Many years ago, at least it seems like many to my older eyes, Playboy magazine was anticipated because it would convince up and coming stars to shed clothes off. It was a rite of passage to see stars like the Landers sisters or Adrienne Barbeau take their clothes off.

Wait, those names don't mean anything to you. Yeah, well, that's sort of the point. In the olden days there weren't many avenues for females stars to make a niche; to work their way up the Hollywood ladder. Playboy was the one spot where someone trying to get a leg up could get some press, because there wasn't a huge market, well a respectable market, for that. Even if the star wasn't willing to show 'everything' (as was the case with the Landers sisters) a Playboy shoot, even with lingerie, guaranteed drooling men, big sales and some publicity.

The field is a little different now. With magazines like Maxim, younger stars can get 'good girl' shots and not have to resort to flashing skin. In a sense, a pictorial in Playboy, far from being a way to start a career, is seen as a last resort, almost a cry for attention.

Young 'stars' that pose for the magazine are more for the reality show spectrum than actresses. The recent pictorials of Aubrey O'Day and Kim Kardashian met with mild curiosity. Kardashian had already 'starred' in her own sex tape, which gave you more than what you could see in the tastefully done pictorial. As for O'Day, if anyone even knows who she is, her drunken antics have been the fodder of the tabloid press for almost a year and the pictorial, with it's heavy airbrushing, made her look too much like a realistic oil painting than a person.

Where Playboy has been making its bread and butter on the pictorial track as been showcasing what could 1best be described as fading stars. For people of a certain age, Playboy still means class and sophistication. It feels less like taking naked pictures if done for Playboy, thus the term tasteful pictorials comes up. However, times have changed and the youth market, which keeps Playboy afloat, have moved on to magazines like Maxim. Those magazines, while not showing nudity, do push the envelope, which makes for the tease factor being better. Because of this actresses who in the past only had the Playboy route can hook up with Maxim, suggest some skin and still keep their integrity in tact. Just as an example, Playboy has wanted Jennifer Love Hewitt to pose, but she has refused. He has been on the cover of Maxim a number of times, including this month.

1Playboy has Lisa Rinna on the cover. Who is she? Well, years ago she was a sex symbol, kind of star, appearing in soap operas and some really bad made for TV movies. She seems to be the one who started the pouty lips trend with actresses, though some would call the trend trout mouth today.

Now at over forty she looks remarkable, though I’m sure airbrushing helped out, but she has these huge collagen injected lips that makes her look awful. You just focus on that mouth. If I’m a young guy, which I’m not, I’m going to be more interested in Hewitt than Rinna. Having her my age, the mouth is too distracting for me to care, plus the photo shoot seem like a plea for her to get a show, which she has been campaigning to get. Just looking at Playboy now you see how it did succeed in getting Americans over being uptight about sex, but the magazine, especially Hugh Hefner, seem like a parody of themselves from better days in the past. It’s a guessing game as to which over 40 actress will be next to try and spice up her career by posing for the magazine.

 

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Lisa Rinna and Posing for Playboy over 40 - May 01, 2009
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