American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story (R.I.P.)

I agree with much that was said about Hugh Hefner, pro and con, when he died.  I do have something of my own perspective, growing up as I did in a small town in a working-class family.  We had few books in our house and there was no library in town so my reading consisted of magazines and newspapers and paperbacks from a rack at the local grocery store, purchased with my $5.00 a week of paper route money (when I turned 12 my father said no more measly allowance from me, since I was now old enough to have a paper route).  I would always try new magazines and was pleased to discover Playboy (it originally cost sixty cents) when it first appeared at Gohl's store; I had never seen naked women and the photographs in Playboy were part of its initial appeal (though fortunately I did not end up like John Ruskin, who supposedly became impotent on his wedding night when confronted with his bride's pubic hair).  But much of its appeal to me was the writing:  Playboy was the first place I saw, and read, among many others, P.G. Wodehouse, Vladimir Nabokov, Jean Shepherd and Ian Fleming, all of whom became favorites and led me to their books eventually.  I knew nothing of the Playboy clubs or sleazy Hugh Hefner or the objectification of women.  Playboy opened up the world beyond my oppressive home town for me and helped me to realize there was a whole, wider world out there.  I had little or no interest in the consumer goods mentioned ---stereos, motorcars and other things I could not afford -- but Playboy also piqued my interest in politics, with articles about civil liberties by Nat Hentoff  and civil rights by James Farmer and there was a detailed interview with Malcolm X.  I even liked the cartoons and jokes(there was little humor in my house and sex was nothing to laugh about) and the Playboy Adviser, which told me useful things, like how often to get a haircut.

Amazon's American Playboy seems to be something of a vanity project, i.e. , Hefner as he sees himself.  The 10-part series consists of old footage of Hefner and his friends and relatives being interviewed and cheesy re-creations of Hef's life (the series is directed by Richard Lopez, long associated with the History Channel).  There's plenty of footage from the Playboy clubs and talk about how much money "bunnies" made and how much they loved the job.  The bunnies were not allowed to date customers, except of course for Hef and his favorite celebrities.  Again, however, Hef gets credit for highlighting African-American performers --such as Dick Gregory and Aretha Franklin --when they weren't allowed to perform in other clubs.  Hef insisted on having African-Americans on his TV show even when Southern stations refused to broadcast it.