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Students try out to bare all
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Also by Alec Luhn:
- Behind closed doors (April 17, 2008)
- Battle-scarred by bullets, benefits (March 4, 2008)
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When Playboy representatives contact several University of Wisconsin students today for "wardrobe callbacks," there won't be much "wardrobe" involved at all. It might seem contradictory to fit clothing for a nude magazine shoot, but Playboy producer Cynthia Kaye said although the shoots will involve nudity, the student models will always be wearing some type of clothing. “Nude, topless, … we do a little bit of everything,” Kaye said of the photos taken during auditions Monday and Tuesday. Kaye and a Playboy photographer are visiting Madison this week to shoot UW students for the magazine's annual college girls feature. The stop is the first in a tour of the eleven schools in the Big Ten Conference to find models for Playboy's "Girls of the Big 10" pictorial, which will appear in the May 2008 issue. "We're looking for the all-American college girl," said George Georgio, the Chicago Playboy photographer who is heading the search, but the criterion is open to interpretation. "We're not looking for anybody in particular," he said when asked to elaborate. More than 20 UW women will have tried out by the time Georgio and Kaye make their final decision today. Once they’ve chosen about five students, the two will pick clothing and locations around Madison for photo shoots Thursday, Friday and Saturday, some of which may eventually appear in the magazine. UW students last appeared in Playboy in May 2006, when the “Girls of the Top 10 Party Schools” issue featured a group photo of 40 male and female UW students in front of the Delta Upsilon fraternity house on North Frances Street. The shot, which included clothed as well as nude female models, inspired two UW women who auditioned Tuesday but did not pose nude. “We’re not really interested in taking off our clothes,” said "Kelsey," a UW sophomore who declined to give her real name for fear of embarrassment. Kelsey and her roommate "Alex," a senior majoring in communications, came to try out under the assumption that Playboy was looking for another group photo with clothed models, they told The Badger Herald as they waited in the sparse West side apartment the magazine rented for the tryouts. “We didn’t really know what to expect coming out here,” Kelsey said. “It was a sketchy cab ride,” she added. “‘We were like, ‘Where are we going?’” The two had to show their student IDs, then fill out a form with basic information and questions about their hobbies and interests. Kelsey, copying Alex’s sheet, wrote “dancing, going out and playing with animals” under the hobbies section. Kaye and Georgio use what prospective models write down to plan out a theme for the shoot that corresponds to their interests. "We'll figure out what her personality is and how it reflects the wardrobe,” Kaye said. A 20-year Playboy veteran who started out posing for the magazine, Kaye handles the make-up and clothing, while Georgio poses the girls. "It's like beauty queen for a day," Kaye said. The only challenge working with amateur models, she added, was instructing them in how to adopt the “most figure-flattering pose.” Posture is everything during the shoot, since the photographer lights the subject according to each pose, according to Kaye. For Kelsey and Alex’s audition, the two stood in their underwear for individual front and back shots, then each posed on her own for test shots in the bedroom, Kelsey said in a later phone interview. Although they didn’t have to pose nude, the girls learned Playboy was interested in doing individual nude or partially nude scenes, rather than a group shot. They brought back a friend who was willing to pose topless and received an invitation to do a three-person shoot Thursday. Kelsey said she won’t be going due to her parents’ objections. “They were worried if I’d be able to get a job later on,” she said. Kelsey herself has no qualms to appearing in the magazine. “I think that [Playboy] is kind of a certain type of status for girls getting validation on their bodies,” she said. “It’s as much about the girls as men enjoying the pictures.” Even though Kelsey won’t be in next May’s issue, she thinks her friend, who declined an interview, has a good chance. Kaye and Georgio would only say they’ve had a lot of good candidates from Wisconsin, as usual. They enjoy working on the college girl issue, Kaye added. "It's really fun meeting such smart, brilliant girls who are so eager to do something new," she said. So what does Playboy founder Hugh Hefner have to say about the college girl models? “Hef’s obviously very big on them,” Georgio said. “'College girls' is the No. 1-selling issue each year.”
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Playboy is absolutely the wrong place for these young women to be seeking validation. The right place is in my loving arms. Come here, baby. - Germain Q. Stemme
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Delta Upsilon: getting away with it since Barb Katz took over
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These girls may be adults, but Playboy does not belong on a college campus.
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Leave Barbie alone … she’s a wanna be playbody! Let her dolls do the job for her ;)
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good for them, cant wait to see the pics of these sexy coeds
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Let’s celebrate these women for being so liberated by giving them something in appreciation. How about a peal necklace?
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I suggest the one’s who actually make it into Playboy just put up naked pictures on the Internet now so we don’t have to wait until May. That’s just too far away.
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This is a respectable place of higher education and a Research I university. I am absolutely ashamed that the administration’s letting trash like this on campus. Yes, these girls are adults; no, I don’t have a problem with pornography; yes, I have a problem when nobody else sees what’s incredibly WRONG about letting Playboy - who takes pictures of women simply to market it to men to masturbate to (it’s not even erotic!) - take pictures of coeds at the University of Wisconsin. Shit, the article just said the girl who posed didn’t want her name posted because she’d be humiliated! Someone’s going to pick up her picture off of the internet or an issue of Playboy.
Whoever’s posing deserves the ridicule they get - they’re that insecure about themselves, apparently. Go ahead and post the pictures all over the internet and put their real names on them. And I would hardly call those girls smart. If they’re worried about getting a job later on, they shouldn’t be posing for idiotic magazines .
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to 3:10 pm
I don’t know, but I think if you are going to get up in arms about anything, I’d start with the University allowing Halliburton on campus. Playboy seems pretty harmless in that light.