Rachel del Valle | 'Playboy,' 'Pan Am' and misplaced nostalgia

Playboy Bunnies and stewardesses. I’m not describing characters in an adult ?lm. I’m talking about the fall TV lineup.

NBC’s The Playboy Club, which premiered last week, follows the trials and tribulations of a buxom, semi-diverse group of bunnies living in 1963 Chicago. Hugh Hefner’s voiceover promotes a convoluted sense of women’s empowerment from wearing a satin corset and pair of bunny ears. His message is creepy and, frankly, it’s a little screwed-up.

Hefner pretends that his empire built entirely on T&A somehow liberated women, actually saying that his bunnies were “some of the only women in the world who could be anyone they wanted to be.” But the fact is that these women were not anyone who they wanted to be, they were what men’s fantasies wanted them to be. There’s nothing glamorous about the fact that these men “didn’t know their last name.”

It’s truly striking how in?uential Mad Men has been in popular culture — from neckties to marketing, the effect is palpable. What distinguishes Mad Men from this new crop of ’60s shows is the subtlety with which it presents an era that was as prejudiced as it was aesthetically pleasing. Because unlike The Playboy Club’s “Bunny Mother” Carol-Lynne, Mad Men’s office administrator Joan uses her both her skills and her sex appeal to get ahead in a male-dominated workplace. Carol-Lynne, who doesn’t have a scene without cleavage, is a poor imitation of equally voluptuous but cleverer Joan. The Playboy Club, with its slanted view of the ’60s, loses all of the objective intrigue of Mad Men.

While it’s difficult to figure out just why Mad Men has struck such a chord in popular culture, one reason may be the oversaturated sexuality of television in the years before it. While Mad Men is by no means as chaste as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, it does create a certain sense of sexual mystery. This is partly owed to its spot on the moderately censored AMC network, which, given its basic cable status, isn’t as explicit as HBO but can afford to be more cheeky than, say, CBS. Logistics aside, the sex in Mad Men is presented in such a way that it’s not the only thing that makes people tune in.

College sophomore Zach Tomasovic thinks Mad Men’s success comes from the fact that “it’s far enough that it’s nostalgic, but it’s close enough that people can identify with it.” Noting the trend toward all things Camelot in popular culture, Tomasovic says, “I think we all yearn for the life of Mad Men, save for the sexism.”

It’s that satire on sexism that The Playboy Club seems to miss. As feminine feminist Gloria Steinem proved in her 1963 expose, in which she went undercover as a Playboy Bunny, wearing the tail wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Also banking on the trend toward ’60s nostalgia is ABC’s Pan Am. The show, which premiered last night, centers around a group of ?ight attendants who choose to don periwinkle uniforms so they can “see the world.” I haven’t been able to watch the pilot yet, but judging by the saturated color scheme and stereotypical characters featured in promos, I don’t expect much.

But this is not TV Guide, this is (thankfully) not Jezebel, this is The Daily Pennsylvanian. “Why should I even care what’s on TV? I don’t even own a TV.” And to you I say, fair point, sir. But consider this: primetime television is about as mainstream as culture gets. When there’s something as central as a TV show glorifying a tradition of objectifying women from half a century ago, that’s troublesome.

I’m not saying we should all burn our bras/televisions/laptops in protest and boycott the show. Boycott NBC! (If I were to boycott NBC, I’d have to boycott 30 Rock, and I just can’t do that). But I do urge you to consider how the media is portraying young women. Sure, for every Snooki, there’s a Liz Lemon. But that balance is delicate. It’s scary to think that someone like Kim Kardashian has replaced Carrie Bradshaw in terms of cultural relevance. You don’t have to watch what you watch, but you should at least think about it.

Rachel del Valle is a College sophomore from Newark, N.J. Her email address is rdel@sas.upenn.edu. Duly Noted appears every Monday.

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