Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America. Elizabeth Fraterrigo. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009. 320 pp.
Hugh Hefner’s Playboy, founded in 1953, has been subjected to extensive analysis and criticism from the likes of feminist scholar Andrea Dworkin, the new journalism of Gay Talese, and Hefner biographer Steven Watts. So, is there anything more to be said about this magazine? Fortunately for Elizabeth Fraterrigo, the answer is yes.
Fraterrigo, an assistant professor of history at Loyola University in Chicago, uses old issues of Playboy, newspaper articles, Hefner’s scrapbooks, letters, and an interview with Hefner himself to illuminate a transitional time in America when women were entering the workforce, demanding equal pay, and taking on roles once occupied solely by males. She argues convincingly that Playboy promoted a model of masculinity that emphasized bachelorhood, apartment-living, and pro-miscuity in opposition to the traditional 1950s ideal of marriage, two children, and a suburban house. At the same time, Fraterrigo argues that Hefner’s philosophy of uninhibited sexuality was also in line with mainstream society because the goal of “prolonged bachelorhood,” in Hefner’s opinion, was to “ultimately strengthen marital bonds.”