Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition
The Big Sporting Event Of Spring

Did you catch the big sporting news this spring? No, I’m not talking about March Madness or about which free agents the Redskins were able to buy with their deep pockets. 

I am referring to the release of the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated.  This is their top selling issue and is available online, as well as in video clips from iTunes, photos in a calendar, or on a full length documentary video, so the American public doesn’t miss any of the action in this dramatic sporting event. Did I mention that you can even purchase 360-degree views of the photos being taken? Since this makes a great deal of money for Sports Illustrated, it is easy to understand why it is produced. What is more troubling, however, is the message that it produces.

(Tuesday morning, April 4.) Tonight Maryland and Duke will play a championship basketball game. A local girl from Harrisonburg, Va., Kristi Tolliver, will start for Maryland. This is big news in our town, but if I go to Sports Illustrated online I find that the swimsuit edition is more important than the news of this championship game and the women playing in it. I can’t even find a photo of Kristi on the site, but there are three photos referring to the women in swimsuits on the front page alone.

In the advertising that Sports Illustrated does for their magazine subscriptions, the swimsuit issue figures prominently. One ad listed the major sporting events of the year, with the release date of the swimsuit issue listed among them. Another advertisement lists everything that is included in the subscription and mentions this issue prominently.

This year in addition to the all-stars of football playing in February, Sports Illustrated has added the all-star swimsuit reunion to the sporting calendar. The swimsuit cover of this year features the “stars” of the last several years.

(Wednesday morning, April 5.) Kristi hit a three-pointer to propel her team into overtime last night. She put in two free-throws during overtime and her team won. Sports Illustrated online finally has her photo up, and she is only competing with two of the swimsuit models for the front-page coverage. If you read the story, it is clear she deserved this coverage. I followed the link under photos to see if there were more up today. On the photo gallery page there are 111 thumbnails leading to photo galleries and indeed there is one with photos from the Final Four games. However if you explore the remaining thumbnails, you discover that this trend at Sports Illustrated goes deeper than just the swimsuit issue. Of the 111 galleries pictured, twenty had a woman in the image.  Four of these were Olympic coverage, one was a photo of Lance Armstrong and his ex-wife, one was of the swimsuit models going to watch a sporting event, and fourteen (13%) were for photo galleries of cheerleaders.

I do recognize the beauty of the human form, and cherish it as a creation of God, but it seems that the swimsuit issue objectifies the female form. The way the magazine frames this issue encourages the idea that women should be looked at, that they should be rated/scored on their physical looks, and that the parts of their body are the most important attributes they possess. This is not unlike many of the beer commercials during football season that feature men looking at women. What Sports Illustrated does is normalize the behavior and make it an acceptable part of the sports spectator society. The audience—primarily male—is meant to equate their looking at women with their consuming of the football, basketball or baseball experience. Men are encouraged to watch sports—for extended periods of time—and with this added sport they are given the green light to make looking at women’s bodies just another normal male behavior.

For the woman, to get on the cover is to win the contest—knowing you will be seen as the champion of the bathing suit. The idea of this being a spectator sport emphasizes the surface posturing of the woman as opposed to the skills and determination that are required to play a game. It encourages women to put down the ball and step into the role of “being looked at.” If the scoring of the photo gallery thumbnails (the swimsuit issue has its own extensive gallery pages) is a fair indication, there are primarily two ways for women to make it into the online coverage: be in a swimsuit or be a cheerleader.

Comments:

While following the college basketball games, I noticed the online version of the Swimsuit Issue. All this does is cause people to pursue further sex sites to see women without the bathing suits (what little they have on). There are plenty of people with sexual problems and we do not need a spark to cause a fire. Please stick to the sports coverage and not "lack of coverage".

Wendel Bauman
Mason, Ohio USA
4/8/2006 2:04:00 PM

When I first happened to see the Swimsuit Edition on the display in a convenience store, I really felt the Sports Illustrated had gone too far. To have a group of women topless on the cover is unbelievable. While I share the concern about these women being valued only for their looks, and that the emphasis should be on celebrating the many significant sports accomplishments of women, in the end, it is a pornographic magazine designed to stimulate the sexual interests of men. Very disappointing.


Vancouver, BC Canada
4/8/2006 1:45:00 AM

Thank you so much for this article. As a teenager, I felt the only way to fit in was to wear a lot of make up, wear the trendiest clothes and read everythind from Seventeen magazine to Cosmopolitan, {God bless my parents}
In this day and age women are still being targeted for their looks, and it is sometimes are fault...maybe...not just men who but the SI swimsuit edition. I don't know what the answer is but talking about it is a start. God Bless


san diego, ca usa
4/7/2006 6:22:00 PM

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