The Playboy Contract

Creating our group contract has been a trying process.  Between one of our group members suddenly having to drop out of the program and another falling ill, it really fell on mine and the final member’s shoulders to finalize our idea and come up with our contract and schedule.  After meeting with Dr. Cox (who really helped us narrow our focus and gave us a lot to think about), Jessica and I were left to make it work.  Because it was only the two of us, some things were a bit of a challenge to figure out, like the full division of tasks and the final schedule.  We did the best we could to logically divide the workload and make a schedule that the three of us will need to follow.  In the end I think that we did a pretty good job coming up with a final direction to take our exhibit and giving ourselves a timeline with a little wiggle room for unexpected snags.

Now that we have an official focus and aren’t confused about things, I am getting really excited to start this project.  We are going to be looking at how Playboy presented sexuality for both men and women in the mid 1960's to late 1970's.  I personally will be focusing on how minority groups were represented within the magazine at the time.  I am eager to see how the civil rights movement changed the magazine.  The thing that I am most looking forward to, however, is actually getting to put the site together.  While not techo savvy, I love organizing things like this.  I think that it is going to be an excellent learning experience; one that I hope will make me a bit more trusting of and confident with computers.

The thing that worries me the most looking at the project ahead is trying to choose the actual pieces that are going to go in our exhibit.  We have a run of Playboy that, with the exception of 1971 and 1972 and a few missing issues in the late ‘70s, covers the years 1965-1977.  That is well over 100 magazines that need to be gone through, looking for the 10 articles, cartoons, ads, or covers that we each want to put up.  Just glancing through the magazines, there were already so many things that we want to include pertaining to sexuality (given that it is Playboy Magazine after all).  It is going to be a bit of a challenge, not only finding those 10 perfect things that represent each of our individual topics, but then also making sure that those objects mesh together as well, making a cohesive exhibition.