Naturi Naughton stops for a minute and thinks, tossing around in her head the unique perspective that she has when it comes to reimagining the 1960s on network television.

The 27-year-old actress landed a starring role on NBC's much-talked-about -- and highly controversial, depending on whom you're talking to -- new show The Playboy Club. In the series she plays the lone chocolate bunny, the sexy, alluring dark-skinned vixen who's vying to be the first centerfold of African descent. Last season she also guest-starred on AMC's critically acclaimed series Mad Men, another show that goes back to a time that wasn't so bright for black folks.

"[The 1960s] was a progressive time in our country and for our people," Naughton says, taking a break on the set. So far they have shot five episodes and have already jumped into painting a stark picture of what life in the 1960s was like -- all parts of it, she says. "When I think of the '60s, I think of a tumultuous time. It's a real time. I put it in perspective. [On the show] I'm this gorgeous, sexy, sassy bunny, but at the same time there's a world out there who doesn't see me that way. I just always keep that in perspective."

Not to say that her show -- or Mad Men or Pan Am, a new ABC show that's also set in the popular era -- is all gloom and doom. When most critics talk about the emergence of TV's nostalgic throwback to that time, the focus tends to be on fashion and aesthetics or sexual struggles and strides for women, and less about race. Part of that has to do with point of view, says Mekeisha Madden Toby, television critic for the Detroit News.

"On Mad Men you don't see any black advertising executives," she says. "You see them cleaning the office or running the elevator. Obviously, African Americans did way more than that. But it's told from a very specific point of view, and it's from a white male perspective."

The demand for these nostalgic shows is about more than entertainment, Toby adds, suggesting that white men might be longing for a look back at a society in which they were the indisputable kings.