The Playboy Club Marginalizes Women For Boring Stories

Stan Lee is narrating Playboy Club. I think he’s supposed to be Hugh Hefner or Charlie but I’m positive it’s Stan Lee narrating this.

He loves his club. THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO ANY BUNNY. They can get fondled, ogled or laid. God bless the early 60s. All full of women’s liberation.

We meet out bunnies, they’re all well dressed and sassy and they’re essentially geisha in bunny ears? There’s Amber Heard the New Bunny, Naturi Naughton, the Sassy Bunny, Leah Renee, the Breathy Bunny, and Laura Benati the Ancient Bunny.

From Left to Right: New Bunny, Sassy Bunny, Breathy Bunny. Not Pictured: Ancient Bunny, Naive Bunny.

Our heroic main bunny gets to dancing while Don Draper-lite watches. Then she’s told to go back to work because selling sex and cigarettes is more important. She’s a strong and independent woman though because she reminds her scolder of her name before making eyes at DD-lite and running to the backroom.

Ancient Bunny finishes her set and smooches DD-Lite. He then watches her sing more while still waiting for his cigarettes. In the back New Bunny is promptly assaulted by an unattractive dude. DD-Lite’s knight in shining armor alert watch sounds. He comes back into the employees only area and pulls the guy off of her. And now they’re both scuffling with him. And she killed him with her high heel.

If he had a foot fetish he'd have gone out with a smile.

See boys, girls can be deadly. Do not underestimate our footwear.

Turns out DD-Lite knows the guy as the head of the mob. DD-Lite hides the body while she cleans herself up and snags his Playboy Club key. Then they run away and dang Amber Heard looks fabulous in that coat.

Guys, they hide the body ridiculously fast. I hope a later season deals with them hiding Jimmy Hoffa because these are straight up pro-body disposers.

Back at the club another Bunny is schooling the men on what a Bunny is while her boyfriend gets upset that she’s a Bunny. I have no sympathy for him.

DD-Lite takes New Bunny back to his apartment and she’s in awe at the size of his financial dick. So awed she gets him to unzip her before she cleans up. And he’s a gentleman and doesn’t try to sleep with her right then and there.

The star-crossed Bunny and her Bartender are doing it in a bathroom. I saw a little Bartender rear.

Ancient Bunny realizes DD-Lite left with New Bunny while Breathy Bunny is in wonder of the cash she makes for a little mild prostitution.

After work Breathy Bunny gets in the car with her husband and they talk mysteriously about keeping things going. Either they’re Russian spies out to win the Cold War in a Playboy Club or they’re lying about something else.

New Bunny schools DD-Lite on how hard she works. He’s in awe of her gumption. Then Ancient Bunny waltzes in and starts making out with DD-Lite while New Bunny HIDES IN A CLOSET.

I wish she was the gay bunny as then this would be so on the nose I'd be forced to laugh instead of just roll my eyes.

They run into each other and New Bunny is apologetic while Ancient Bunny is mad.

New Bunny races back to the mansion and tries to sneak in but Sassy Bunny the roommate catches her and warns her of DD-Lite in the most polite way possible.

The next morning DD-Lite returns the Playboy car he stole and chats with the Bunny Manager. They talk about boring 1960s law stuff and smoke and drink because it’s the 60s and you can do that. DD-Lite is so good guys. He’s a regular at the Playboy Club but all he wants is a smart lady to love.

At the Bunny Meeting Naive Bunny asks if she can wear a coat in the winter when she answers the door and New Bunny looks worried while Breathy Bunny talks about the dead guy. Naive Bunny offers New Bunny a Tampax because she looks sick. Is that like a 60s joke? Did they really believe tampons could heal you?

Post meeting Ancient Bunny tries to be assertive and a forward thinker with Bunny Manager and he fires her. That’ll learn you woman!

DD-Lite strolls into the courthouse and whips his dick out while talking with a mob lawyer. Because he was once a mob lawyer. Is this show…is this show about DD-Lite? WHY. I draw little bunnies on my computer while all that boring DD-Lite plot junk happens.

Now he’s scarred and standing in front of a mirror while a radio talks about how awesome he is.

In the dressing rooms the Bunnies all mock Breathy Bunny because they’ve never seen her husband and Naive Bunny talks about how awesome the Mansion Parties are. Also did you know that Hef loves all people. Even BLACK people? Hef is truly a visionary. ALL HAIL HEF.

Ancient Bunny roles in and tells them all what they’re doing wrong. She calls herself the Bunny Mother but she felt more like a Harem Mistress? She’s brought them new costumes and they all roll out in them while a pretty fun song plays.

The outfits are skimpier to make the women feel more powerful.

New Bunny snags DD-Lite and worries that Ancient Bunny knows about the murder. THEN THEY BOND OVER THEIR HATRED OF DRINKING WATER.

And now Tina Turner is there and singing and somehow it becomes about the Bunnies all dancing on the dance floor while the men all watch. But they’re dancing together so it’s okay. See the men are moved by their camaraderie and not their new, and more revealing, Bunny outfits. Women’s Rights people!

New Bunny dances especially bright and men looking for the dead guy see her and decide she must be questioned.

DD-Lite, feeling bad about emotionally abandoning Ancient Harem Master Bunny offers her some earrings. He then insists he didn’t sleep with New Bunny. Ancient Harem Master Bunny reads him like a book and I think she’s the only Bunny I actually like? Probably because she’s the only one painted as a character so far.

After her great tell off of DD-Lite she snags New Bunny and pulls her in the back for questioning.  New Bunny is worried that jealously is fueling this questioning. Ancient Bunny insists that she wants to train her and she’s only concerned. New Bunny flat-out says “I don’t really believe you want me to be an excellent Bunny.” This show has subtlety in SPADES guys.

Post psuedo-dressing down New Bunny runs into one of the guys looking for the man she murdered. She gets out of it by flirting with him.

Naive Bunny argues with her plastic looking bartender boyfriend about her job. Seriously. Boring and trite.

He looks like a Ken doll.

DD-Lite plays telephone with a guy I’m positive is in the same room with him.

Breathy Bunny is working the coat room and chatting with her husband who is actually really attractive and really gay. I hope she knows.

DD-Lite finds New Bunny outside smoking and they talk more about the murder. I think this is supposed to be full of sizzling chemistry. I’m not sure where the chemistry is but I’m 99% sure it’s not on the screen.

He then hops in the car with the mob lawyer who ominously talks about the dead guy. We get it people. he’s dead. It’s a concern. He’s missing and it could end in disaster. Nothing is happening in this scene. Nothing. Eddie Cibrian you bore me and not just because you left your wife for LeAnn Rimes and then tried to profit further from the split.

Back at the mansion the girls are all partying but New Bunny is tucking into bed early. I’ve been watching too much HBO because I’m honestly surprised by the lack of nudity.

So Breathy Bunny and her husband are gay. The money she’s earning is for the Mattachine Society. She passes the jar to a cute girl and harps play.

With Rizzoli and Isles taking a break we have to get our eye sex where we can.

Stan Lee notes that the Bunnies are CHANGING THE WORLD. I do a nice jack off hand motion at home. Whatever Stan Lee.

Ancient Bunny and Hef chat and someone busts out my mom’s jewelry box. Now Tina Turner is singing more and New Bunny is watching it all in her nightgown. If I’d walked out to a party in my night-clothes you’d know they were my night-clothes. So props to New Bunny sleeping in fabulous night things.

It's scientific fact that these are the night-clothes every lady wore in the 60s.

Hef tells the audience that you can be anyone if you’re a Bunny in the 60s. He invites us all to come over. ON MY WAY HEF SEE YOU IN TEN.

A surveyor finds evidence of the dead guy’s murder. THE MAN’S KEEEEEY.

Notes

• I was really excited about The Playboy Club. I thought it’d be campy dopey fun. Instead it’s just baaaad.
• There are interesting bits. Ancient Bunny and Breathy Bunny are interesting and featured in interesting storylines that I’d like to see more of. Ancient Bunny’s storyline is as old as the sun but she’s the first even remotely developed character so I’m down for watching it. Breathy Bunny’s story is so radically different that I’d loved to see where it goes. I mean who didn’t google the Mattachine Society after watching her and Simon Tam make solidarity eyes at one another.
• As much as I love Amber Heard her storyline is so impossibly boring it’s difficult to watch.
• A brief bit of research shows that between the initial screening of the pilot on the premiere last night they did reshoots. These reshoots actually gave us more of the boring Eddie Cibrian storyline and cut back significantly on the presence of the Bunnies.
• So a show already working hard to prove it isn’t sexist further marginalizes women to tell a boring story about a hot white guy in the 60s Chicago? How original.
• I get that Hugh Hefner had to probably sign off on this show but if they’d fellated him any more in the pilot it would have had an NC-17 rating.
• I’m not convinced that Playboy Bunnies were on the frontlines of liberation. Seems to me they were too busy dancing for the male gaze to get any liberating done.
• Maybe if the show had a genuine approach to the women’s roles in the Playboy Club instead of fetishizing them and slobbering over Hef’s knob I’d be more okay.
• So what so you ladies and gents? Should we continue to recap Playboy Club or let it go quietly into the night to die?