Photographers from Playboy magazine held auditions at Hotel Chester in Starkville earlier this week for its upcoming college pictorial “Girls of the SEC.” Kim Mizuno, contributing photographer for the magazine, said 35 people auditioned to be in the pictorial.
“The turnout has been low, but the quality has been great,” Mizuno said. “The age requirement [in Mississippi] is 21, so automatically that takes out three years’ worth of prospects. Whenever you shoot college girls … you have a narrow window of opportunity for girls, and when you have an age requirement, you have an even smaller window.”
“A lot of girls didn’t know about the age requirement and had already signed up online,” he said. “I sent out an e-mail to all the girls with the age requirement, and a lot of girls had to cancel because of that. They were disappointed because they wanted to do it, but that’s the law of the land.”
News of the publication’s intentions to use Mississippi State’s name and was met with disdain from some members of the student body.
Junior human sciences major Carli McClure was one of a group of students who spent nearly two days gathering signatures for a petition opposing the use of the university’s name in the pictorial.
“We are not standing against Playboy in itself. We are against Playboy being affiliated with Mississippi State,” McClure said. “[The petition] has nothing to do with women posing. It has to do with women posing … using Mississippi State’s gear.”
The group obtained 1,196 signatures in 36 hours. Mississippi State alumnus and protester Noland Bullen said he was pleased with the response.
“We were actually surprised,” Bullen said. “That’s about as many [participants] as most student body elections.”
Senior interdisciplinary studies major Jordan Graham helped start the petition and said he wanted more time to continue getting signatures.
“In such a short amount of time, I was [satisfied with the number of signatures], but I wish we would’ve had more time, because I wish that voice could’ve been louder.”
Graham said the magazine is exploiting college females for a profit when it is already financially successful.
“Playboy is a leech off the college campuses. They are using the fact that all these college students are here together at one location, and they’re just trying to get a quick buck. I don’t believe that Playboy has a problem with making money, so why would they have to use … colleges in order to make themselves more money?” he said. “If a girl wants to pose, that’s fine, but leave Mississippi State’s name out of it.”
A candidate for the shoot in Starkville who wished to remain anonymous said she thought auditioning would be a good opportunity for her.
“I think Playboy is a classy magazine. It’s not just porn,” she said. “I’ve never been photographed before. I just thought it would be cool.”
Mizuno said the employees of the magazine respect the opinions of students who are opposed to affiliation between the magazine and colleges. “[Students] have a right to do that. We’re not going to throw it in their face. We respect their opinion,” Mizuno said. “We know where we are. We’re in the Bible Belt, and we respect that.”
Mizuno said he has faced opposition before and would carry on with business as usual.
“We can go ahead and do [the photo shoot] because we still have ladies coming in to see us. We’re here, and if girls don’t show up, we have a problem.But they are showing up. How are we addressing [opposition]? We’re not,” Mizuno said.
Bullen said the group took the petition to MSU President Robert “Doc” Foglesong, the dean of students’ office and the Starkville Board of Aldermen.
Graham said he will continue to push the petitions to anyone who will listen.
“We’re hoping that this is going to be a shockwave that is going to start at Mississippi State and roll all the way through the other Southeastern Conference schools,” Graham said. “We hope people are going to get on board and realize that we don’t need this type of publicity. Our school was founded on stronger principles than that.”
The “Girls of the SEC” pictorial is scheduled to be published in Playboy’s October issue.