Classic Rant #1,046 (September 20, 2013): Playboy Played Out

I am sure that you heard that Playboy Magazine has named Kate Moss as its cover girl for its upcoming 60th anniversary issue.

The model will also be featured in a nude pictorial in that issue.

That is all fine and good, if that is what they want.

But the magazine has compared the featuring of this paper thin, often bullimic-looking model to that of Marilyn Monroe, who, as you know, graced their first cover, and was their first big bombshell model, way back when.

It is nice that they picked a model who isn't 20-ish to be featured, I will give them that.

I am sure this will placate the average age of the men who read the magazine, an age group which is at least in its 40s.

But to compare Moss to Monroe is like comparing a Yugo to a Cadillac.

Sure, both have lived troubled lives, to some extent, and Monroe never reached her 40th birthday.

But as far as pure physical beauty, how can you compare the paper-thin and sickly looking Moss to the voluptuous, physically alluring Monroe?

(And yes, I did pick a really good photo of Moss to grace this Rant, but we have all seen the less-then-stunning Moss photos too.)

Yes, Monroe probably had some plastic surgery here and there, but she was a beautiful woman.

She was, and continues to be, an icon of what beauty is, and yes, what tragedy is, too.

Comparing the sickly looking Moss--the leader of the "heroin chic" modeling movement--to Monroe is such a poor comparison, but, ironically, it probably mirrors the times we are currently in.

Magazine sales, in general, have gone into the toilet.

People simply don't take the time anymore to pore over magazines of any ilk, and certainly not magazines that feature the human body, the female human body.

I also just read that Penthouse is in financial trouble, and Playboy has certainly been through very hard times too.

People who want hardcore or softcore porn simply have to turn on their computer, and they can get what they want instantly.

So you can say the voluptousness of the past, when Playboy was almost a necessary diversion for just about every young male in the country, has been replaced by the thinness of the present, when Playboy really is your father's magazine, not yours, if you are under 40 or even 50.

Monroe is a sex symbol for the ages; Moss isn't a sex symbol at all.

And maybe that is the point that Playboy is trying to make.

But I am not ready to give them that much credit.