The Ick File

I hate to pile on Ben Brantley's odd Broadway preview yesterday (Isaac has already dinged him for obviousness), but I have to say, this paragraph struck me as exceptionally tone-deaf:

Broadway, it seems, has eclipsed Playboy as the place to make Hollywood pay attention. There was a time when female movie stars who felt they were being ignored by the industry took off their clothes for Hugh Hefner’s magazine. Now they brush up their Shakespeare — or Schnitzler or Miller — and hit Gotham. Of course if you can manage to be naked while appearing in a production with cultural cachet, as Ms. Kidman did, then you’re really in business.

Maybe I'm revealing a pop-cultural blind spot here, but when exactly was that bygone age when a Playboy spread led to respect in Hollywood? I mean, I've only looked at it for the articles, of course, but I hadn't exactly noticed the trend.