Pam & Tommy
A sex tape of me is going around so I exist, seems like the contemporary version of Descartes (sorry, in an earlier version it was stated that this was from Sartre but that is of course incorrect) ‘I think therefore I am’. But believe me, no matter how ‘exposed’ you may be in real life, a sex tape in which you experience your most intimate moments is something you want to keep to yourself. This also applies to Pamela Anderson, who, as one of the sexiest women ever born and multiple cover model of Playboy, suddenly saw her most private moment fly around the world. And that was still pre-Twitter and Instagram, just imagine the effort people made to get to see that tape.
How did it go again?
Pamela was furious, madly in love with Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee from head to toe. A duo made in heaven, it seemed. Two people who still held their glass up when testosterone was poured, two people who didn't know that a light switch also serves to turn off a light and who mainly see a bar as a place to dance rather than to sit. Those two, they went through life like two Magdeburg hemispheres (that is a physical phenomenon where two hemispheres are sucked together so hard that a vacuum is created in the middle). Anyway, they got married within a minute and that marriage was sealed with, you guessed it, a sex tape.
Because Tommy Lee and Pamela also have their limits when it comes to what they want to share with humanity, the tape went into a safe. They would pull it out again to watch it on a cold, long winter night and give the concept of aha-erlebnis a new meaning.
Anyway. So far, nothing to worry about. But then there was an electrician who had a bit of a quarrel with Tommy. Something about a bill that Tommy didn't want to pay. Out of revenge, the electrician dove into the safe (he had apparently been there more often for jobs for Tommy) and grabbed something out, hoping to get Tommy to pay up.
He had no idea what was on that tape, but when he put it in his video recorder at home (yes dear people, that's how it used to be, we still had a video recorder), he thought only one thing: pure solid gold.
They decided to dub the tape and offer it for sale. For 59 dollars, people could buy it and off went the tape, around the whole world.
Pamela Anderson says that the tape has affected her life. She was vulnerable, she felt abused. And while it contributed to Tommy Lee's masculine sex appeal, her 'slut factor' shot up to red regions. She hasn't been able to turn it around for the better and still wants nothing to do with it. Not even with this series, although she could have financially benefited from it. There is a Pamela for the sex tape and a Pamela after. A Pamela who lives in Canada and prefers to engage in literature and art.
The series is being praised and celebrated. Rolling Stone Magazine: ‘A sharp, funny, and poignant re-examination of an event that was once an easy punchline.’
For Pamela Anderson, it is again a painful reminder of something she hoped had been covered with a thick blanket by now.
Image: Hulu trailer
