Well, the news is out. Sorry for you, Winnie, mother of the nation. Too bad, too sad, Helen Zille. Eve has taken out the madams to make the cover of Playboy next month. And she’ll be accompanied by our country’s most famous madams, Gwen Anderson and her mother, the gin-swilling gogo, Mother Anderson.
As South Africa’s most famous cartoon character, Eve has been crowned the Playmaid of the Year and appears, in a slinky red Jessica Rabbit style frock, draped over an ironing board. PLAYBOY announced more than a week ago that its October edition would feature three female South African characters, of different ages, races and ideologies, which gave rise to speculation in the press and especially in the social media space that the cover might include Helen Zille, Patricia de Lille or perhaps even Winnie Mandela.
But it was Eve who has kicked these politicians’ off the covers by landing this very sought-after slot.
In the same edition, and apart from a hilarious “interview” with Eve, readers can meet the creators of Madam & Eve, Stephen Francis and Rico, enjoy fiction by South African Nobel prize winner Nadine Gordimer, and come face to face with Hugh Hefner’s runaway-bride, Crystal Harris. David Bullard debuts in this edition with his new “Out to Lunch 2.0,” now a permanent feature in PLAYBOY South Africa.
“It is all part of a highly secretive government programme, called Bread and Circus, which is intended to divert the public’s attention away from the state of the nation and our potholes. We would have liked to tell you more about that, but it would be too dangerous under the new Protection of Information Bill,” says editor Charl du Plessis.
“More seriously, we chose Eve in order to demonstrate to the South African public that PLAYBOY is a very local magazine, one that deals with important domestic issues and yet is also witty in ways only South Africans can be. There are very good reasons why PLAYBOY is the world’s best known magazine brand, and its sense of irreverence plus a variety of intelligent features and its willingness to make fun of anyone who takes themselves too seriously are all very much part of our winning recipe.”
