Down The Rabbit Hole

Holly’s relationship with Hefner occurred in tandem with the rise of reality television. CBS aired the first episode of Survivor—a wilderness competition that scholars consider the first contemporary “reality show”—in 2000, and Holly begins her relationship with Hefner in 2001. Survivor’s season one finale drew over 50 million viewers, a number exceeded only by the Super Bowl. After Survivor, the money-making potential of reality television was taken for granted—a fact that directly shaped the course of Holly’s life.

Reality shows like Survivor were more profitable than traditional scripted television because they were cheap to make and could be aired year-round, unlike other scripted shows that took production breaks seasonally. Writers and performers who worked on reality productions also did not receive union wages in exchange for their labor, nor did their professional contributions make them eligible for membership in the Writer’s Guild or Screen Actors Guild. To preserve the fiction that reality shows were authentic, the writers responsible for shaping storylines out of raw footage were nearly always billed as producers. Moreover, the promise of fame proved so irresistible that networks found an inexhaustible pipeline of on-camera talent.

Within this socioeconomic context, The Girls Next Door was born from a marriage of convenience between Hefner and the E! network. The Playboy brand still had enough cache that a show set in the Playboy Mansion had the potential to generate big profit, and Hefner was eager to popularize Playboy with younger generations whose concept of pornography was shaped by the Internet. If Hefner could refocus public attention on Playboy, he could infuse his ailing business much-needed funds—and reverse his own falling star in the process.

Ironically, The Girls Next Door had no choice but to appeal to women. Apart from certain genres, like pornography and professional sports, women predominantly comprise the viewership of mainstream television programming; this trend has remained stable throughout the medium’s entire history. Because The Girls Next Door was a non-pornographic show made to air during prime-time hours, network executives and producers understood that its profitability depended on its ability to turn legions of women into consumers of the Playboy brand. The Girls Next Door hence “disguises the fundamental nature of Playboy (the magazine and the brand) as a form of sexual ‘entertainment for men’ and, rather, fosters the illusion that pornography exists because women want to be in it” (Boyle, Karen. “‘That’s So Fun’: Selling Pornography for Men to Women in The Girls Next Door.” Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader.” Edited by Gail Dines and Jean McMahon Humez. SAGE, 2011). Hefner’s three girlfriends—Holly, Bridget, and Kendra—were critical in establishing this premise.

Holly notes that most of what appears on reality shows is scripted, which means that the stories’ conflicts and outcomes are set before filming begins. Holly further complains that producers are wily, taping private interactions and inserting them into scenes in dishonest ways. They are especially fond of making it look as though people knew they were talking in front of cameras, when in actuality their conversations were recorded without their knowledge. Many times, producers stick contentious people into a program just for the purpose of generating conflict. Holly also decries reality TV’s manipulative payment structure. She, Bridget, and Kendra go unpaid throughout the entire first season of their hit show. Meanwhile, Hefner himself enjoys handsome remuneration for his miniscule on-camera efforts. Holly’s experience of reality television as a realm in which less powerful women are often exploited by networks for the financial benefit of producers and, especially, wealthy older men, echoes the exploitation she experiences in the Playboy Mansion itself.