This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear
weekday afternoons on the Drive. Jennifer roll Maalini is an award winning writer,
editor and auditor author. I'm sorry, I wouldn't make you an auditor if
you weren't one, working with Talk Lucky, Glamour, Cosmo and many other
magazines. She's the host of Crooked Media's latest series called Stifft, which tells
the true story of a groundbreaking magazine, Viva, and you can hear that
on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere else. Viva. Why was it such a
ground breaking magazine? It was a really interesting magazine. It's one of the
first female erotica magazines ever, and it's stopped by these really dynamic, smart,
scrappy feminist journalists. So it's got all of this like playful male nudity
next to all this groundbreaking writing and journalism. And it's also like this very
beautiful magazine. It was a high production value, it was beautifully designed.
The fashion was done by Anna wind Tour, So it's kind of this forgotten
time capsule of this very interesting time. You know, Jennifer as well as
I do there's really only a few ways to get a real woman going,
and that is to present pictures of a man taking out the garbage, doing
the dishes, changing the baby's diaper. No really did it was? Was
it initially a success? It wasn't a success. And part of that was
because all of the erotica aspects of it, all of the pornography. It
was what a man thought a woman a woman wanted. BASCUCCIONI controlled all of
the pornograph, and male photographers shot it, so it was in a lot
of ways clumsy. It was almost like a parody of It was a parody
of what do you think this magazine was? It's it's very silly, uh,
And well, I know it's it's it's just guys being naked. And
if they aren't in, if they aren't displaying any type of of of reason
for the woman to be aroused, then there then it doesn't work, right,
no think. So, I mean, look, I don't want to
make any sort of broad generalizations, but this absolutely didn't work. And why
it didn't work is so interesting, Like it's just it's so silly, it's
so clumsy. It's this, you know, there's like a there's one like,
what, women don't want this, you know, And that's what they
said to me again and again. All the women who worked there, they're
like, we did not want that at all. We're talking to Jennifer Romalini.
She is the uh she's in. She is a part of the series
called Stiff, telling the story of the story of the ground baking magazine Viva
And it's the podcast you can hear on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get
podcasts. And these these women, these these were qualified journalists, they were
tops in their field. What made them say, yeah, I think working
for Bob gucci On He's going to be a good thing. You know.
He paid them really well and he let them write about whatever they wanted and
that was not something they were getting anywhere else. So the price of admission
was, Okay, I'm going to work for this pornographer in this weird like
house of porn with all of these other pornographers, but I'm going to get
to write whatever I want. And in nineteen seventy three, that was really
radical. What was the women? Yeah, well, how did they distribute
the magazine? Was it by a subscription only? Was it on the newstand?
It was. It was subscription. It was mostly subscription based, but
it was on the newstand. But you know, it couldn't be in the
news stand like next to Good Housekeeping. It had to be in this sort
of dirty magazine section. And that was a real disadvantage to them because women
did not shop in the dirty magazine section at the time. I don't know
if they do. No, I don't even know if that dirty magazine section
exists, to be honest, I don't know that, you know, I
don't want I was at an airport newsstand and I think I saw a copy
of Penthouse and I said to myself, well, that's not something I've seen
since maybe college. Yeah, exactly exactly, so, I mean so yes,
So people weren't really buying it on the newstand because it wasn't displayed anywhere
that the audience for it would shop. And Jennifer Romalini's with Us Stiff as
the podcast it's about the magazine Viva from the early seventies. Did Bob Gucci
only have any problem finding contents? In other words? Or was he just
using what he was already using for his other endeavors. He did a lot
of He did a lot of repurposing, let's say, whenever he could.
You know, he's very he is very frugal, and if he could,
he would. But no, he had no problem because you know, ultimately
Bob Guccioni, who nobody knows, was this very sleazy seventies pornographer, at
least he looked that way. Good changed overtan the whole thing. But he
was also weirdly an artist, and he had wanted to be a classical artist
and a classical painter. So I think one of the things he loved about
Viva was really being able to make it this beautiful art magazine. And to
this day it is on a lot of designer's mood boards. It's kind of
a secret handshake in the design community because it was so beautiful despite all this
clumsy male porn. Well, the graphic that is uh that is displayed for
your podcast, I mean, is that kind of along the lines of that
of that commercial art that you're talking about. It's precisely, yeah, precisely.
The team, the team of Crook Media made that art and it's it's
a it's a really good representation of this sort of beautiful design of this magazine.
Jennifer Romalini and the podcast is stiffed. It's about the magazine Viva,
which was trying to appeal pornographically to women. But at what point did everything
kind of start to turn south? Well, you know what happened was they
couldn't make money. They're not able to sell in newstands, and you know,
Maybelene doesn't want to put an ad of muscara next to a penis,
So it's just they can't sell advertising. And ultimately, like any endeavor,
it all comes down to money, and Viva just cannot make money. How
long did it end up lasting? I mean, was it a couple of
years or did it even make make a couple of issues. No, it
made it. It made it for six years because Bob Guccioni was a stubborn
man and he did not like to admit defeat. So he kept trying all
different things, all different editors, all different angles, all different kinds of
photography. And that, you know, that's what the podcast tracks, is
just like one sort of fumble after another. And I, you know,
I personally find it hilarious. It is because it sounds to me like he
had a staff full of women who could probably provide him what he needed.
I don't mean exactly if he had listened to them, No, I don't.
I don't mean they had to pose. I'm saying they could have said,
Okay, why don't you do this instead of this? Didn't listen to
them. He thought he knew best, you know, like a lot of
our bosses do. He thought he alone knew best, and he he just
didn't listen to them, and he didn't ask for their opinion. And so
Viva is ultimately what a man thinks women want, and that, as we
know from most of history, is usually a misstep. Are there still copies
floating around? Hard copies of the Man magazine? There are? I mean
I have a full set almost of the whole six years, but you could
still find them on eBay and etc. And sometimes in like a vintage store,
you know, if you're in, if you're in like a thrift store
sometimes or like a you know, garage sale. I've actually seen a couple
in those, but they're they're hard, They're harder and harder to come by.
And that was really why I wanted to do this podcast, because I
didn't want people to forget this magazine. I wanted them to remember this magazine.
I think it's really a time capsule of an important moment in you know,
our our history and the history of women's liberation, and you will hear
it in the podcasts Stiffed with Jennifer Romalini, Who Is It's all about the
magazine Viva and available on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get podcasts. This
is an interesting story that I think a lot of people didn't know even existed,
and I thank you for bringing it to the public. Jennifer, thank
you so much, and thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to
Late with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to
The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation