[95] in libertarians
Playboy Documentary
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vernon Imrich)
Sat Jul 23 16:17:03 1994
Date: Sat, 23 Jul 94 16:12:41 -0400
From: vimrich@flying-cloud.mit.edu (Vernon Imrich)
To: libernet@dartmouth.edu
Cc: libertarians@MIT.EDU, safe@MIT.EDU
I highly reccomend the "Hugh Hefner Story" (a paraphrase of the title)
now running on the Movie Channel.
While I admit I first tuned in with a more obvious motivation, I
was soon engrossed in the story for its political content. The
show is VERY well done, and mostly details all the crap that Mr.
Heffner took for starting/running the magazine. (Later I saw that
the TV guide had given it 3 stars too, so it's not just my opinion).
One of the most troubling segments was the incredible drug trafficking
investigations that the government unleased against the organization
in an effort to harass them or blot their reputation. A secretary
even ended up killing herself (for being the link that investigators
used to get their foot in the door). Finally, after the probe was
done, they came up with nothing. Nothing whatsoever!
There is some aggrandizement of Heffner, but that happens in any
biography. In between the occasional bits on Hugh's various romances
the show can be seen as one long documentary on how censorship has
changed and evolved in this country from the early 60's, through the
Reagan years, to the present. (Some good cameos too, including one
by editorial cartoonist Jules Pfeiffer.)
BTW, the show probably has less nudity than your average horror
movie. If the story had not been so good I'd have turned it off ;^}
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| Vernon Imrich | market failure, n. The inabilty of the |
| MIT OE, Rm 5-329b | market to recover from a blow by |
| Cambridge, MA 02139 | intervention. (the Exchange) |
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