"The thing that they were more freaked out was that I had done a spread for Playboy years before, and as Playboy always does, they exploit the exploitation and re-release different pictures"
About this Quote
Her phrasing does a lot of work. “Done a spread” is blunt, unsentimental, almost clerical - a job completed, a gig taken. Then comes the sharper pivot: “Playboy always does,” a tired inevitability that drains the company’s glamour and replaces it with a business model. The key accusation is in the compact, cynical slogan “exploit the exploitation.” She’s naming a second-order extraction: the original shoot may already trade in a certain kind of objectification, but the real machine is the endless “re-release,” where consent becomes murkier over time and context collapses into a recycled product.
The subtext is about control of narrative and the economics of reputation. Blackwood, a celebrity whose persona was built in a highly mediated era, is describing how female visibility can be treated as a renewable resource by institutions that outlast any individual’s ability to manage her image. The anxiety she’s describing isn’t prudishness alone; it’s the threat of being frozen in one version of yourself, then resold indefinitely, while everyone else gets to evolve.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Blackwood, Nina. (2026, January 15). The thing that they were more freaked out was that I had done a spread for Playboy years before, and as Playboy always does, they exploit the exploitation and re-release different pictures. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-thing-that-they-were-more-freaked-out-was-147368/
Chicago Style
Blackwood, Nina. "The thing that they were more freaked out was that I had done a spread for Playboy years before, and as Playboy always does, they exploit the exploitation and re-release different pictures." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-thing-that-they-were-more-freaked-out-was-147368/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The thing that they were more freaked out was that I had done a spread for Playboy years before, and as Playboy always does, they exploit the exploitation and re-release different pictures." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-thing-that-they-were-more-freaked-out-was-147368/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.



