She had a traumatic childhood, she became a model by accident, and a session for “Playboy” opened her Hollywood gates. Thanks to “Baywatch”, she became probably the most popular blonde in the world and a living icon of the pop culture of the 90s. Then the scandal with the stolen sex tape broke out, which marked her for years and made her ex-husband popular. Although she is a loving mother of two sons, she has no luck with men – she has already been married six times, the same goes for divorces. Pamela Anderson still has not said the last word, and in a new documentary, which can be viewed from January 31 on , she finally tells her story in her own words.
The first reviews of the documentary about Pamela Anderson
The New York Times’ Glenn Kenny points out that the clash of her well-intentioned “shed off her inhibitions” with “institutionalized misogyny makes the Canadian biography a very disturbingly American story.” According to Dan Einava of “” the film “may trigger a long overdue apology.” Alexandra Jones of the London Evening Standard added that the latest Netflix production is “a nice ride” and emphasizes that it “brilliantly shows both the joys and woes” of the title character. “Pamela Anderson is a genuinely likable on-screen character in this intimate, if somehow elusive documentary,” Peter Bradshaw notes.
“Pamela. A Love Story” presents “a portrait of a proud woman with a traumatic past who does her best to cope with this burden and recover. She has been trapped in disgrace for decades and cannot escape the effects of the scandal that constantly haunts her. She has been robbed of every opportunity to express her story, and has been robbed of every opportunity to work through the traumas she suffered before the sex tape scandal – she was sexually abused by a babysitter, she was raped at the age of 12 by an older man, she also went through a complicated miscarriage,” Andrew Parker relates in his text.
Critics note that after the film “Pamela. A Love Story” we should not expect any scandalous or groundbreaking reports, because its message, although obvious, is also a decidedly belated social reflection and an image of the life of a person who, although she lived in the spotlight and had access to the media, she was pushed against her will into nasty drawers, and her words bounced off the wall like peas. Directed by Ryan White, the film makes you realize how ultimately problematic it is for Pamela Anderson that she’s just been too honest in interviews all these years. Not because she did not hide anything and commented on even the most difficult issues, such as sexual violence and rape, which she experienced as a child, nor because she had no problem telling how her first session for “Playboy” gave her a sense of strength and agency, and also helped her regain her own sexuality and feel like a sensual woman again. According to Fienberg, the problem is that no one really paid attention to what Pamela Anderson was saying – even though she was right all the time.
Daniel Fienberg of ” believes that the film’s message is universal: pop culture and mass media treated Pamela Anderson lecherously and without subject, focusing on her body, love life, and then on the stolen sex tape, thus also blocking her voice on these matters. Fienberg emphasizes that Anderson, wanting to attract attention to a project that is supposed to show her perspective, has no problems sharing a few lewd details as part of the project’s promotion.
This is how the media now write about the fact that, according to the actress, Tim Allen was supposed to show her naked on the set of a joint series (because he had already seen her undressed in “Playboy”), which Allen denies. Pamela Anderson’s assurances are also strongly denied by Sylvester Stallone. It is hardly surprising, since the Canadian star said that he once offered her a Porsche and an apartment for becoming his mistress. But in the movie, he doesn’t spend much time on it, he just throws out one sentence with a laugh. According to the reviewer, Anderson did this fully consciously, so that the press would have a medium for making lists like “The five most shocking confessions from the biopic of Pamela Anderson.”
Fienberg notes that the film demonstrates exactly that once you dig through the scandalous headlines of the late ’90s, the real Pamela Anderson is actually quite smart, funny, and yet quite boring. “Not in a critical way, just one that, as expected, reveals to us that she is simply a woman who wants love.”
Reviewers also point out that the director of the film also managed to show the paradox that although Pamela Anderson documented her life, kept diaries and recorded family films that she shared with documentarians, their overtones are obscured by the infamous sex tapes that Anderson did so much damage, and her ex-husband even gained popularity. We also learn from the film that she never earned money from the tapes in question, and the actress also denies the information that she was to be behind the leak of the tape.
“Anderson provided the filmmakers with several entries and recordings that she has not been able to watch to this day. She even went so far as to say that she will probably never watch White’s documentary in its entirety. And yet Pamela Anderson bravely shows those moments when she feels vulnerable and sharing these moments with a wider audience because she has always been a pop culture figure who has given the world more than she has taken from it.”
“Watching the documentary, there is no escaping a sense of profound injustice. We have to ask ourselves, how could we – as a society – take all this so lightly? Why did we allow Pamela Anderson to be the butt of jokes? Of course, these are unanswered questions, because it was then when the morality was different” – emphasizes Alexandra Jones from “and adds that it is also worth considering why the series “Pam & Tommy”, filmed without the consent of the actress, dedicated to the sex tape, is another manifestation of how the victims are disregarded – regardless of that his message may be true.
“Given what Anderson has been through, should we force her to relive all the traumas of the sex tape scandal in the name of human entertainment?” the journalist asks and adds that Anderson did not even have a chance to make a decision on this matter.
So is it worth watching Pamela Anderson’s film about Pamela Anderson? “If you’re going to lose two hours of your life, you can do worse than sacrificing them to Pamela Anderson,” concluded Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
