Pam and Tommy is now streaming on Hulu and there is much to talk about.
The show is based on the 2014 Rolling Stone article, “Pam and Tommy: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Infamous Sex Tape,” by Amanda Chicago Lewis. Following the infamous 90’s couple, actress and model, Pamela Anderson and Mötley Crüe’s drummer, Tommy Lee when their honeymoon sex tape was stolen and leaked to the public. Anderson is played by Lily James and Tommy Lee is played by Sebastian Stan.
With this show getting many reviews and making an overall excited audience, the TV show focuses on pressing topics and also holds some controversy.
The Real Pam and Tommy
The biggest thing to be acknowledged of this whole TV show is that Anderson and Lee did not permit the filming of it. But the show was able to be produced by optioning the rights to Rolling Stone’s article.
Anderson and Lee first met at a nightclub on New Year’s Eve in 1994. They eventually got married in Feb. 1995. They were the hottest couple in the media at the time, being the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll love story.
But the couple wasn’t all perfect. Even though they did stay together when their sex tape was being distributed online, the couple struggled a lot. After the birth of their second son is when the relationship fully fell apart. In 1998 Pamela filed for divorce. Lee attacked her earlier that year, while she was holding their youngest son, and was sentenced to six months in jail.
Their romance did not stop there, they ended up getting married again in 2008. Two years later the couple split up and went their separate ways.
The Effect on a Woman
The overall release of the sex tape took a huge toll on Anderson, affecting her overall career and views as a woman in the media’s eyes.
While the TV show is in the wrong to open up past wounds of Anderson in a time that was extremely hard on her as a woman, the show interprets what those struggles are to a woman. Lily James does an excellent job of showing those struggles. With the pressing issue that Anderson was looked at way more as a sex symbol and nothing more than Tommy who was getting praised after the release of the tape.
The series shows how Anderson was exploited so much and how it risked her overall career to get acting jobs and to be taken seriously in the industry. It shows how she was constantly sexualized wherever she went, having no control over what hands the tape fell into. The rights of her own body were stripped from her.
Overall
Even though the series is quite controversial in that Anderson and Lee themselves did not approve it, it is a show that discusses pressing issues on how women are treated in the media, especially towards their bodies.
Even the show itself is an exploration of someone’s life who gave no permission. Anderson has not been silent due to the production of the show, saying that she feels “violated.” She has also recently posted on Instagram, teaming up with Netflix to tell her own story.