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A few years ago, I was contacted by a woman named Jill Campbell. She was making a documentary about her (ex) mother-in-law, Jule Campbell. Jule was the woman who had created, shaped, and pioneered the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Jill had read an op-ed I’d written for CNN titled, “Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue is a step back in time. And not in a good way.”
At the time, I wrote:
“The swimsuit issue is a holdover from an earlier century. It feels oddly archaic alongside Sports Illustrated’s often excellent coverage of women and trans athletes. I’m also left to wonder why the WNBA felt it would help its brand to be associated with an antiquated annual tradition that has women’s objectification at its roots. And as long as SI says it is aiming to expand the representation of women on its pages, it should try steering away from the traditional femininity that is often the only aesthetic allowed to be promoted.”
I understood that my role in the film was likely to play the part of the “professional buzzkill”—a line that made it into the final cut! When, during filming, they Zoomed in on the stickers that cover the back of my computer (“God Loves Fags,” “Fatphobia is White Supremacy,” “God is Nonbinary,” “Kim Kardashian Is Right, I Don’t Want to Work”), I feared that role would be played up in a way that made me look like an unnecessarily angry feminazi. I was so worried that I asked to see a screener before agreeing to be part of a post-screening Q&A at a Boston theater last month.
Imagine my relief, then, when I finally got to see the finished film, Beyond The Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue.
It was moving, nuanced, enraging, uplifting, and complicated. And the voices like mine, who were critical of parts of Campbell’s legacy, were given the time and respect they deserved, allowed to be part of the whole film alongside those of Jule’s colleagues, the supermodels she hired, and the people who loved her.
When you agree to be part of a film like this, you have no control over how you’ll be edited to come across. I said yes just on faith alone, and because I knew I could stand behind anything I said on film. But it turned out that I didn’t have to worry; Jill treated every source like they had something worthy to contribute to her film, and to the full context of Jule’s legacy. Instead of editing my interviews into the catchiest soundbites, she let my full sentences stand, ensuring that the nuance and carefulness of my critique would fully land.
And as a result of Jill’s compassion for both her subject and her sources, I came away with a fuller understanding of how the SI Swimsuit Issue came to be, which also changed my own perception of it. To see the affection her models still have for her to this day told me so much about who she was. To understand the patriarchal world Jule was working in and the ways she was attempting to subvert it from within gives me a greater respect for the magazine issues that resulted from her work. I am so grateful to have met Jule Campbell through Jill’s film. It does what great art should do, which is expand the narrative, ask complicated questions, and make you feel something at the end of it all.
Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue is now streaming pretty much everywhere: Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, YouTube Video, Fandango At Home. I highly recommend checking it out, and not just because I’m in it.