Oct. 19--Oh, Playboy.
Inviting Tina Fey to strip naked in your fading magazine isn't clever. It just reminds the world you're that old guy who hits on the interns and overstays his welcome at parties.
Fey's "Saturday Night Live" appearance was spun gold, skewering the culture that made your brand a success even as she slyly referenced why it no longer sells.
"Yes, Playboy magazine has announced they will stop publishing naked photos early next year," she deadpanned, "dashing the dreams of many a beautiful, young woman who had hoped to one day move to Los Angeles and then, just by changing every single aspect of her appearance, maybe become Miss February.
"And then," she continued, "work her way up the company ladder until one day she gets invited to have an early bird fake five-way with a 100-year-old sex monster."
(Or marry him! Ba-dump-bump.)
The pundits say you bowed out of the nudity game because the Internet was killing you, offering live-action sleaze that makes your nudes look tame.
But that's only half of the story. The other half is that women no longer need to be lusted after to grab a slice of the spotlight. Playboy may have helped make Marilyn Monroe a star, but stripping in 2015 isn't a path to power. It's a path to becoming a Kardashian.
So when Fey joked that she always dreamed of appearing nude for Playboy, hoping to pose "in just a half an Eagles jersey and tube socks" and again "in a bale of hay," you missed a golden opportunity.
Here was your chance to establish your new brand as a classier, smarter operation -- still with the investigative journalism and in-depth profiles -- but delivered with the recognition that women are fascinating and worthy company, even without the come-hither props.
"The difference between us and Vice," Scott Flanders, your chief executive, told The New York Times, "is that we're going after the guy with a job."
Then instead of responding to Fey's jabs with a tweet inviting her to pose nude, you should have offered to profile her.
She's got lots to say about having a job, particularly since she's got a few. She earned $500,000 per episode of "30 Rock," another $13 million in book sales and executive producing salary and is worth an estimated $45 million.
And she's hilarious.
I don't know what your future holds as a magazine and, to be honest, I don't really care. You represent a lot of things I hate -- objectification of women and misplaced nostalgia, for starters -- and I won't mourn your demise when and if it occurs.
But in the meantime, if you want your revamped magazine to succeed, you'd do well to realize the female half of the population is worth talking to and listening to, even when they're fully clothed.
hstevens@tribpub.com
