The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Norman Mailer: Playboy Magazine Heavyweight: Difference between revisions
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literary guidelines suggest that Hefner and Spectorsky believed that literary selections were a crucial component of the ethos of ''Playboy.'' Spectorsky instructed his fiction staff to discard any “castration-defeat-doom stories” in favor of “Hemingway heroes . . . who deal with the world instead of cringing and having high-tone failures.”{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=208}} Spectorsky also based much of his criteria for quality fiction on Hemingway’s writing style—clear, economical prose, machismo or womanizing, rich imagery, and simple, albeit vigorous, word choice. Using Hemingway, the author and the man, to advertise the magazine’s commitment to masculinity, Spectorsky helped resurrect the masculine, intellectual man during the 1950s gender debates. | literary guidelines suggest that Hefner and Spectorsky believed that literary selections were a crucial component of the ethos of ''Playboy.'' Spectorsky instructed his fiction staff to discard any “castration-defeat-doom stories” in favor of “Hemingway heroes . . . who deal with the world instead of cringing and having high-tone failures.”{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p=208}} Spectorsky also based much of his criteria for quality fiction on Hemingway’s writing style—clear, economical prose, machismo or womanizing, rich imagery, and simple, albeit vigorous, word choice. Using Hemingway, the author and the man, to advertise the magazine’s commitment to masculinity, Spectorsky helped resurrect the masculine, intellectual man during the 1950s gender debates. | ||
In order to promote ''Playboy’s'' macho literary persona and maintain a heavy dose of Hemingway, Spectorsky commissioned Norman Mailer for various publications. For instance, the January 1963 issue contains a special portfolio on “man’s politics and sport, his business and pleasure, his competition and credo” that couples Hemingway’s “A Man’s Credo” with Mailer’s debate on right-wing American politics. And, in the laudatory introduction to the ''Playboy'' Interview with Norman Mailer, the editors claim that “Mailer is as colorful and publicized as any writer since Ernest | In order to promote ''Playboy’s'' macho literary persona and maintain a heavy dose of Hemingway, Spectorsky commissioned Norman Mailer for various publications. For instance, the January 1963 issue contains a special portfolio on “man’s politics and sport, his business and pleasure, his competition and credo” that couples Hemingway’s “A Man’s Credo” with Mailer’s debate on right-wing American politics. And, in the laudatory introduction to the ''Playboy'' Interview with Norman Mailer, the editors claim that “Mailer is as colorful and publicized as any writer since Ernest Hemingway” (69, Jan. 1968). Featuring Hemingway first, followed by Mailer, ''Playboy'' editors could assure readers that elite literature would not negate readers’ masculinity. Spectorsky could easily use Mailer in this capacity because of the multiple themes and concerns connecting these literary giants, including their iconoclastic status. | ||
As articles in the 2010 issue of the ''Norman Mailer Review'' illustrate, the connections between Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer range from bullfights to multiple wives. Erik Nakjavani argues that Hemingway’s influence on Mailer was so acute that the younger author “came to ''embody'' Hemingway’s influence, identifying with him” and developing affinities with him.{{sfn|Nakjavani|2010|p=161–191}} Scholars such as J. Michael Lennon, James Meredith, Mark Cirino, and Barry Leeds prove that themes of boxing, war, violence, and firearms unite two of the most famous twentieth-century century writers. Constructing female characters as objects also links them. In “Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman,” Mimi Gladstein chronicles how both authors became “favorite whipping boys for feminist critics” for creating a “certain kind of fantasy woman, a projection of autoerotic impulses, by which they allow themselves, imaginatively, privileges that they did not have in life.”{{sfn|Gladstein|2010|p=288-289}} And, in “Hemingway, Mailer, {{pg|201|202}} | As articles in the 2010 issue of the ''Norman Mailer Review'' illustrate, the connections between Ernest Hemingway and Norman Mailer range from bullfights to multiple wives. Erik Nakjavani argues that Hemingway’s influence on Mailer was so acute that the younger author “came to ''embody'' Hemingway’s influence, identifying with him” and developing affinities with him.{{sfn|Nakjavani|2010|p=161–191}} Scholars such as J. Michael Lennon, James Meredith, Mark Cirino, and Barry Leeds prove that themes of boxing, war, violence, and firearms unite two of the most famous twentieth-century century writers. Constructing female characters as objects also links them. In “Norman, Papa, and the Autoerotic Construction of Woman,” Mimi Gladstein chronicles how both authors became “favorite whipping boys for feminist critics” for creating a “certain kind of fantasy woman, a projection of autoerotic impulses, by which they allow themselves, imaginatively, privileges that they did not have in life.”{{sfn|Gladstein|2010|p=288-289}} And, in “Hemingway, Mailer, {{pg|201|202}} | ||