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Some pop culture phenomena are so ridiculously heterosexual that they fall right over the cliff into unintentional camp: I’m thinking of TV’s Jersey Shore, Michael Buble singing “Me and Mrs. Jones,” and many of Quentin Tarantino’s films. Add to that list the Playboy empire’s fledgling website The Smoking Jacket. It’s marketed as a workplace-safe internet time-killer loaded with non-naked women and blue-balls humor that puts the “tee-hee” in “dirty.” In short – it’s a deliciously gaudy train wreck created by clueless, boner pill-popping execs.

In the clumsy retro world of The Jacket, breasts are called “bongos,” “tit pinatas,” and “melons.” There’s a section on the website called “Lifestyle,” a word that few people under the age of 50 can define. A photo collection from some kind of 1983 Playboy Mansion Field Day event features TV cheesebag Chuck Woolery as host and headband-wearing playmates grunting their way through Battle of the Network Stars –type competitions. Best of all is a 20-second video introduction to the site by Hef himself. Struggling to keep his dentures in his mouth, the old sybarite slurs unenthusiastically: “Next to The Mansion, it’s the best hangout on the planet!” Um, Hef? Viewers looking for less strained irony and more “bongos” and “melons” would probably disagree.

7 COMMENTS

  1. I think the heterosexual camp in Quentin Tarantino’s films is totally intentional.

    To the subject of the post, “bongos” and “melons”? Dear God. Playboy never did keep up with the changing times. They’re probably gambling on “Mad Men” making this retro stuff hip again. They’ve picked a sad way to do it.

  2. I was left unimpressed. But the press release does say Playboy is targeting ‘Cube dwellers and office drones’. Those who do work in offices are unlikely to think of themselves that way, but it seems Playboy does, and has built a site to suit.

  3. Seriously, you guys need to lighten up. Playboy is only following suit with the rest of the competition- brobibles, busted coverage, and numerous other “dude” sites out there that don’t show nudity but have plenty of all of the above that this writer chose to criticize- without joining the numerous, shady porn sites out there. “boner-popping execs?” More like, “pretty smart @ss decision”, they’ll probably rake in a ton more ad revenue selling spots on that site than their main nudey site, don’t you think there was a BIT of thought that went behind that? Actually, maybe playboy should be more like the Ft Worth Weekly. Then they’ll surely last for another 57 some-odd years.

    Lame.

  4. As to the main point of the writer’s post, it’s what is known as “weak bait” as if the state-of-being known as “heterosexuality” somehow needed to be justified. It doesn’t.

    What’s really notable here (and easily discernible in a matter of seconds) is the writer’s fascination with heterosexuals. He seems to find them irresistibly titillating. If he were a 13 year old girl that would be one thing … but for an adult …… ? He is really only the same as what he derides isn’t he. He’s looking at his own image staring back at him in reverse just like in a mirror … a reverse image.

    All groups, movements. people, animals produce waste and “Playboy” is no doubt an unnecessary example of human excrement. But the writer seems to need to probe it … to get inside the workings of “the other” to sort of slither around in its waste, to languish in it and then to judge it based on the findings of his puny little experiment.

  5. Mountainmmoova, you have peered deep into my soul and found the probing, slithering, languishing 13 year old girl within.

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