Pop Culture Expert on the Influence of Hugh Hefner on America

With the passing of the famed Hugh Hefner, many remembered his place in American culture, and his influence on so many. Newhouse Trustee Professor and Director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture Robert Thompson commented on this in a piece memorializing Hefner’s life in the LA Times.

Hefner “played an important role in attempting to escort American consciousness out of what was still an embarrassingly puritanical set of publicly expressed, if not privately practiced. attitudes toward sexuality,” he said. “His impact upon the First Amendment and the women’s movement was substantial.”