Well known feminist and activist Gloria Steinem has decided to join watchdogs like Parents Television Council and urge a viewer boycott of NBC’s upcoming series “Playboy Club.” She has a special perspective on the topic of the program, having worked at an actual Playboy Club back in the day.
Steinem said she is highly skeptical that the program will be historically accurate, and will simply reinforce old stereotypes of male dominance and female passivity.
According to Reuters, Steinem said, “Clearly The Playboy Club is not going to be accurate. It was the tackiest place on earth. It was not glamorous at all.”
Steinem worked at a club in New York in 1963, writing an essay on her experience there. “When I was working there and writing the expose, one of the things they had to change because of my expose was that they required all the Bunnies, who were just waitresses, to have an internal exam and a test for venereal disease,” she said.
Parents Television Council has condemned the program in advance, and so far the only NBC affiliate that has opted out of the program is Bonneville’s KSL-TV in Salt Lake City UT. Local MNT affiliate KMYU-TV has already picked it up, so the citizens of SLC will have access to it despite Bonneville’s decision.
RBR-TVBR observation: There are ways to use programs such as this without resorting to censorship. If the content of the program is going to be as bad as its pre-opponents believe, it will give them an excuse each and every week it remains on the schedule to get on their soapboxes and point out its horrors.
Jumping on it now only helps assure that it will make a big splash when it debuts, thanks to all the free publicity, and the notoriety that makes citizens curious to check it out for themselves.
