WWW- Robert Peters, President of Morality in Media, had the following comments in response to New York Magazine’s effort to use Lindsay Lohan to “re-create Marilyn Monroe’s legendary last (nude) photo shoot.”
“I thankfully cannot claim to have examined every ‘mainstream’ magazine that has published nude photographs of women, but of the one’s I have seen, New York Magazine’s effort to are create Marilyn Monroe’s legendary last (nude) photo shoot’ pushes the envelope further than them all.
“This is, of course, part of the problem with pushing the envelope. What at first offends and even shocks loses its power to do so, after viewers are repeatedly exposed to similar content. That leaves the exploiter of sex with two choices. Back off or push the envelope even further.
“In this issue, New York hasn’t just recreated a series of photographs of Marilyn Monroe that have blasphemously become known as ‘The Last Sitting,’ it has followed in the footsteps of Playboy magazine.
“I describe the New York nude photo shoot as ‘soft-core porn,’ for the same reason that people describe Playboy magazine’s nude photo shoots as ‘soft-core porn.’ Men who subscribe to Playboy for the purpose of viewing naked women don’t do so because of their appreciation for great art; so men who buy New York to see a naked Lindsay Lohan won’t be doing so because of their appreciation for great art.
“Of course, with this particular issue of New York, some people can be expected to buy the publication just to see how low a mainstream magazine and Hollywood ‘starlet’ will go for the sake of notoriety.
“As for Ms. Lohan, one keeps hoping that the bitter pills she has swallowed in life will prove medicinal and will yet help straighten out her life. But either lacking in real talent or now too out of control or lazy to make use of her talents, she has played the fool once again.
“At least in one area of her life, however, Ms. Lohan has shown phenomenal growth. A quick comparison between her partial nudity photo shoot in the February 2006 Vanity Fair, when she was still a teenager, and the nude photo shoot in the February 2008 New York, will show that her breast size has increased astonishingly. Too bad we can’t say the same for her good sense.”