Playboy Presidents
Before I begin my main thesis today, a clarification of terms is necessary. America has certainly had its fair share of playboy presidents (see: Bill Clinton, J.F.K., et al), but it seems we're in a transition point between what might be called two Playboy presidents. That capital "P" and the italics signify the magazine, not the general term, in other words.
Playboy magazine was always known chiefly for its main draw -- photographs of glamorously naked women. There's no denying that. "I only read it for the articles" is now actually a cliché, in fact, although some impressive writing certainly did appear between the photo spreads. Both the fiction and the non-fiction was impressive, which is what set Playboy apart from what all the other "men's magazines" available at the time. For instance, Jimmy Carter admitted his "lust in his heart" in a Playboy interview -- which sent some ripples across the political world at the time.
But when I was thinking both about the end of the Barack Obama presidency and the beginning of the Donald Trump era, I realized that there were two other aspects of Playboy worth commenting on. Both Obama and Trump grew up in what might be called the golden age of Playboy, the 1950s through the 1970s. And both seem to embody these two aspects.
Playboy wasn't just a place to see naked women, it also sold a total lifestyle. The lifestyle might be called different things: cosmopolitan, sophisticated, smooth, or even cool. In its pages, a farmboy or a suburban adolescent or a small-town lad could all dream of one day being cool enough to fit in well at a New York City jazz club, or in a mansion full of beautiful women. There was expert advice on esoteric subjects never before discussed in such non-urban locales -- the hippest cocktails to drink, the most awesomely realistic hi-fi (later: stereo) you could own, and what was in and what was out among the trendsetters of the day. The differences between different brands of cocktail shakers were seriously discussed -- as if of major import -- and the highest end sound equipment was presented as a bare necessity, if you wanted to be considered cool. Even the placement of stereo speakers within a room was absolutely critical, the farmboys and small-town lads were informed.
Cool, at the time, was a major status to strive for. However, back then, cool seemed almost inherent. My wife (a big fan of "Rat Pack" movies) made this observation after sitting through the modern remake of Ocean's Eleven. "Nowadays these guys are all acting cool, but back then the original guys just were cool." People like Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior and all the rest simply lived cool -- they didn't have to try to be cool, because they knew they already were... and effortlessly so. That's the pinnacle that the Playboy lifestyle aspired towards.
Barack Obama, obviously, is a cool character. When he ran for office, one of the slogans used to describe him was "No-Drama Obama." Obama's one of those guys who, if you met him (even if he had remained an unknown), you'd instantly know had a better record collection than you. He exudes the coolness Playboy always tried to promote. He's laid-back and hard to rattle, in other words. His poise and style would have fitted in perfectly in one of Hugh Hefner's legendary parties. He would have known which cocktail to order, and if the barman didn't know how to make it, Obama would have also been able to show the guy how to mix one.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, reportedly decided at an early age to actually live the Playboy lifestyle. He had the money and the leisure time to do so, and anyone familiar with Trump's antics in the 1980s and 1990s knows that he wanted to be New York City's premiere playboy. I'm not sure whether he achieved this status or not, but he certainly gave it his best shot. His sexual exploits were juicy tabloid fodder, and he not only was the subject of a Playboy interview (and cover), he also appeared in a few Playboy videos as well.
Now, technically, the Playboy lifestyle wasn't supposed to be excess just for the sake of excess. You were supposed to have spent $750 for a cassette deck not because you wanted to impress everyone (note: that was a lot of money, back then), but because you simply couldn't countenance the reduced sound quality of lesser equipment. But there's no denying that anyone attempting to live the Playboy lifestyle couldn't really do it on the cheap -- it took a lot of dough to live up to such high standards.
Trump seems to have taken the lesson of "buy expensive stuff" without really absorbing the need for a cool and sophisticated persona, however. He overreached for the Playboy lifestyle, and in doing so proved his lack of sophistication. He flaunted his glitz, but nobody would think of asking him what jazz band he considered the coolest, to put this another way.
Although Playboy magazine is no more (at least, not the physical paper magazine version), its social impact on the latter half of twentieth-century America is undeniable. Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump must have seen through its pages how the coolest of the cool lived in the big cities -- information that simply wasn't available in many other places, at the time. Obama channeled his inner cool, and even though now a family man with a loving wife, he was the closest thing to a real Playboy lifestyle president than anyone since (at least) J.F.K. Donald Trump will be a different kind of Playboy president -- and quite possibly also a playboy president (if his past is any indication). But even though Trump was born before Obama, I can't help but think of my wife's observation, when contemplating the difference. Donald Trump tries to be cool, but Barack Obama just is cool. That's the difference, Nakamichi tape deck or not.
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Hey CW
Back from vacation, and rested... but this column ruins my relaxation.
Cool got Obama elected, but he turned out to be just as square as Hillary.
Neither is as cheesy as Donald, but their pretensions are just as contrived.
Coddling Big Money is just as square as flaunting it.
As for Playboy, the whole premise of the column is flawed.
Buying into their marketing scheme back then is perhaps understandable, but STILL insisting it was authentic is not.
The "lifestyle" was just as cheesy as Donald.
Not so much Dean Martin as Bill Cosby.
Not so much the Dalai Llama as Martin Skrelli.
And Hef's idea of beauty and glamour was narrow and tacky.
Maybe we've just got different definitions for "cool".
A
neil
delayed response-
from "Sorry to see you go" comment 113
"I give my answer to your question and you take it as an insult.
Maybe you should be careful throwing the troll label around."
I took your insult as an insult.
And following it up with another insult is rich.
While we're on the subject of cool, the whole "you're an extremist on the fringe so I can belittle and dismiss your views and the facts" approach is not cool. Maybe you don't see that as insulting, but it is.
Trotting out status quo echo chamber spin as superior is also insulting... not because it's wrong, but specifically because you are generally well informed enough to see past the veneer of that spin and I therefore have higher expectations of you.
Doing so to avoid actually answering or engaging on the subject under discussion is also not cool. And, unlike what I was doing, that actually is behavior that trolls exhibit. We see it here frequently.
(having gone back to see where the conversation left off, I responded to our resident troll right after responding to you... I hope you didn't mistake that as me calling you a troll... I wasn't and never have)
At some point, we will likely have an opportunity to reengage on those subjects...
... and I hope the formerly civil tone will return.
A
Liz
delayed response-
from "Sorry to see you go" comment 115
"Why do you personalize everything, Alice?"
A- Quit hording the pot in your kettle Ms. Black
2- As a defender of the neolibcon status quo, I forgive you for not recognizing the insult as such, and therefore your comment pointing the finger the wrong way doesn't reflect the actual context which was, in fact, personal.
Neil made it personal, I responded appropriately.
A
One can carry your analogy even farther, CW: Trump is to Obama what Larry Flint was to Hefner.
further?
Yes, further.
Liz
delayed response to rhetoric/reality last comment before the thread died:
http://www.chrisweigant.com/2017/01/05/republican-rhetoric-about-to-meet-reality/#comment-91681
But they ["um" and "ah", the former of which Liz said should be abandoned in favor of the latter] mean different things. Directly, they represent different configurations of facial muscles, related to the facial expressions for different emotions. In this context, "um" suggests that I'm puzzled why he would even say that, whereas "ah" would suggest that I recognize his point but I think I have a doozy of a response to it.
You know that is decidedly NOT what 'um' means or implies. :)
... or is that just me being my usual hyper-sensitive self? Probably ... but, maybe not. Heh.
By the way, I like this new "delayed response" method of responding to old comments on old threads.
I have no time for old threads. It's a lesson I have learned the hard way. And, that's all I'm gonna say about that.
Should Trump actually take the oath of office (still unable to envision that happening) or, given that, last more than a fraction of a term, we shall see in stark fashion the vast array of differences that distinguish Obama from Trump, all of which make Obama inherently cooler than the president-elect, effortlessly.
Liz
11
"cooler" is a very different standard than cool.
Did you happen to catch the "Bernie agrees with Trump about Big Pharma" article on HuffPo right now?
Good article.
It didn't make Obama look very cool.
It ends with Bernie doubting that Trump will actually get Republicans to allow negotiated drug pricing for Medicare... but if by some miracle he does, Trump would be cooler in that category at least.
Personally, I'm hoping the establishment trying to hamstring Trump before he's even inaugurated (hacking and the newly released unsubstantiated Russia dossier for example) causes him to take them on... as in the Republicans and their Wall Street coddling Democratic collaborators both.
Trump and his supporters going after Lindsey Graham, Rubio and McCain would be very entertaining. Alas, thus far at least, or I should say to my knowledge as I don't follow far right wing media, Trump has been turning the other cheek and his supporters are laying low.
It's too bad.
A
Balthy
4
That would be another example where I'd disagree.
Flint was a bada** in fighting for free speech and against the establishment.
Again, perhaps different definitions of cool.
I think Penthouse just offered a million bucks for compromising Trump videos.
Do you think that's cool?
A
Führer Drumpf is projecting again.
Haha. CNN was Trump TV for a year and now it's fake news?
altohone [13]:Flint was a bada** in fighting for free speech and against the establishment.
To a significant portion of the electorate, so is Trump. Assholes have rights too, right? Flint is probably part of the reason that I can't be prosecuted for the previous sentence. I get that.
Don't forget that a major portion of the Trump message was against the idea pushing back against "political correctness", which even the left (Maher, famously) long ago abandoned, but which the far right has taken to mean "not our opinion". Although their opinions dominate cable news, radio, book publishing, and social media, the Right frequently claim to be shut out from the mainstream of American media, which would be laughable if it weren't true that they believe it.
Again, perhaps different definitions of cool.
Very different. It's really a comparison of Trump's garish, 'in-your-face' version, and Obama's 'intellectual sophisticate' version.
In their day, Flint embraced the former, Hefner, the latter. That's my point.
But as CW points out, that dichotomy in the world of cool already existed long before Flint came on the scene, embodied in the deliberate tension between what Playboy was, and what its critics thought it should be. To its critics, Playboy's veneer of sophistication was a mask for the same old frat boy power-game sexual politics that Trump is now famous for. Gloria Steinem famously wrote an article about exactly that.
So, when Flint came along, he was viewed by his fans as a liberator; where Hefner featured airbrushed models, Flint countered with close-ups of vaginas. Flint was the champion of the blue collar guy, the guy who liked to come home with a sixpack and a stack of martial arts videos.
I think Penthouse just offered a million bucks for compromising Trump videos. Do you think that's cool?
Well, Larry Flint very famously brought down the Republican Speaker of the House Bob Livingston using that very tactic. At the time, it was viewed as a straightforward response to Livingston's own hypocrisy, as he was preparing to impeach Clinton for indiscretion.
Whether that's cool or not now is the basis for a good ethical discussion. We live in the world of the fappening, wherein actresses' personal porno is leaked to the media without their approval. With the Government, the Russians, the corporations, and god knows who else poking around in our personal files, we're a little schizy about publicly outing personal porn. On the other hand: Wiener.
But, for instance, if a foreign government has compromising videotape of Trump that they could hold over his head, or if anyone has video that could form the basis of blackmail, then it would be a form of public service to know about it.
Trump has one point, though: even if such a tape were to come to light, his public might forgive him for it, just as they forgave him the Access Hollywood tape. Just as you praised Flint, Trump's followers will give him a pass, because the sleazeball side of him isn't an issue to them. After all, they voted for him after the Access Hollywood tape came to light.
...a major portion of the Trump message was about pushing back against "political correctness"..
Balthasar,
How do you define political correctness?
How do you define political correctness?
That's a really good question. Generously, political correctness is the setting of boundaries for political discourse. Those in favor of 'political correctness' point out that the same folks who criticize the setting of boundaries in political speech would cry bloody murder if a candidate were to endorse pedophilia, white slavery or cannibalism.
Upon reflection, however, and although I'm generally in favor of a more civil discourse at all times in all venues, I have to avow a dislike of boundary-setting. For one thing, the very setting of boundaries can and has become an issue, and I believe it to be a matter of historical fact that folks who concern themselves with setting behavioral rules for society always err on the side of over-reach, and end up limiting valuable speech. Recent innovations, such as 'micro-aggression' compound the problem, since the party who has committed the offense, by this theory, needn't have intended offense at all. Such a theory only undermines its own rationale.
But this is a growing problem: it has become increasingly popular to socially and legally punish 'intent', culminating in the concept of 'hate crime', which Maher likens to the Orwellian 'thought crime'. I don't know about anyone else, but the thought that anyone could be punished for having 'incorrect thoughts' is kind of scary, even if my own opinions are fairly commonplace and pedestrian, even when the offensive opinions in question are in my ears hurtful or disgusting. The danger of 'political correctness', I believe, is when it, or any other dogma, is converted from social opinion to legal mandate. Unfortunately, history shows that a lack of vigilance against this usually results in the very worst outcomes.
Are you saying that it is political correctness that sets boundaries to what can and cannot be discussed?
I thought I knew what pc was but, I have heard so many different interpretations and seen so many different scenarios where it is decried by so many different people that I don't think the concept is very well understood.
Are you saying that it is political correctness that sets boundaries to what can and cannot be discussed?
No; that is (or was) the goal of those who believed in PC once, particularly those on the left who wanted to limit the slurs and unintended insults of common dialogue (particularly toward already frequently victimized groups, such as minorities, women and the disabled), but almost as soon as the term was introduced (in academia, of course) in the 1980's, it was derided, even by some of those who initially supported the idea, and since then, the term is used almost exclusively either ironically (by the left) or as a pejorative (by the right).
Ironically, the term's use in its original sense was actually limited mostly to a few academic settings, but it has enjoyed such popularity as a slur by both right and left, that many believe now that the PC movement was broader and deeper than it really was. The Right, as I noted earlier, now frequently uses the term to broadly define any political belief that doesn't conform to their own set of dogmatic beliefs, so it has, in a sense, come full circle.
I thought I knew what pc was but, I have heard so many different interpretations and seen so many different scenarios where it is decried by so many different people that I don't think the concept is very well understood.
I agree, which was why I chose the neutral 'boundaries' definition in my previous post, rather than try to walk it back from its current use as a pejorative to its original use as a limiter of offensive speech. In my opinion, both the left (originally) and the right (currently) have mis-used the term, and the concept (of defining the boundaries of acceptable political discourse) to advance their own agendas, rather than as a basis for useful and productive dialogue.
You know that is decidedly NOT what 'um' means or implies.
What specifically do you disagree with?
Strictly speaking, of course, "um" and "ah" don't imply anything. They're just sounds, not words, but they're different sounds.
They probably differ a little by region, but "um" in speech is normally filler for a relatively long pause while someone figures out what they're going to say, but not quite long enough for them to just make it the other person's turn to talk and try to come back to the point later. In writing, of course, we just don't click "Submit Comment" or the equivalent until we're done with the pauses, so "um" is an artifice representing where such a pause might have come if we'd been speaking.
"Ah" is more versatile. It varies especially by duration. At the short extreme, an "ah" can be what you say to a dog who's made a mistake in carrying out a complex command, where you need a quick sound to indicate exactly when the error comes. At the longest, it can represent a sigh of relaxation.
Either of them is subject to interpretation, "ah" more so than "um", but the possibilities I suggested still seem among the most likely in that context. And I still think they're nowhere near interchangeable.
How do you define political correctness?
I'm not Balthasar, but neither am I likely to let that stop me. "Political correctness" is basically an insult-word used by people who want to use the N word in public without anyone else feeling as though it's safe to express any disapproval. It comes pre-packaged with a plethora of lies. The thought-police nonsense that it supposedly refers to never really existed.
If you are answering someone and you start your answer with 'um ...', you are implying that your discussion partner is not understanding something that is easily understandable.
In other words, 'um' denotes a subtle insult.
Ah, that's the way I see it, anyways. :)
"Political correctness" is basically an insult-word used by people who want to use the N word in public without anyone else feeling as though it's safe to express any disapproval. It comes pre-packaged with a plethora of lies. The thought-police nonsense that it supposedly refers to never really existed.
That's a good, concise way to put it. ;}
Balthasar [4] -
OK, now that>>>>>>>>> is a pretty good analogy! A hat-tip to you, Sir!
:-)
[5] -
I think "farther" was right. Unless you're Ken Kesey, in which case "furthur" is the correct spelling. Heh.
dsws [7] -
Um? Ah? Gotta get caught up on the comments, obviously. Sounds like just the sort of juicy pedantry I could sink my teeth into.
"Er" anyone?
altohone [13] -
Don't forget "The Flynt Report," too -- took down a Speaker-to-be...
Balthasar [16] -
Missed that Gloria Steinem article. Did it appear in Playboy?
Heh... couldn't resist. So what did you think about Steinem's gaffe during last year's campaign? Just curious.
And kudos for pointing out the Flynt Report aftermath... and to think the guy who was the "safe alternative" after that was Denny Hastert, who (as we now know) had his own skeletons in the sexual closet...
Good point about a possible Trump tape, too. Marion Barry kept getting elected after his hidden video came out...
Balthasar [19] -
Having come of age during the worst period of "PC" run amok, I can agree with you both on the excesses of deciding what others can and cannot say (I was told I was "visually challenged" rather than "wear glasses," which I thought was freakin' ridiculous, personally), and on the insidiousness of thoughtcrime, no matter WHO defines it (and what their motivations might be).
LizM [20] -
I'm not 100% sure where PC has now wound up, but back in the 1980s on liberal college campuses, you'd get criticized for saying things like "blind" or "queer" or any number of other labels that got tossed around.
Now, I realize the intent was good. After all, some of the labels in use back then were undoubtedly hurtful, and have been retired by common consent. Nobody dares say things like "retarded" or "crippled" anymore, because the people being so described didn't like it. Fair enough. There's enough pain in the world without inadvertently adding to it.
But what the grammar reformers never really grasped was a simple bit of human nature: if you're going to replace something, then your replacement should be easier to say and think of than the original. Example: "Chairman" became just "Chair" -- removing the male-centric nature, but shortening it and making it snappier. That's a good replacement. But replacing "garbageman" with "sanitation engineer" never really caught on, because it's just too much of a mouthful.
Again, some of this was useful, some of it was just silly. Here are two examples: A while back, in the dawn of the PC era, a whole lot of geographic features got renamed. Things like "Negro Mountain" (or even worse N-words) got changed to other names. I missed this wave of map-editing, but witnessed a big push to change a lot of California place names from "squaw" to something else (the etymology of "squaw" is debatable, but one interpretation is pretty graphic). However, Squaw Valley is a big ski resort out here, and has yet to change. Also, we still see the Washington "Ethnic Slurs" playing football even now.
However, once you start down this road, it's sometimes hard to stop. A city out here (Sacramento, from memory) spent a whole lot of time and money discussing what they should change "manhole cover" to in their civic documents. This time, someone smartly came up with an acronym (forget what it was exactly, "Maintanence Access Node," maybe?) so that they could just change it to MANhole covers. True story.
So a little PC is probably OK, but it's a very slippery slope that ends in ridiculousness.
Again, not where the term is now, just a personal snapshot from a liberal campus in the 80s, in the PC era.
As for "um" and "ah" -- that's always the problem with typing out streams of thought. YOU (not you personally, just the universal "you") think it is perfectly clear what you're trying to convey, but then when others read it it looks different. I've been trapped by this online more times than I care to admit, and then when I look at what I wrote later, I can see their point.
I personally use "Um..." to signify I am taken aback in some way by a comment, and am trying to think of a way to respond. I don't use "Ah" that much, except when trying to be snarky, usually in "Ah... no." But that's just me...
-CW
LizM -
Oh, and since you're Canadian, I should have ended with ", eh?"... right?
Heh. Couldn't resist.
:-)
-CW
It's amazing how the whole concept of being politically correct, not to mention politically incorrect, aside from its evolution over the years, seems to have wholly different meanings for different people as evidenced by the way they use the phrase.
By the way, in future, you should try to resist. :)
CW: Re your comment on [16] in comment [25]:
Considering that Steinem's gaffe was her most notable contribution to the 2016 election cycle, I would nominate her for a "Roger" Award (which I have named after the character in Pulp Fiction who shoots at Vincent and Jules at point-blank range), for completely missing the mark in a target-rich environment.
Re: CW's comment to [20] in [25}:
My own solution to Washington's branding problem would be to re-name the franchise the "Potomacs", after the native tribe that once inhabited that area. They wouldn't even have to significantly change their logo, yet the new designation could be played as a homage, rather than a slur. There: solved that.
I won't add more to what I've already said about PC, except that you (Chris) had more experience with it than I. By that time, I'd moved to the midwest, where the closest thing to PC was saying, "excuse me, but.." before insulting someone. You make a good point that many of the worst insults that PC targeted have in fact since dropped out of common usage, even in the midwest.
I find it interesting that Trump's inappropriateness has resurrected this dead letter, and it comes back to my earlier discussion of 'boundaries' in political discourse. I find two sides to the debate on the left:
One side says, "boundaries are necessary to civilized discourse". Without boundaries, they say political discussions would inevitably devolve into crass insult-fests, and common understanding would be replaced by common animosity. The question nags, however: who decides where the boundaries are to be set? On the other hand, they argue, boundaries are already being set - by producers and editors in media outlets, by law, and by the marketplace itself. The 'Hays Code' may have been excessive, they argue, but it was also good for Hollywood's bottom line, and might have even saved Hollywood during the depression by expanding its audience. Post-code Hollywood, they argue, may have been artistically rich, but was also accompanied by a drop-off in theater attendance.
The other side says, "boundaries are little more than the imposition of one group's values on another." The better tack to take, they'd say, is to rob offensive language of its sting by repeating it in a different context - to de-weaponize it, so to speak. The TV show, All in the Family, for instance, did this brilliantly. In doing this, however, one risks normalizing the very slurs one wishes would go away.
To me, this is an interesting and timely debate.
To me, this is an interesting and timely debate.
On a very old and tired thread.
All interesting and timely debates should move to the current thread.
But that's just me...
Nope, not just you. That's pretty much how I use those transcribed nonverbal sounds too.