From http://bighollywood.breitbart.com- Yet another woman has lost her job when it was learned she posed in Playboy, proving once again there’s no shortage of fools in America.
California cheerleading coach Carlie Christine was fired by Casa Robles High School “amid backlash from parents” after being selected as Playboy’s “Cyber Girl of the Week.” Naturally, news reports focused on stories that the parents of girls who didn’t make Christine’s cheerleading squad turned her in out of spite. The idea that she might set a bad example wasn’t mentioned.
This kind of thing has been going on for a long time. In 1994, New York Police Department Officer Carol Shaya [pictured] was fired after Playboy posing, with the NYPD stating it was because she used her own police equipment in photos.
In 2007, Pennsylvania prison guard Heather Hull was fired over her Playboy layout, although she later got her job back. The same year, Air Force Staff Sergeant Michelle Manhart was relieved of duties because she did not meet the service’s high standards or “comply with the Air Force’s core values of integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do,” according to an Air Force spokesman. Manhart, a mother of two, didn’t think she did anything wrong.
Maybe Hull and Manhart didn’t watch TV. Maybe they missed how, in 2006, Katie Rees was stripped of her Miss Nevada USA crown by Donald Trump after topless and provocative pictures of her showed up online.
Nude pictures of famous women aren’t hard to find online, and pornography is generally the #1 search activity. Sexting is normal with teenagers, if reports in the media are to be believed. And why not? The role models they have do similar things with little consequence. “High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens merely apologized for her nude shots and kept working for Disney. Paris Hilton made a sex tape and ended up with a career, if you can call it that. And years ago Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America crown over racy nude photos but went on to build a respectable career.
Even Republicans do it. Shannon Doherty posed for Playboy, and GOP stalwart Dr. Laura Schlessinger was publicly embarrassed in 1998 when a former boyfriend put online nude pictures of her taken in her 20s.
It seems that what too many of these women fail to see when they pose for these photos is that they have crossed the line from human to commodity. In Dr. Laura’s case, she apparently thought her boyfriend would never betray her by sharing the photos. Vanessa Williams believed she was legally protected with a written document regarding her pictures, and apparently Hugh Hefner agreed and turned down the pictures. Bob Guccione of Penthouse didn’t agree, published them, and ended up with a $14 million profit. Did this exposure (pun intended) help the very talented Ms. Williams? You could say that, but more likely, she was simply able to overcome the situation by talent and force of will, just as Dr. Laura managed to put her problem behind her.
The common thread with these women (at least those I’ve seen) is that they are all indeed physically very beautiful. It’s normal for a young woman to want to show off a beautiful body, and the nude female form has been artistically celebrated for centuries. The problem is, some women kill their careers when they pose in Playboy, or put a flesh label of sorts on themselves in the public mind. They become forever associated with nudity and bad decisions. Anna Nicole-Smith is probably the most prominent tragic Playboy example.
Over the years, I’ve known a number of women who posed for Playboy and other magazines, starting with Melonie Haller who was the first female “Sweathog” on “Welcome Back, Kotter” but got fired from the show for absences that sprang from a drug problem. When her career was wrecked, she went to Playboy to make a buck. I remember the odd disappointment I had when Judy Norton-Taylor did a Playboy spread supposedly to show that she was all grown-up, to change her wholesome “Mary Ellen Walton” public image. It didn’t help; her career virtually dried up instead.
Linda Blair offered me the same argument when she explained her nude shoot. We were working on a script I’d written that Linda wanted to do. It was Halloween night and I’d had the odd pleasure of seeing “The Exorcist” for the first time with Linda at her home. I listened to her story, but didn’t tell her I thought the shots made her look a little cheap, in comparison to how thrilled I’d been by her TV movie “Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.”
I was more impressed by what a relaxed and sincere conversation I’d had with Barbara Carrera when interviewing her for the cover story of an entertainment magazine I edited, than I was by her Playboy appearance. And with Mimi Rogers, I thought her Playboy spread was, frankly, bizarre in comparison to the classy and intriguing acting she displayed in “Someone to Watch Over Me.”
The most poignant example I’ve seen of lowered respect that many women who appear nude receive was in a “Sex and the City” episode where the girls visit Los Angeles and attend a party at the Playboy Mansion. As they’re walking past the infamous “grotto” where a bevy of nude women are soaking, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) takes one look, raises an eyebrow, and snips, “Look. Tit soup.”
In my 20s, I went with a friend to a nude beach in Santa Barbara. After about ten minutes, nudity became normal, and the titillation was gone. I didn’t do it again, but I learned something. The pornographers in the media are involved in constant titillation, with images of women who are, for most men, beyond reach in real life. Thus, the women men know personally have difficulty matching up to the airbrushed “perfection” in photos and surgically altered “performers” in porno movies. Such an emotionally confusing matrix can’t help but generate neurosis.
I had a girlfriend once who created a bit of a stir early in her acting career. She told me about an evening she’d spent at the Mansion. As she was leaving, Barbi Benton pulled her aside and said Hefner wanted her to spend the night with the two of them. My lady friend turned them down. When she told me that, my respect for her rose immediately. I thought of it years later when I was in the Aspen airport waiting to board a plane after a speaking appearance. There was Ms. Benton a couple of seats away. I clearly had a wedding ring on my hand at the time, but that didn’t stop her from repeated smiles and batting of eyelashes in my direction. It saddened me; I didn’t even say hello.
I love seeing a beautiful nude woman, but preferably if she’s someone I’m in love with, and we’re alone. If she were mine, I wouldn’t particularly want her displaying it all for the world to see. I wouldn’t hold it against her, I guess, but in my years of experience of knowing people involved in media nudity, the end result is usually far different than what they expected. When you become an object in people’s minds, you’re a commodity, the kind of thing that often ends up in a trash dump.
Ultimately, people only give you the respect you demand and deserve. I wonder what would happen if the majority of women simply stopped taking their clothes off except for men who loved and treasured them? How different of a world would it be?