Every writer dreams of having an impact upon the culture
around him, so I must confess to an insidious sense of gratification brought on
by the realization that my ranting recently about the declining number of
cartoons in Playboy has had an
impact: to make up for the neglect of the last several issues, the new
management has put a cartoon character on the cover of the November issue. A
first. Drawn by Julius Preite, Marge
Simpson, the matriarch of the first family of Springfield, is on display — seated
on a bunny-headed chair that coyly nearly obscures the fact that she’s sitting
there unencumbered by any raiment whatsoever except the ever-present blue hair
arising from her scalp in a cascading pile. (The pose and cover composition
echo the October 1971 cover on which an African American pin-up sat on the same
chair, her Afro hair-do being the most conspicuous of her attributes.) And
Marge is inside the magazine, too, “gracing” (as they say there) the gatefold
spread, encumbered by the usual Playmate bio and mock interview. Although the advance publicity about the
November issue said the gatefold wouldn’t “bare all” — the nudity, the magazine
said, was only “implied” — not much of Marge is left to the imagination: she’s
wearing a see-through nightie, and we can tell that she has nipples.
The
attendant publicity failed to mention that the Marge cover is but one of two
November covers: the other one, depicting lingerie model Alina Puscau in her
underwear, is on the magazines sent to Playboy
subscribers (which account for about 40 percent of the magazine’s
circulation); Marge appears on the newsstand edition, seductively tagged
“Collector’s Edition” in the expectation that it will be purchased by swarms of
new, young, heavy-breathing readers.
The Marge
stunt is "obviously somewhat tongue-in-cheek," said Playboy
Enterprises’ new CEO, Scott Flanders, interviewed by Sandra Guy at the Chicago Sun-Times. "It had never been
done, and we thought it would be kind of hip, cool and unusual,” he continued,
adding that the whole idea of the cartoon-covered issue is to attract readers
in their 20s to a magazine whose average reader is now about 35 years old.
It’s this
kind of so-called reasoning that sends shivers up my erstwhile spine. Flanders, who ran a newspaper chain until taking over for
the retiring Christie Hefner last June, thinks Marge Simpson will pull in
younger readers. What? On what planet is he living? He thinks young male
Americans will line up faster to buy a magazine with a cartoon character on the
cover than a magazine with a scantily clad 
woman on the cover? Don’t I wish.
Where did this guy grow up? Red-blooded hormone-infected young American males always
opt for barenekidwimmin. Always. And Marge’s blue hair doesn’t help: blue hair
is the badge of the elderly femme. I don’t care how many nipples she displays:
Marge is an old woman, a pin-up for senior citizens. Or, we must allow, cartoon
fans.
But before
we abandon Marge to her fate, here’s a new book, arriving just in time to
commemorate the 20th anniversary of Matt Groening’s creation: The
Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History is John Ortved’s round-up of
witnesses, each telling their tales about how Groening and his crew created one
of the most successful tv shows in the history of the medium. Reviewing it in Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker
applauds this “gloriously windy oral history crammed with behind-the-scenes
squabbles and power grabs” while also warning the reader against accepting too
readily some of the negative stuff, “particularly when sources assert that
Groening is little more than an affable frontman for the show.” Says Tucker
about the victims of such back-stabbing: “These guys aren’t there to defend
themselves [Groening and some other key players didn’t testify]. ... In most
cases though, Ortved amasses quotes from many sources to establish such points
so the negative stuff doesn’t seem gratuitous.”
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