Playboy are hoping that their decision to undergo a change of image will mean that no nudes is good news, but throughout the magazine's storied history, there geniunely have been some very good articles.
The move has been part of a longer term plan to attain a high class image for Playboy, so that it moves off the top shelf and no longer needs to be slotted into a brown paper bag or hidden away in the inside pocket of a jacket.
Rather, it hopes to occupy the space in the market that the likes of GQ, Esquire and other men's magazines have set out as their niche; the pictures of women are still there and will still feature, but with an 89-year-old Hugh Hefner still the editor-in-chief, this feels like somewhat of a step away from the influence of the man who inhabits the famous Playboy Mansion and its equally infamous grotto.
Outside of that however, over the years they've featured interviews with figures like Malcolm X and Vladimir Nabokov, short stories from Roald Dahl (not for children), and strong features on a variety of topics.
Its influence on pop culture can't be underestimated either, as the logo apparently ranks as one of the most recognisable in the world alongside Nike and McDonalds, but the seedy image is one that's hard to shake. Even in the course of researching this piece, I had to request that the site be unblocked by the IT department. For research purposes of course, I'm just reading it for the articles.
Joke theft
The magazine's monthly "Playboy Party Jokes" column was the subject of a side story in an episode of Friends, as Ross and Chandler argued about joke theft, but their feature on that topic preempted a turn against Instagram/Twitter/Facebook "comedian" Josh Ostrovsky, better known as The Fat Jew.
A photo posted by thefatjewish (@thefatjewish) on Oct 11, 2015 at 3:38pm PDT
It lays out how both his account, and those of other joke aggregation sites are stopping real writers and comedians from getting paid for their work in the pursuit of cheap social media likes, and how it's a bigger deal than you might think.
Jimmy Carter's confession
It was on off the cuff remark to a freelance writer for Playboy, but the comment from Jimmy Carter that he had "looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times" was an incredibly important moment given that it was unprecedented clarity and honesty from a presidential candidate in the immediate aftermath of the Nixon years and Watergate.
Context played a key role in it, given that he'd said the comment to Playboy and it was the leading adult magazine at the time, but the media storm that surrounded it was the incident that meant that the private lives of those running for public office were now fair game for media and opposition alike.
Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1964, the iconic leader of the civil rights movement had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and while you might expect the last place for him to be giving an interview would be with Playboy, he decided to sit down and speak to one of the publications most famous journalists, Alex Haley.
Image: Bill Ingraham / AP/Press Association Images
The discussion and subsequent interview turned out to be the longest that King ever granted to any publication, and he detailed that one of the few times he was ever lost for words was when he tried to explain to his daughter that she wouldn't be able to visit a local amusement park because of segregation: "I have won some applause as a speaker, but my tongue twisted and my speech stammered seeking to explain to my six-year-old daughter why the public invitation on television didn't include her, and others like her. One of the most painful experiences I have ever faced was to see her tears when I told her that Funtown was closed to colored children, for I realized that at that moment the first dark cloud of inferiority had floated into her little mental sky".
Hurt Locker
The Oscar winning movie Hurt Locker was spawned from a Playboy article called 'The Man in the Bomb Suit'. Writer Mark Boal was embedded with a bomb-disposal team in Iraq in 2005, and the research he did in the course of that article lead to him penning the screenplay for the movie.
It also gave people an insight into the daily goings on thousands of miles away for a group of soldiers whose lives are in constant danger, and how that juxtaposes with everyday life in a real city: "This is what the war in Iraq looks like on most days: a traffic jam and a roadside bomb."
Hidden Mansion tunnels
In the course of rooting through some old photos and documents to pull together an editorial for Hugh Hefner's birthday, the editors at Playboy came across an interesting set of plans for the Mansion.
They showed that there were underground tunnels that lead straight to the homes of some of Hollywood's leading figures, including "Mr. J. Nicholson," "Mr. W. Beatty," "Mr. K. Douglas," and "Mr. J. Caan". No prizes for guessing who they're talking about.
Stanley Kubrick
Shortly after the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick gave the magazine a long, in-depth interview in which he talked about the movie, its meaning, and his own beliefs on some of the metaphysical and philosophical topics that it addresses.
Image: AP/Press Association Images
He refused to lay out a road map for viewers in the piece, for fear that they "will feel obligated to pursue or else fear he's missed the point", but he did state that what "2001 succeeds at [...] is in reaching a wide spectrum of people who would not often give a thought to man's destiny, his role in the cosmos and his relationship to higher forms of life".
All of those pieces sit alongside pictures of high profile women such as Marilyn Monroe, Playboy bunnies and centrefold stars that made the magazine a household name, albeit one that was spoken about in hushed tones.
This move is one that will put a focus on the content again, perhaps without the need to appeal to the baser instincts in order to sell copies, and is driven by a plan to lure in different advertisers. Or perhaps they simply need to show that there was an audience of people who really were interested in the articles.
