly invisible.
The rights of illustrated women are, in fact, hot topics of ongoing discussion about a very sore subject within the comics industry. Comics is a male-dominated business, and I'm not complaining that it is. But I can certainly see - and even agree with - Gail Simone and political comics groups like Women in Refrigerators: more often than not, it's not healthy being a female character in comics.
Marge Simpson has made significant strides to change all that for the better this month. November's issue stands to become a collector's item, joining the ranks of other Playboy milestones like their Marilyn Monroe edition and their 1971 issue which featured Playboy's first black female cover girl, whose front-cover pose and hairdo is identical to Marge's own.
That comparison alone indicated that a big step has been taken this month. Marge has clearly opened doors with her presence in America's most popular gentlemen's magazine, and should Playboy's strategy prove successful, the days of their needing models like Tiffany Fallon to dress as Wonder Woman are over. Now, they'll get the real Wonder Woman.
The number of animated persons on the covers of adult and mainstream magazines is sure to rise like never before. And we'll all be the richer for it.
* * * * * * * *
The November issue of Playboy must be selling flying off shelves like their model's panties, dabblers. And if the sales figures are speaking, it's clear to us the magazine's been listening. An anonymous abbracadabbler grabbed these photos for us while attending last night's Halloween party at the Playboy Mansion.
Still, we're a little concerned - in more ways than one. Are you? Will Marge's success just be the tip of Playboy's iceberg, or do you think they've gone off track with a once-good idea? Take a quick trip to our Back Issues department and let us know!!
Special thanks to our informant, Holy Taco!
No comments:
Post a Comment