This biographical film, chronicles the artistry of photographer Jule Campell. Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue, directed by her daughter-in-law Jill Campbell, retraces the protagonist’s 32-year reign as editor of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue, as it flourished into a media empire, paving the way for feminism’s evolution.
The starting point of the documentary is Mackinac Island, in Michigan, in the year 1993. We are in the heart of the era of Jule Campbell’s iconic photoshoots. The film rewinds the tape to the origins of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, the American magazine that ran from 1965 to 1996. This publication served as a platform for the intuitive, photographic genius of Campbell and became the arbiter of supermodel succession.
The film also chronicles Jule’s love story with Ronald Campbell, a longtime art director for Fortune Magazine. The two were married nearly 60 years and had one son, Bruce, along with two grandchildren, Hannah and Graham. Family was very important to Jule and this is well portrayed in the film, that includes footage of her New Jersey farm, nestled in a rural area: Flemington.
While watching the documentary we are walked through the incredible career journey of Jule Campbell. After graduating from Stephens College and the University of Missouri, where she studied journalism, she began working as an assistant at Glamour magazine. She then joined Sports Illustrated in 1960 as a fashion writer and reporter. The pivotal year was 1964, when Andre Laguerre assigned Campbell to shoot her first swimsuit story. Little by little, she turned the Swimsuit Issue into a cultural phenomenon. She was widely credited with launching the careers of supermodels like Cheryl Tiegs, Christie Brinkley, Paulina Porizkova, Kathy Ireland and Elle Macpherson. Many of which are featured and interviewed in Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue.
Campbell liked to support professionally those working with her. In fact, models who were featured in the Swimsuit Issue became icons thanks to her. This is because she was adamant in putting their name in captions. She believed that if they became recognisable, they could transform that exposure into a business model and be financially independent. Her maternal instinct towards them came across also in the way they were captured on camera. When she started working, all editors were men, who wanted the sexiest of pictures. However, she was firm in not wanting to cheapen women, and would take out from the selection those she considered demeaning.
The filmmaker alternates interviews with Jule and her friends and family, with images from the crucial years of her career and even black and white footage explaining the historical context of the perception of women and swimsuits. Thus, we see how there was a time in which the fair sex was destined to filing jobs, and we even get a glimpse of the first bikini captured through moving images.
Two-piece bathing suits were being used by women as early as the 1930s, although the modern bikini entered the scene in 1946. This was when the material rationing after World War II inspired French engineer Louis Réard to introduce this type of swimwear. It was named after the Bikini Atoll, where the first post-war tests of the atomic bomb were taking place. This epoch is swiftly mentioned in Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue, but what the film leaves out is that the two-piece swimsuit has older roots, dating back to Ancient Rome. In fact, the mosaics of the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina, in Sicily, depict women engaged in sports activities wearing a strap on the bosom paired with an undergarment, a sort of ancestor of the current bikini.
The irony of it all is that it seems like Ancient Rome was less bigoted and critical towards the female state of déshabillé. During the late 20th century, when Jule Campbell was taking photos of models in swimwear, women were constantly judged and put under a microscope, either for how they dressed or if they wanted to establish a career. Men would roam on beaches with a tiny one-piece suit covering their genitalia, whereas the female gender’s two-piece swimsuit — or a one-piece fishnet suit — would often become eye candy for the male gaze.
Showing women in swimsuits established two opposing schools of thought: those who believed it objectified women and those who were convinced it liberated them. Jule Campbell would say that struggles are good, because if you survive them you are stronger. She encouraged to fight for what you want. She had a voice, and was not afraid to use it, to express her opinions freely and she always stood her ground.
Whilst men could have it all, women would often have to pick between family and profession. This was the case of Jule Campbell, since her son Bruce was raised especially by his grandparents and several au-pairs. However, having an example of such professionally-driven parents, forged Bruce into a studious and successful man, who graduated from Harvard. Campbell, once again spearheaded the idea that women should not feel guilty for cultivating their craft outside the household.
Her artistic finesse was visionary. She was driven by aesthetics and wanted to grasp authenticity through her lens. If the model had signs of sunburn, it was all for the better. Beauty was something to consider, but what caught her attention was the energy of the subject. Rather than ultra thin physiques, she favoured athletic body types. And when it came to poses, Campbell loathed lewdness. Nudity could be refined thanks to her, as she abhorred bad taste. The body’s exposure thus became a political tool, to promote freedom of expression.
Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit also dwells on how fashion shoots, nowadays, have become more inclusive expanding to all ethnicities and body-types. The film is a superb snapshot (pun intended) of how Jule Campbell was a pioneer of diversity and relatability.
Final Grade: B+
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Photo Credits: IMDb