The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers

Host:
The camera opens on a quiet swimming pool at dawn. The water is still — a pane of liquid glass catching the first light of morning, its surface trembling only when the wind sighs across it. The bleachers are empty, the world not yet awake.

A row of yellowed newspapers lies scattered on the bench, their headlines faded but still legible — “Champion Swimmer Shines Again,” “Beauty Beneath the Waves,” “The Mermaid America Loves.”

In the reflection of the pool, two figures stand opposite each other. Jack, hands in pockets, his eyes cold with thought; and Jeeny, barefoot, her toes brushing the water, her face serene, though her gaze carries the kind of sadness that comes from remembering something beautiful and unfair at once.

Between them floats the echo of Esther Williams’s words:

“The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers, and as a national champion, I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.”

Jeeny:
(quietly) “She sounds proud — and wounded. You can hear both in her voice. The joy of being seen, and the ache of being seen for the wrong reasons.”

Jack:
(smirking) “Or maybe she just knew how the game worked. The papers wanted a face, not a record. You can’t sell integrity on a newsstand, Jeeny. You sell beauty, youth, and the illusion of effortlessness.”

Jeeny:
(turning toward him) “You say it like she was to blame for it. But she earned that space — she was a champion. It wasn’t her fault they couldn’t see past her smile.”

Jack:
(leaning against the wall) “Maybe. Or maybe she played along. The camera flashes, the photo spreads, the Hollywood deal — it’s all part of the same system. If you benefit from the glare, you can’t pretend to hate the light.”

Jeeny:
“Benefit doesn’t mean belonging. She was a swimmer, Jack — a woman of discipline, pain, and grace. The media turned her into a mermaid, not because she asked to be, but because men couldn’t imagine a woman who was both strong and real.”

Host:
A ripple shimmered across the pool — a perfect circle, dissolving into silence. The light caught it just long enough to make it look like a halo breaking apart.

Jack:
(quietly) “You’re right about one thing. The world doesn’t know what to do with beauty unless it can own it. Especially when it belongs to a woman. But she still smiled for those cameras, Jeeny. Maybe that was her way of fighting back — or maybe of surviving.”

Jeeny:
(sitting down, dipping her feet into the pool) “Survival doesn’t mean acceptance. Sometimes you smile because that’s the only armor you’re allowed to wear. If the world insists on turning you into a poster, you make sure they print your truth on it, even if only in ink invisible to the eye.”

Jack:
(sitting beside her) “Invisible truth doesn’t change headlines.”

Jeeny:
“No — but it changes memory. The image fades, the story doesn’t. That’s the trick: to let them think they’re admiring your beauty, when in fact, they’re witnessing your defiance.”

Host:
A bird flew over the pool, its shadow gliding across their faces — a momentary eclipse, gone as quickly as it came. Jack watched it go, his reflection trembling beside Jeeny’s in the mirrored water.

Jack:
(sighing) “You talk about defiance like it’s poetry. But the world isn’t built for poetry, Jeeny. It’s built for consumption. You can’t fight objectification with symbolism.”

Jeeny:
(gently) “No, but you can endure it with meaning. That’s what Esther did. She turned her body — the very thing they commodified — into art. Every dive, every pose, every impossible underwater ballet — it was her way of saying, ‘You may look at me, but you’ll never truly see me.’”

Jack:
(leaning forward) “And yet they did see her. On every magazine cover. Every column. They saw her so much they forgot to look deeper. Isn’t that worse?”

Jeeny:
“Only if you think their gaze defined her. I don’t. She used it. Like the water itself — let it carry her, but never drown her.”

Host:
The sun climbed higher now, the light scattering over the pool like shards of glass. The surface rippled with motion, and for a moment, it looked as though the reflections of the two were dancing beneath the water — distorted, but strangely beautiful.

Jack:
(softly) “So you think she found power in it — in being looked at.”

Jeeny:
(nods) “Not power. Agency. The power was already theirs — the photographers, the producers, the men with pens. What she took back was control of her image. She couldn’t change what they wrote, but she could decide how to be seen. And that’s a quiet kind of rebellion.”

Jack:
(half-smile) “You really believe that every smile in those photos was an act of rebellion?”

Jeeny:
“Not every one. But the ones where she looked straight at the camera — those were.”

Host:
The camera of imagination turned toward the pool, and for a fleeting second, the water shimmered with the ghost of Esther herself — suspended mid-dive, arms outstretched, her body a perfect arc between freedom and display.

Jack:
(looking at the reflection) “It’s strange, isn’t it? How history remembers faces, not effort. The medals gather dust, the headlines fade, but that one photo — that lives forever.”

Jeeny:
(softly) “Maybe that’s what immortality really looks like — to exist in a thousand people’s imaginations, even if they never know your truth.”

Jack:
(quietly) “That’s not immortality, Jeeny. That’s misinterpretation.”

Jeeny:
(smiling) “And yet it keeps you alive, doesn’t it? Even if it’s not the way you’d want. We don’t get to choose our legends, Jack — only how we live inside them.”

Host:
The wind stirred again, rattling the newspapers on the bench. One page tore free, fluttering into the pool. The ink bled instantly, the image of a smiling young swimmer dissolving into blue water, as if returning to her element.

Jack:
(softly, watching it vanish) “There she goes. Back to where she belonged.”

Jeeny:
(nods) “Yes. Not in print. Not in headlines. In motion. In water. In her own rhythm.”

Jack:
(after a pause) “It’s strange, Jeeny. The world wanted her to be a picture, but she was always a story.”

Jeeny:
(smiling faintly) “Exactly. And maybe that’s what every woman in her position is — a story disguised as a smile. You can frame the image, but you can’t freeze the meaning.”

Host:
The camera pulls back, rising above the pool. The newspaper drifts below the surface, the ink dissolving into a faint cloud of gray, swirling like memory itself. Jack and Jeeny stand together at the edge, their reflections merging — two forms, one truth:

That every act of being seen is also an act of being misunderstood.
And every misunderstanding, in time, becomes a kind of freedom.

The sunlight gleams once more on the water, a single flash of gold, then fades.

Jeeny:
(whispering) “She swam for the world — but she belonged only to the water.”

Jack:
(softly) “And the water never cared about the headlines.”

Host:
And with that, the scene dissolves — like a photograph left too long in the light — leaving only the sound of rippling water, endless and forgiving, carrying away the last echo of a woman who dared to be both seen and free.