“There’s a tape out there floating around... what's it like
to have that kind of exposure?” “what's it like?”
Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee were the original modern
glamour girlfriend and tattooed boyfriend couple.
Right now we’re seeing a renewed interest in celebrity
couples who fit this Barbie-and-the-Bad-Boy
pattern, like Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly,
Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson, and
Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker.
“Kourtney put her tattooing skills to the test
and inked the words ‘I love you’ on
Travis’ forearm.”
And all these romances feel, to an extent,
like a throwback to 90s and 2000s celebrity couples such as
Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie,
Dave Navarro and Carmen Electra, and
most of all, Pam and Tommy.
The release of the Pam & Tommy
miniseries coincides perfectly with this
resurgence to reexamine the couple’s cultural
significance, as well as the most infamous part
of their story - the leaked sex tape from their
honeymoon that exploded on the internet.
At the time it was rumored that
Pam and Tommy released the video
themselves as a publicity stunt, but with today’s
post MeToo lens, the Pam and Tommy
series draws our attention to just what a violation
this stolen material actually was
“this is so private, it’s like we’re seeing
something we’re not supposed to be seeing.”
In the years that followed, the theft contributed to
a society of increasingly blurred lines between a
celebrity’s public and private life,
which offered little protection for their privacy
and consent in the face of a voracious media appetite
for voyeurism.
Here’s our take on the definitive barbie-alternative guy
pairing, Pam and Tommy, and why now is the perfect
time to understand how the price they paid for fame.
“Did you make a mint off of that”
“I made not one dollar…” “Are you, I thought
you guys made a deal…” “No, it was stolen property.”
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It’s tempting to think of the glamour girlfriend
tattooed boyfriend couple as an iteration of the
beauty and the beast trope, but what singles out these
tattooed men isn’t that they’re unattractive,
It’s that they embody a rebellious, anti-establishment
ethos that casts their partners in a different,
darker light.
“Guess what my middle name would be?”
“Blade. Chaos. Hectic. Violence. Rebel.”
Prior to meeting Tommy Lee,
sex symbol Pamela Anderson was viewed through a very
specific lens: first as the ultimate Playboy playmate,
and then as CJ Parker in the more mainstream,
less explicit, but no less titillating Baywatch.
She was an archetypal playboy bunny blonde –
embodying that type more perfectly than
perhaps any other-
“You are still the hottest chick on the planet”
“I’m playboy.”
“You’re a playboy girl.” “I’m a playboy girl.”
– but this Barbie hyper-perfection
didn’t necessarily send the impression of depth or
an interesting personality. She became more
unpredictable and edgy in the public mind when
she made a surprising choice for a partner:
Tommy Lee, the epitome of rock and roll excess,
famed for his extravagant, drug-fueled tours with
Motley Crue and his seemingly never-ending list
of conquests.
Their love story felt from the very start like something
unstable, which made it exciting
“After a five-day whirlwind romance
in Cancun, Tommy lee and bikini-clad Pamela
Anderson exchanged vows.”
Pam and Tommy weren’t the first good girl/
bad boy couple to enter the public consciousness -
The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and
(then only 16 year old) actress Ione Skye
had a tumultuous two year relationship in the 1980s.
Arguably, Danny and Sandy from Grease fit into a similar mold.
“Sandy!” “Tell me about it, stud.”
But it was Pam and Tommy’s
popularity that planted the seed for modern
explosive mainstream interest in this particular kind of couple.
Tabloids obsessed over the weirder, more gothic
details of Billy Bob Thornton’s relationship with Angelina Jolie -
like the fact they wore vials of each other’s blood
around their necks, and gifted each other
his-and-hers grave plots.
“It’s a beautiful train-wreck.” “I need a kiss please.”
“I said A kiss.”
Rocker Dave Navarro and playmate Carmen Electra’s
relationship became the focus of its own
early 2000s reality show, which played up Navarro’s
dark, gothic image.
“To prove from the start it was death do us part,
they swallowed their rings and expired.”
While these darker, more brooding men
seemed to make the women they were with
more interesting in the public eye, on the male end,
there was an element of wish fulfillment and fantasy
at play. Despite these men being
famous, talented, rich, and often incredibly
body-confident - showing off the countless tattoos that
cover their skin - their alternativeness
and divergence from a ‘ buff-jock masculine-beauty
ideal led to them being seen almost as everymen.
So the knock-on effect was that these glamorous,
male-fantasy archetype women appeared slightly more
attainable to the average guy.
“What do you see in this Kid Rock character?
I mean he’s like 100 pounds wet and this guy
wears these wife beaters and these stupid-looking
hats.”
It’s also impossible to ignore that the majority of these
men come from a rock and roll background,
where the rocker and the beautiful girlfriend is almost a rule.
Rock and roll has a history of excluding women from
the music side of things, and casting them as groupies
or muses - there to inspire or fawn over their creative
partners.
Pam and Tommy then were a highly visible proof
of how being a male musician could elevate your status to
the point where you would be rewarded with one of the
most beautiful women on the planet, and how
even if you’re the most beautiful woman on the planet,
people will look to the person you’re dating
to define who you really are.
“How did Tommy Lee feel about you posing
for playboy, did he like it?” “Well that’s how he found me.”
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If you only know one thing about Pam and Tommy,
then it’s almost certainly that they recorded a now-infamous
sex tape which was distributed by shady websites
in the late 90s. At the time the scandal was
focused around the contents of the tape itself, and the
newness of how the internet was used to distribute it,
allowing sellers to evade prosecution more easily
than ever. What there wasn’t was much suggestion Pam
and Tommy had been violated in any way by having this property
stolen, other than in interviews given by the couple themselves
“Somebody just went and exploited the hell out of
our life.”
There were even some implications that the tape had been
released deliberately by the couple – a baseless rumor
that the Pam and Tommy series debunks, based on the 2014
Rolling Stone article reported by Amanda Chicago Lewis
that “the tape was, without question, physically and illegally taken
from Anderson and Lee’s home” when disgruntled contractor
Rand Gauthier stole the safe it was locked in.
As Lewis observes, it’s the fact that it clearly wasn’t
made for an audience that enabled the authentic,
unself-conscious intimacy of the tape that viewers were
so compelled by. Howard Stern once said,
“It’s the greatest tape I have ever seen in my life.
What’s cool about it is that, like, you get to live
their lives with them.”
“you know my favorite part of that video is when
Pam's trying to work the laptop and then that
crazy sort of like white trashy talk they
talk to each other baby hey baby I love
you hey lover I love you baby.”
The lack of conversation in the 90s around the
violation enabling this viewing stems from how the
idea of consent wasn’t widely discussed in the
culture at the time, to a degree that feels kind of
shocking now.
“Did I miss anything?” “No, you are just in time.”
And while the tape is estimated to have made
at least 77$ million just in legal sales in the first
12 months, initially the couple saw none of
that money.
“I wonder if I’ll ever see any money from that?
They’ve sold it all over the place,
I’ve never seen a dime.” “I know!”
(While they did eventually reach a legal settlement,
it’s unknown exactly how much they got, and
it was likely a small fraction of the actual sales,
as well as contingent on them signing away the rights
for future sales). The other flawed assumption
of many conversations of the time was that – because the sex
lives of both parties were already subject to tabloid
dissection, and Anderson had posed for many explicit Playboy
shoots – there was a public entitlement to seeing what went
on behind her closed doors. Shockingly, this was even
a legal argument at the time; as Lewis writes,
“since Anderson had posed nude several times and because
the two discussed their sex life in interviews,
Penthouse’s lawyer argued that the couple had forfeited
their privacy rights regarding the video’s content.”
Even in the way the tape is discussed now, that sense
of entitlement still remains, as if because it’s Pamela Anderson,
it’s fair game.
“I was a big fan of your Tommy Lee sex tape.”
The false idea that Pam and Tommy must have
released the tape themselves contributed to the longstanding
myth that celebrity sex tapes are always used to rebrand
celebrities or gain them a spotlight.
Paris Hilton’s famous sex tape, released without her consent
in 2004 as what we’d now call “revenge porn”
was mostly discussed in the media as yet another example
of her shameless self-exploitation in pursuit
of “fame for being famous.” And when Kim Kardashian’s
introduction to fame came via a sex tape
“I only had that one movie come out, and no-one
told me it was even premiering”
the rumors that Kim had sold the footage were widely interpreted
to affirm and prove that this had been the case
for everyone who came before her, despite counter-evidence
"You know there are people out there who say that you
put it out there yourself, you know that.”
“Yeah, and, you know, I think why would anyone
put that humiliation on their family.”
And all this plays into the strange assumption
that the public is entitled to celebrities’ bodies.
Pam’s and Tommy’s tape’s release happened at a time
when there was a stricter divide between the life of
celebrities and the lives of ordinary people.
Social media hadn’t been invented yet, and the internet
was still something of a novelty.
“A what site?” “A website. It's this thing on
the computer. People will go to it.
They will order the tape directly from us.”
But news media had already begun moving toward something
more voyeuristic - the dawn of news reporters roving the
streets via helicopter led to iconic television moments
like the LA Riots and the OJ Simpson car chase,
both of which gave viewers a more immersive, fly-on-the-wall
“entertainment”-style coverage of events that may previously
have been reported in a more detached, factual way.
The Pam and Tommy tape fed this newfound level of
voyeurism. No longer were viewers content with looking
at consensually obtained sexual material produced for an
audience; they wanted more. The Pam and Tommy tape helped
create a market just as the internet was developing
as a means to satisfy that market. It’s a short leap
from Pam and Tommy’s tape being released in 1996 to the
lurid details of Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton’s sex scandal
being disseminated across the world via
Matt Drudge’s gossip blog The Drudge Report not long after.
“It really is the first time I think the internet is
breaking a story of this magnitude.”
Yet as well as creating a market, the Pam and
Tommy sex tape incident illustrated how little control
celebrities now had over their public image.
Pam’s and Tommy’s paparazzi photos of their beachside
wedding appeared even before their tape got leaked
(a previous violation which was exactly the kind of
evidence used to argue that they no longer
had entitlement to privacy).
The sex tape in turn contributed to a culture where celebrities
had even less control, as a voracious tabloid
press had to effectively keep up with this new appetite
for voyeurism. Gossip magazines exploded,
as did online blogs, and the paparazzi became an even bigger
part of the media landscape, with the success of a magazine
dependent on scandalous, candid photographs.
“There was always a little bit of a hunger
for the unposed photographs.” “As we had more of that kinda
material in the magazine, you know, the sales just
went up.”
Even despite the public calling-out of the paparazzi
in the wake of Princess Diana’s death in 1997
“Do not use tabloids as a source, you define the difference
between tabloid and legitimate news,”
their influence continued to grow in the 2000s, as we can
see in the shocking tabloid treatment the public condoned
of stars like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Janet Jackson
and Lindsay Lohan. And while it’s easy to look
for one scapegoat among this whole media structure,
it was fundamentally a profit-structure fueled by a
public desire for voyeuristic content, motivation violating
behavior; even Gauthier and those who partnered with him in
selling Anderson’s and Lee’s tape found themselves quickly ripped
off by other anonymous sellers online, preventing them
from making a fortune themselves. The watershed moment all this
led to was arguably the 2014 celebrity nude photo leak,
with Roxane Gay writing at the time
“This leak is likely only the beginning. Because there
will always be another leak, because there is an insatiable
curiosity when it comes to the nude celebrity woman’s
body. She puts herself in the public eye and, in turn, we are
entitled to see as much of her as we so desire,
or so I am sure the justification goes.”
“Private behavior is a relic of a time gone by.”
These beautiful and the damned couples are in the middle of
a resurgence. Kourtney and Kim Kardashian have coupled up
with Travis Barker and Pete Davidson respectively,
while the revival of Megan Fox’s career has coincided with
her relationship with actor and musician Machine Gun Kelly,
who actually played Tommy Lee in Motley Crue biopic The Dirt
“I keep having this vision, right,
where my drum set, it rises up like this,
and then bam, smoke, lights, and the whole
thing starts spinning around.”
But while Pam and Tommy’s image was packaged and sold
to the public by others, this new generation of couples
have somewhat more power to retain control and shape
their own narratives. Megan and MGK, like some
of their predecessors, have created a mythology around
their relationship, but it’s one that’s known to us from
details that have all been shared by the couple themselves –
from the reveal that Megan’s engagement ring is inlaid with
thorns - because, as MGK says, love is pain, to the fact they
apparently drank each other’s blood after getting engaged,
to the bizarre meet-cute that began their relationship.
“You said to me.” “You smell like weed.”
“And I said: I am weed.” “And then, you vanished.”
Similarly, Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian
have been able to maintain control over
their relationship’s narrative, with their
introduction to the world as friends coming in an
episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians
“Our neighbour and friend Travis Barker decided to come
over to Khloe’s house because his kids and
my kids are really good friends.”
While Travis hasn’t ever been a regular in the
series, Kourtney has used the show to drip-feed their
relationship to the world, showing people maybe
a different side to Travis that’s at odds with the
hedonistic rockstar image
“Travis do you wanna make a house?
A gingerbread house?”
The other place the couple have been able
to craft their own narrative is via social media,
which has almost negated the need for paparazzi
voyeuristically spying on the private lives of celebrities
by giving audiences direct access to those private lives -
as well as the ability to interact with the celebrities in question.
While Travis’ instagram photos are still professional
and manicured, they give the impression of a candid,
behind the scenes look at the couple, satisfying
our need for a deeper, more personal engagement,
but on the couple’s terms (and with their clear consent)
“Travis also took time to cherish Kourtney’s love
note he posted via instagram.”
There’s also something to be said for the balance
of power having shifted in the years since
Pam and Tommy were together. Then, there was
a sense that these bad boys were leading these beautiful
women astray, as if the women couldn’t resist the
pull of something that wasn’t good for them.
But now the women in these relationships come to them
with far more agency in a different cultural climate,
and the idea they even could be led astray feels
far-fetched. There’s a real sense of equality in many
of these partnerships– with Kelly even taking second
billing to Fox in his own music video for Bloody Valentine
“I’m sad, I don’t expect you to understand.”
And profiles of that couple take pains to at least pay
some attention to Kelly’s looks, instead of just objectifying Fox –
GQ’s Molly Lambert describes them as an
“absolutely gorgeous couple, seemingly made for each other”
and calls Kelly “handsome” before remarking that Fox is
“the most beautiful woman I ever met”.
And while there may be a collective incredulity in the
media around Pete Davidson’s ability to date so many
beautiful women, which echoes some earlier conversations
around Tommy Lee or Anderson’s following husband
Kid Rock, the interest in Pete is less focused on a secret
destructive darkness than on a fascination with what’s so
compelling and attractive about his personality –
and what that reveals about attractiveness standards today
“He seems super charming, he’s vulnerable, he’s lovely…
His fingernail polish is awesome. Like, he looks
good…good relationship with his mother.”
But arguably, it’s the ordinariness and healthy
domesticity we’re seeing from some of these new beautiful
and the damned couples that’s the biggest shift in celebrity in
the era since Pam and Tommy.
Pam and Tommy were anything but ordinary - they were famous
in an era when fame meant living a life completely different,
and came with the cost of not allowing celebrities
to define their stories for themselves. The irony
of the Pam and Tommy miniseries is that it’s a show
about a violation of consent, but it’s being done without
the consent of those portrayed. Director Craig Gillespie
has talked about wanting to “change the narrative”
surrounding the couple, but neither was involved
in the creative process, and Lily James’ attempts to
contact Anderson ahead of her performance as her
were fruitless. Pamela Anderson has tried
to shape her image in unexpected ways over the
course of her career – whether through comedy,
like her appearance in Borat, writing novels, or becoming
a passionate activist for political and environmental issues
“And what are the funds being raised for?
They’re gonna go to the Pam Anderson foundation
which supports environmental issues
and animal issues and human rights issues.”
Still, the release of this series reminds us how
she’ll always be seen through the lens of what proved a
relatively short relationship that lit the fuse for the celebrity
gossip explosion of the 21st century. When control
has been taken away from you in such a public
way, maybe there’s nothing you can ever
do to take it back.
“You don’t seem to understand what a big
deal this is to me.”
“I’m on that tape the same as you.”
“But this is worse for me.”
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