NBC’s short-lived drama The Playboy Club posited its eponymous hangout as a nostalgic relic of a more romantic age, when men were men and women were treated as second-class citizens whose currency in the social marketplace was dictated based on their perceived sexual worth and loyalty to patriarchal ideals. And that was an improvement! But the original Playboy Club closed in 1986, the show got quickly canceled, and now it’s 2017, an age where—well, shit. Looks like Playboy Clubs are coming back.
A Playboy press release announcing the revival says that the club is set to re-open in Midtown Manhattan, something else that’s not what it used to be back in the ’60s. Soon, tourists too sophisticated to spend their vacation in Flavor Town but not sophisticated enough to visit literally any other part of New York will be treated to midcentury class and elegance in the form of overpriced cocktails and steaks served by women in satin leotards and fishnet stockings. Or, as the press release puts it, “by far the most attractive feature of Playboy Club New York will undoubtedly be the return of the Playboy Bunnies to Manhattan.” The club will be situated inside the inside the Cachet Boutique hotel, a feature that will presumably lead to countless inappropriate proposals Bunnies will be obligated to grit their teeth and politely decline.
This revival comes as Playboy magazine itself is shifting focus from a nudie mag to a more contemporary men’s publication, i.e. one that you can read in public without getting weird looks. Another Playboy Club is set to open in Shanghai this March, although we wouldn’t put money on our new president becoming a regular at that particular location.