At the D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) game tonight, we critiqued the The Sports Illustrated 2004 Swim Suit Edition [1] and the general consensus around the table was … eh.
Some of the models were nice [2], most were downright scary [3] but nearly every model was way too thin for anyone's tastes at the table. It says something about the allure of these super models that we found some of the bakini babes in other advertising to be more alluring than the supposed “supermodels” presented.
Now, for each picture in the magazine, the make and price of the bathing suit were listed, but in nearly half the images, the model wasn't wearing the suit [4] or otherwise couldn't see it very well [5], which, if you're actually trying to sell or otherwise promote the bathing suit, is not a good thing!
Granted, the issue is really about very soft-core porn (according to Spring [6]), but then, why even bother to mention the maker and price of the bathing suits that half the models aren't even wearing?
Guess Sports Illustrated [7] needs to maintain the fiction of a non-porn related issue.
They even featured Anna Kournikova on the cover [8] only she only got three pictures. Three! The first one [9] is a rather silly pose, while the other [10] two [11] were a bit better. I also thought it was pretty interesting that they featured couples [12], which was new to me.
But overall, the entire issue was rather … eh.
[1] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/
[2] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/gallery/yamila/
[3] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/gallery/ana/
[4] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/gallery/melissa/5.html
[5] http://s.a.cnn.net/si/features/2004_swimsuit/images/gallery/popup/ana_00.jpg
[7] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/
[8] http://s.a.cnn.net/si/features/2004_swimsuit/images/2004.jpg
[9] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/athletes/popups/kour03.b.html
[10] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/athletes/popups/kour01.b.html
[11] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/athletes/popups/kour07.b.html
[12] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2004_swimsuit/athletes/
![[5] http://s.a.cnn.net/si/features/2004_swimsuit/images/gallery/popup/ana_00.jpg](http://s.a.cnn.net/si/features/2004_swimsuit/images/gallery/popup/ana_00.jpg){kind=link}
![[8] http://s.a.cnn.net/si/features/2004_swimsuit/images/2004.jpg](http://s.a.cnn.net/si/features/2004_swimsuit/images/2004.jpg){kind=link}