Posted on 08/05/2011 4:53:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
NBC has placed a new drama called "The Playboy Club" on its fall schedule to capitalize on the scandalous sound of America's most famous pornography empire. If this network had any shame at all, it wouldn't be so desperate to associate itself with female exploitation.
So far, one brave NBC affiliate, KSL in Salt Lake City, has refused to join in this porn-promoting parade. "The Playboy brand is known internationally," KSL President Mark Willes declared. "Everyone is clear what it stands for. We want to be sure everyone is clear what the KSL brand stands for, which is completely inconsistent with the Playboy brand. We would be helping to build a brand that stands for pornography. For us, that's just untenable."
NBC president Robert Greenblatt has offered his rebuttal, and wrapped himself in a mantle of righteousness. "What it has going for it is a recognizable brand that's automatically going to draw attention to it, good or bad," he said. "It's the right kind of thing for us to try."
The same could be said for the KKK. It has a "recognizable brand." Would NBC consider a drama in that direction?
In an attempt to prevent this seedy show from the avalanche of bad publicity it so richly deserves, the producers of "The Playboy Club" are trying some real spin-control howlers. Like, this show is really about the female characters and their empowerment. It's "all about empowering these women to be whatever they want to be," executive producer Chad Hodge told a room of reporters in Los Angeles from the Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour.
The critics aren't buying it. "I hear someone use the word 'empowering' but I've heard from my female readers that a show centered on Playboy...they don't see it as empowering," said one.
So far, NBC isn't finding fans in any corner. But NBC president Greenblatt is trying to insist the show won't lose another affiliate, and the show isn't really that edgy. "I guess I wasn't completely surprised (at the Utah defection). That brand name is a little polarizing. I think the show isn't all that revealing." Hodge even claimed, "It's mild compared to anything else on television. It really has nothing to do with anything racy or trying to be exploitative."
So why not call it "The Copacabana Club"? It's "The Playboy Club" because it wants to be racy. And it is going to be exploitative. That's the ugly reality.
How racy? The pilot's producers at 20th Century Fox TV required the actors to sign a contract with a nudity clause, something unheard of in network television. The lawyers insisted, "Nudity as defined above and or, simulated sex acts may be required in connection with the player's services in the pilot and or, series." For the actors, nudity may not be optional. It's required for employment. So, Executive Producer Hodge is lying, pure and simple.
NBC has tried to argue that this show isn't about the porn magazine, just about a vaguely related nightclub. But this show is about porn-ifying the culture by promoting the Playboy brand as sexy and sophisticated. It's also about NBC pushing the glamorization of nudity as far as they can go in a blatant attempt to improve its sagging ratings.
Advocates for family-friendly television are also giving NBC headaches. They asked reporters to squash the story of a letter-writing campaign to their NBC affiliates organized by the Parents Television Council, PTC, about refusing to air the show.
In an editorial predictably lining up with Hollywood, Broadcasting & Cable magazine reported that "someone at NBC" asked them "Are you sure this is a story?" They added, "We have heard this question before from other network executives about other PTC complaints and the answer remains, sadly, yes."
The magazine's editorialists complained the PTC is newsworthy because "they have gotten results in the past," all because of "powers given to it by government (through the Federal Communications Commission), not journalists, and a power above and beyond the merits of its complaints."
Isn't it ironic that the same people who always argue against "censorship" want to squash news stories against them?
It doesn't matter to Hollywood and its affiliated publicity organs like Broadcasting & Cable that pro-family groups aren't petitioning the FCC on this program. They are just organizing Americans in a letter-writing campaign to NBC stations. Democracy and public activism apparently are supposed to end where Hollywood "creativity" begins.
NBC should be universally mocked for making ridiculous arguments that this show is somehow not about nudity or pornography, or that it's female empowering, or that opposition isn't newsworthy. This show should be denounced as a tawdry mess by the religious right. the feminist left and everyone in between.
Larry Flint musta turned them down
Stand up for quality programming.
Who even watches these shows anymore?
Everyone I know has moved onto Netflix and Vudu.
Honestly, the “soap operaish” dramas are the last thing we watch.
Everyone watches Pawn Stars and Ice Road Truckers type shows.
They’ll become crime fighting bunnies and Hef will be the tough yet tender pipe puffing commissioner of Hubbahubbaville. Their first case? Bring down the heinous Pennsylvania Dutch and their decency syndicate. Bunny tails up, girls!
I saw some ads for new network TV shows when I took the girls to see “Harry Potter and the Whatever It Was.” They all looked like filth, though with rather expensive production values.
My husband and sons watch things like “Top Shot” on Netflix streaming, and DP watches recent episodes of “Big Bang Theory” on his laptop. (I’ll just wait for the DVDs to be out through Netflix - I refuse to watch tv on the computer. Plus it has commercials at whatever site he’s using.)
I switched from a $70/moonth program to a $15/month when I noticed nobody watched it anyway.
The irony is that a real series about Playboy wouldn’t be so glamorous. It would show a pathetic old man living in a gaudy “mansion”, popping Viagra and chasing after glorified prostitutes. It would be something out of a Benny Hill sketch.
Only difference is that "Man Men" actually has depth, characters, a plot, excellent writing . . . . .
Not even glorified ... just prostitutes.
This show looks to be a jiggle-and-giggle gutter prowler. I suspect that if you wade through the sewer far enough, you’ll find Hugh Hefner’s wrinkled hands in this too. That sad caricature of an empire he once had is crumbling and he likely cut a sweetheart deal with the offal merchants at NBC to promote his worn-out vision of “glamour.”
In any case, this is another one for the “Must Miss” list.
Hi, Kaslin and company:
‘The Playboy Club’ was first pitched as NBC’s ‘Same Thing, Only Different’ answer to AMC’s ‘Mad Men’ hommage to the advertising, corporate group-think and morals the 1960s.
Not being a fan of ‘Mad Men’ and also glaringly aware that NBC hasn’t had a dramatic series I looked forward to each week since ‘Hill Street Blues’. I’ll wager that ‘The Playboy Club’ won’t make it through six episodes before its plug is pulled.
Just my two cents.
Jack.
I liked “Hill Street Blues,” too.
For those of you playing at home, KSL is Bonneville Communications which is owned by The LDS Church....
the author skips a few realities.
1. the real sale is going to be off the networks via dvd and on demand sales for UNcensored versions.
2. if anything this helps get viewers because of the tame nature of playboy.
3. note: playboy has been dying for decades. They went from girl next door to female dog on reality show. This is why they have to reach that far back.
4. network tv is already dead.
What's a guy gotta do fo get some disrespect around here? - Larry Flynt
As much as I am a big fan of hef and the girls, I don’t think that it will make it. Nobody wants to hear an hour’s worth of women complaining how miserable their life is...whether or not they are dressed in bunny suits. I get that eight hours of the day at work from the gals in the office.
“Why won’t he commit?”
“Why didn’t he call?”
“Why doesn’t he want to be around me?”
Well, have you ever tried to listen to yourselves?
And, yes, it is NBC’s answer to Mad Men.
BTW...My sister and her friends went to Las Vegas a couple of months ago, and all I wanted her to bring back for me was my very own Playboy bunny from the club...
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