Marilyn Monroe had her manhole cover, Pamela Anderson had her lifeguard board. A busty blonde in a red bathing suit running in slow motion on the beach in Malibu: this is the image that pop culture history will retain of her often referred to as the “sex goddess of a generation”. A sexy, vulgar and crazy character as we liked them in the 1990s, better known for her romantic escapades (she was married five times) than for her acting skills.
The former star ofBaywatch is now 55 years old and has traded her bikini for a lawn tractor. Refugee on her native Vancouver Island (Canada), in Ladysmith, where she found her mother and her two grown children, she tells her story without filter (and without make-up) in a film by next to two o’clock (Pamela, a Love Story) streaming on Netflix. Filled with home videos and stock footage, the documentary, in a sort of mise-en-abîme, also shows us Pamela Anderson reacting to the release of a fictional film on… Pamela Anderson.
Pam & Tommy, an eight-episode series released in February 2022 on the Hulu and Disney+ platforms, looked back on her tumultuous relationship with rocker Tommy Lee and the scandal that rocked her career in 1995: the stolen sextape affair, the first story viral video. The documentary, shot at the very moment of the release of Pam & Tommy, therefore has a dual mission: to allow Pamela Anderson to regain control of her personal story and to prove to the world that she is not just a sexualized object.
“I always said my boobs had a career, I didn’t” – Pamela Anderson
This film, supposed to reflect a form of truth, and the series, necessarily fictional even if it is inspired by real events, collide and respond to each other, creating an incongruous and nevertheless fairly common narrative set in recent productions. The series-docu-film combos on the same subject are multiplying, passing public figures, serial killers or protagonists of various facts in the audiovisual wringer (some certainly preferring to be forgotten).
The other mission of Pamela, a Love Story is to clear up a misunderstanding. Like other female icons before her (one thinks of Marilyn Monroe, long considered a magnificent idiot without great talent, depressed, even uncontrollable), Pamela Anderson used the only weapon that the system and her condition granted her: her physique. “I always said my breasts had a career, not me”, recognizes the old playmate.
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