Hugh Hefner, of bunny-eared lore, is getting a 13-part Amazon docuseries dedicated to his life as, quote, a "rebel," "provocateur," "activist," and "visionary." And just in time for Playboy to give up on that no-nudity gambit.
Hefner, who is by his own admission "actually a very moral guy," long ago decided sex shouldn't be treated like America's dirty secret. He thought suppressing sexuality in public lea to suppressing it in private,. He also argued that Playboy did not turn women into sex objects. "Women are sex objects," he told the New York Daily News in 2010. "If women weren't sex objects, there wouldn't be another generation. It's the attraction between the sexes that makes the world go 'round. That's why women wear lipstick and short skirts."
(For the record, when Playboy pulled nude photographs from its pages in 2015, it was because, "The political and sexual climate of 1953, the year Hugh Hefner introduced Playboy to the world, bears almost no resemblance to today.")
Morality and smoking jackets aside, Hefner made sexuality public. The docuseries—which includes 17,000 hours of footage and 2,600 scrapbooks donated by Hefner himself, plus freshly acted scenes starring Matt Whelan as a young Hef—will make his very public life even more public. American Playboy: The Hugh Hefner Story will be available to stream April 7 on Amazon Prime.
