Site Meter Reflections on Playboy: Guest essay: It’s me, Heidi Ellis

January 7, 2008

Guest essay: It’s me, Heidi Ellis

As a consequence of her own choices at the time, Heidi Ellis almost made it to Playboy’s April 1991 “Women of the Women’s Colleges” pictorial, but not quite. The unsolicited email I got from her last month was so articulate and so relevant to what I’m up to at this site that, with only minor editing, I’m proud to present it here as a guest essay.

Hi Brian,

I just found your blog. It’s interesting that people are still debating the issues surrounding this event; it seems to have happened another lifetime ago.

My actions and the events of 1991 must seem completely absurd when re-framed in the context of present day social politics. At that time, the older feminist school of thought—as outlined by my professors at Mills and the authors from our course readings—were largely condemning and repressive when it came to physical representation of women. It was as if we were selling out just to wear lipstick, have long, “girly” hair, or shave our legs. This may sound petty in present-day politics, but believe me, it was a venomous issue. I’m not trivializing the battle before my time; the women before me worked very, very hard to make gains for women, paving the path for future generations of women today. But the context of the struggle evolved. Today we afford the trivial flexibility of individual expression that goes with the hard-won, concrete gains in the workplace. Wearing lipstick, long hair, and high heels are no longer viewed as symbols of the shackles of our oppression. My playful and defiant reaction was to agree to pose for Playboy when asked shortly after graduation.

While additional revelations led me to change my mind after two weeks on the road with Playboy serving as a spokesperson for the pictorial, the greatest force at work was this: I felt shamed and guilt-tripped into changing my mind. I was blasted all day long on CNN and in the press by self-declared feminist men and women who protested my perpetuation of “dangerous images of women” which led to “abuse” and even “the dismemberment of women.” Talk show hosts and audience members, both male and female, scorned my stupidity for playing into the hands of evil, evil Playboy men—both from the context of feminism and from fundamentalist prudery. Meanwhile, my Alma Mater declared that I was sullying an entire women’s educational system. Hello??? That’s a bit of pressure to put on a girl who wanted a little approval. I simply didn’t want all that negative attention, so I asked Playboy not to publish my photos. I went on to speak publicly on TV and at universities in a dialogue that evolved into the well-accepted Beauty Myth. I met Naomi Wolf and we began to scratch at the surface of an issue which today is widely accepted; I’m thrilled that young women today are aware of the illusion of perfection in the media. Hopefully, this awareness releases every woman from the pressure to measure up to an unrealistic ideal. But the rash of plastic surgery makes me think not.

In 1991, I was thrilled to measure up to the approval of such strict societal standards of beauty. As for Playboy, they were eating up the free publicity resulting from dogmatic feminist disapproval. Playboy would have been disappointed if feminists didn’t protest; but I knew better than anyone else that Playboy would get the old-school feminist knee-jerk response they wanted. Today Playboy might want to consider having a pictorial on born-again Christians and they’ll get the same guaranteed publicity from fundamentalists. Or picture Playboy announcing auditions for a pictorial on African-American women from Howard University and then you might understand the ensuing dialogue and fury that surrounded the events of 1991.

A related earlier post:
$50 for your guest essay

Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 9:04 AM

  • Blogger Brian Sorgatz left this comment at January 7, 2008 9:20 AM  
    I’m glad you mentioned The Beauty Myth and cosmetic surgery, Heidi. I hope that feminism will move as far as possible from the (let’s face it) illiberal, crypto-fascist paradigm of fear of popular culture that goes at least as far back as Plato’s Republic. Plato may have been more of a feminist than Aristotle. But Aristotle’s Poetics, for example, is a much better model of criticism of high, middle, and low culture than Plato’s condescending paradigm of the culture consumer as victim or pawn.

    To bring my argument back to a controversy in 2008, I invite you to consider Virginia Postrel’s analysis of the politics of breast implants. Do you agree or disagree with her about which paradigms are truly liberating for women in all their implications?

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