While what felt like half of the student body traveled to a warm vacation paradise, the other half likely binged Hulu’s great new reenactment series, “Pam and Tommy.” If you are unfamiliar with the Pamela Anderson, Tommy Lee sex tape scandal from the mid-nineties, I will be the first to tell you that you have no idea how much of a national reset that was for American pop culture. The series pretty accurately relives the entire story behind the Pam and Tommy sex tape, including its origins as two attractive newlyweds taking a honeymoon on a private boat with a technologically advanced video camera (what could possibly go wrong here?), how it got to be in the hands of Rand Gauthier – who is played by Seth Rogan – and more specifically how that VHS tape changed America.
First, let’s talk about Pam’s underlying feminist beliefs that are portrayed throughout the entire series. But before you think about holding her to today’s feminist standards, remember that the actions made by women in the 90s regarding the liberty of a woman’s own body were not nearly as commonly seen as they are today, which is what makes Pamela Anderson even more of a BADASS. Pam’s role in American society at the time she met Tommy Lee was degrading, to say the least. She took pride in her role on the hit series Baywatch but was constantly snuffed by writers when it came to giving her more serious lines and monologues. She had just landed a role in a movie that was giving her a lot of hope for the future of her career and she was seen in the same way with Tommy as Meghan Fox is viewed after her partnership with MGK. If it wasn’t hard enough to be a woman in the sex-craved 90s Hollywood culture, she had about ten more pennies stacked on her scale to add to the already challenging struggles.
Once the public made news about the leaking of the tape, Pam and Tommy had one concern; how on earth were they going to retrieve their bodies off the internet? Pam was instantly more alerted than Tommy and she explains to Tommy very well in the series the double standard sex has on our society. Pam reminds him that people will think he is cool for this video, and people will only look at her as the misogynistic slurs I can’t even bring my fingers to type out.
At the end of the series, the legal settlement regarding the accessibility to the tape is broken down for modern viewers to understand. Many of us are familiar with Taylor Swift’s $1 lawsuit against her former manager Scooter regarding a sexual harassment scandal to prevent the media from twisting Swift’s actions to look like a money heist. But we might need to give some more credit to Pamela, who completed her Sex Tape Settlement for the price of $0.00, for the same fear that she would be viewed as a successful woman looking for more money.
I did a good job at leaving out some incredibly important details to try and motivate you, my readers, to throw on some Pam and Tommy this week and enjoy the ride!
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