Playboy and the Making of the Good Life in Modern America - Hardcover

Fraterrigo, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195386108 ISBN 13: 9780195386103

Publisher: OUP USA, 2009

Synopsis

Playboy was more than a magazine filled with pictures of nude women and advice on how to mix the perfect martini. Indeed, the magazine's vision of sexual liberation, high living, and "the good life" came to define mainstream images of postwar life. In exploring the history of America's most widely read and influential men's magazine, Elizabeth Fraterrigo hones in on the values, style, and gender formulations put forth in its pages and how they gained widespread currency in American culture. She shows that for Hugh Hefner, the "good life" meant the freedom to choose a lifestyle, and the one he promoted was the "playboy life," in which expensive goods and sexually available women were plentiful, obligations were few, and if one worked hard enough, one could enjoy abundant leisure and consumption. In support of this view, Playboy attacked early marriage, traditional gender arrangements, and sanctions against premarital sex, challenging the conservatism of family-centered postwar society. And despite the magazine's ups and downs, significant features of this "playboy life" have become engrained in American society.

About this title

Review

the book's main strenghts lie in Fraterrigo's analysis of specific episodes in the magazine's history. Her careful research and assessment of its advice on consumption, its take on public and private spaces, and its negotiations with both civil rights and feminism are original and sharply observed (Miriam Reumann, Journal of American Studies)

About the Author

Elizabeth Fraterrigo is Assistant Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0195386108
• ISBN 13: 9780195386103
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320