Should the Playboy Mansion Be An Historic Landmark?

A Los Angeles City Council member has introduced a motion to add Hugh Hefner’s storied Playboy Mansion to the city’s registry of historic cultural monuments, an idea that most Americans oppose. But they do believe Hefner and the magazine he founded in 1953 which featured a nude Playmate of the Month influenced U.S. society for better or worse.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of American Adults, in fact, say Hefner and Playboy magazine had at least some impact on American society and culture in the second half of the 20th century, including 24% who say they had a lot of impact. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 31% disagree, with 26% who say Hefner and his magazine had not much social and cultural impact and five percent (5%) who feel they had none at all. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on November 9 and 12, 2017 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.