‘Swimsuit Video’ Expected to Make Waves

Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue is a voyeur’s delight, a homage to sexism--and a source of irritation and anger for many American women.

Now, thanks to HBO, this year’s issue has come to life on video. Because it’s the 25th annual issue, Sports Illustrated decided to celebrate with a TV version. “Sports Illustrated’s 25th Annual Swimsuit Video” was shown on HBO Thursday night and is being released on the home-video market today.

The 55-minute video, which includes Dodge commercials at the beginning and the end, sells for $19.99. In a press release, a Dodge executive noted that readers of the swimsuit issue are potential Dodge buyers.

This isn’t the kind of original programming video that’s going to sell a respectable 10,000 copies to retailers and distributors. This is a genuine blockbuster, with HBO Video shipping more than 600,000 copies--an astonishing figure for this kind of video.

“It has a presold audience,” explained HBO marketing vice president Tracy Dolgin. “All the people who like the swimsuit issue are potential customers for the video.”

The swimsuit issue is really just elegant, soft-core porn. So is the video. It’s tasteful enough: The format shows how the pictorials are shot in exotic locales around the world, and there is no nudity--just near nudity. Lots of it.

The film makers, Susan Froemke and the renowned Albert Maysles, do a good camouflage job, niftily disguising the erotic sequences as an informative documentary. But all that boring chatter about modeling and fashion, from models such as Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Elle Macpherson and Kathy Ireland, is just filler between the titillating sequences showing them cavorting in swimsuits.

HBO Video, a leader in the video magazine genre, has been trying for years to get Sports Illustrated to OK a video of its swimsuit issue. “They decided to do it because it’s an anniversary,” Dolgin said. “There won’t be a video with each swimsuit issue. There may not be another one of these for another 25 years.”

Will women be offended by this video?

Dolgin doesn’t think so. “It’s not exploitive and it’s not risque,” he insisted. “Look at all the sex and violence on network TV. That’s more offensive than anything in this video.”

But Kathy Spillar, national coordinator of the Feminist Majority, disagrees--rather strongly.

“It’s the same old exploitation of women that Sports Illustrated has been doing for years with that swimsuit issue,” she said. “Now they’re carrying it over to video. Showing women in swimsuits in sexy poses is just selling sex and pandering to baser instincts of males.”

Pointing out that a woman, Susan Froemke, was one of the two film makers, didn’t faze Spillar. “Saying that a woman is involved supposedly gives the project credibility,” she said. “It doesn’t. Obviously the models are women. They willingly participated in this. But some women don’t do things that are for the good of all women. They’re not representative of all women. They’re out for themselves.”

Feminists, she noted, have protested the swimsuit issues in the past. The video, she predicted, will prompt further protests.

“Sports Illustrated and Dodge (the commercial sponsor) are out of touch with the feelings of the majority of women,” she said. “They’re out to please male readers and males who might buy Dodges. They should get a lot of negative letters from women about this video.”

Video stores, normally cool to original programming videos, are largely being bypassed as the outlet for this one. According to Dolgin, only 35% of the 600,000 units are going to video stores.

The bulk of the “Swimsuit” videos have been sold to mass merchants such as K mart and Target, which purchased 35%, and to assorted unconventional outlets, which bought the remaining 30%.

“We’ve sold a lot to drugstores, convenience stores, food stores and newsstands,” Dolgin explained. “Places that sell the magazine can sell this video.”

Allan Caplan, who runs the Midwest Applause video chain, is bullish on the “Swimsuit” video, figuring that, in the next few months, he may order as many as 1,500 copies.

While acknowledging that it will be popular among his male clientele, Caplan suggested that customers of both sexes will like it for another reason. “It was shot in some exotic places,” he said. “Some people may buy it to see the locations--like a travel video.”

Some women, he also contended, will buy it for the swimsuit fashions: “They want to know what to wear to the beach this summer.”