Hulu recently premiered the miniseries “Pam & Tommy,” based on the true 90s scandal that involved the theft and public release of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape. Lily James stars as Anderson, a Playboy model and actress who starred in the original “Baywatch” television series, and Sebastian Stan plays Lee, the drummer of Mötley Crüe, met at the end of 1994 and married four days into their relationship, creating a media frenzy around the couple. On their honeymoon in 1995, Anderson and Lee made an hour-long sex tape that they locked in a safe, which was then stolen and the sex tape was released all over the Internet. While Anderson and Lee filed lawsuits against everyone involved with its distribution, they couldn’t stop the spread of what was virtually the first “viral video.” The Hulu series is based primarily on a Rolling Stone article from 2014 which detailed the entire story. (Anderson and Lee divorced in 1998 with two kids.)
You may be thinking that this distinctly 90’s scandal is primed for the prestige TV treatment, and you’re probably right. Audiences are certainly responding to the show’s 90’s nostalgia, strong acting, and stranger-than-fiction story. However, where this narrative gets complicated is that “Pam & Tommy” was made entirely without Lee or Anderson’s involvement or permission. The showrunners and Lily James have stated that they attempted to contact Anderson throughout the development of the show but never received a response. Despite Anderson’s lack of permission, they moved on with the production. While Lee has expressed some excitement about his story being told in the miniseries, sources close to Anderson report the disappointment and pain the show has caused her.
The irony of the situation is that these (male) showrunners are creating a series about a woman whose body and image was exploited without her consent, while the series itself was created without her consent. This creates an inherent contradiction in “Pam & Tommy.” The showrunners claim they made the series a “positive thing” to condemn Anderson’s exploitation and violation. They wanted to change the narrative of the scandal by showing how Anderson was unambiguously a victim of a crime due to her agency being stripped away with the release of the sex tape. This is a worthy goal, but because of Anderson’s lack of involvement, they are condemning her exploitation and violation by re-exploiting her and her story with a show that violates her privacy all over again — a show that contains multiple scenes of recreation of the sex tape. By taking away Anderson’s agency in telling her own story, the central theme of the show rings hollow.
It’s a distinct moral quandary that begs the question of who truly owns your story. The creators of “Pam & Tommy” didn’t have a legal obligation to receive Pamela Anderson’s permission before creating a show based on some of the worst moments of her life, but just because she is a public figure, is her name, likeness, and story public property? Does she have no ownership over the facts of her own life? It casts a shadow over “Pam & Tommy,” and despite the series’ quality of production or watchability (it currently holds an 80% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the show carries with it a feeling of discomfort and a dim awareness in the viewer of the gross exploitation of the woman at its center.
Just two days ago, on March 2, Pamela Anderson posted a handwritten note to Instagram seemingly announcing an upcoming Netflix documentary about “[her] life” that would “tell the real story.” The note is vague but certainly hints at some dissatisfaction with the way her story has been told by others. She is taking back her own narrative and showing that her story still belongs to her, and I hope that others, like myself, will wait to watch her story be told on her own terms.