by Jon Lackman | 4 November 2008 | Photography
Rémi Coignet, who blogs about photography and books for Le Monde, recently reviewed Playboy: Posters, La collection complète, which is a kind of catalogue raisonné comprising all the hundreds of centerfolds the magazine has published since 1953:
Flipping through the work, you get an impression of great repetition, an impression confirmed by a quick tally of the images’ principal characteristic elements. In decreasing order by frequency:
on a couch: 63 times
on a bed: 55
in nature: 46
in a bathroom: 28
sports: 26
opening a door, curtain or window: 20
fireplace: 15
pool: 14
car or motorcycle: 13
on a staircase: 13
black woman: 9
animal skins: 5 [...]The domestic sphere is the principal playing field of the Playmate. More than half of the images take place in very traditional bourgeois interiors with satin sheets, wood paneling, or heavy curtains. Therein resides one of the paradoxes of Playboy — promoting a traditional vision of the woman in the home, while producing (mildly) transgressive images. Nature scenes rank second, statistically speaking. They generally feature a nature that is peaceful (fine sand, snow-covered landscape) or domesticated (romantic gardens). Sport also forms an important group (more than 40 sports or pool scenes). Let’s note that this type of image takes off in the 1980s … Playing sports suggests an active woman … this vision is the opposite of the Playboy aesthetic … you never see her “in the middle of” (doing dishes, trimming roses, reading, or working). Contrary to the Deleuzian desiring machine, her body is a machine to be desired … In 54 years, just 13 cars or motorcycles, 3 telephones, as many computers, 2 items of modern furniture, and an office scene. The playmate is not modern.
(via ARHV)
