I wonder if the late comedienne Phyllis Diller's penchant for wisecracks about her own homely appearance would fly today. Here's one example: "
A Peeping Tom was outside my house. He asked me to pull down the shades." A person of such low self-esteem is in obvious need of a life coach. Is Tony Robbins available? Don't bother. In the middle decades of the last century Diller figured out that the best way to unleash the power within was by subverting the outwardly powers that be. With her electromagnetized hair/wig, ink blot mascara, tubercular laugh, conducting baton-length cigarette holder, and baggy Sunday funny pages-colored minidresses, Diller took the old comic hag stereotype and gave it an updated, consumerist, quasi-countercultural twist that made her one of the more memorable figures of 1960s-and-early 70s comedy and a backdoor American original. If she was self-loathing, then she loathed herself all the way to the bank. Diller was hot enough and hip enough by 1966 that the then-popular girlie magazine
Playboy came to her with what must have been a rather surprising offer: a nude photo shoot. That she said yes may have been even more surprising. The whole thing was meant to be a joke, a way for the magazine to show that it could make fun of itself with the help of a woman famous for making fun of herself. Laughter, not titillation, was the goal. Diller, a veteran of the Playboy Club stand-up comedy circuit, seemed to enjoy the opportunity to appear in front of a camera wearing nothing but a Victorian-style bedspread. Unless its Hugh Hefner's beach towel. You decide:
The above photo was never published. Playboy ended up scrapping the whole idea. While a partially nude Phyllis Diller may not have been Jayne Mansfield, neither was she, when it comes to getting laughs, Phyllis Diller. And that Peeping Tom just might have kept right on peeping.
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