NBC’s “The Playboy Club” has quickly become the most controversial local news lead-in to come out in recent memory.
The show, which is set to air Mondays at 10/9c, has already been dropped from one NBC-affiliate’s schedule and now its the target of criticism from legendary women’s rights advocate Gloria Steinem as well as the anti-obsenity group Morality in Media.
In a recent interview with Reuters, Steinem, who worked as a Bunny at New York City’s Playboy Club in 1963 for an exposé on the club’s working conditions, said that she hopes people boycott the show.
“It’s just not telling the truth about the era,” she said, pointing out that the real Playboy Club “was not glamorous at all.”
Morality in Media has been an outspoken critic of the show since NBC began promoting it earlier this summer and now the group is circulating a letter to the network’s top advertisers, warning them not to advertise on the show.
“We will expect advertisers to steer clear of the promotion of the ‘Playboy’ lifestyle and pornography,” said Dawn Hawkins, executive director of Morality in Media.
“On a recent media tour, the show’s producers stated–with a straight face–that ‘The Playboy Club’ is all about ‘female empowerment,'” Hawkins stated in a press release. “Sexual exploitation of women is not empowering.”
“The Playboy Club” is set to premiere on September 19th.