Pam & Tommy review: There’s more to Hulu’s show than sex and scandal

Imagine the world where a celeb sex tapes wouldn’tYou can’t make money. But in the early internet era of the 1990s, it’s just how it is. According to one porn specialist, the Hulu series has a new series. Pam & Tommy’s, stolen sex tapes invite police to either the video store or theater playing the film, and then the whole thing’s over.

But then the “World Wide Web” came along and … well, there’s a lot of porn out there. Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee were among the first celebrities to have their private affairs shared against their consent, victims of the later-termed “revenge porn” in the burgeoning world of click-to-order bootleg VHS tapes.

Pam & Tommy The most important thing is the why and how. How did Hi8 get from being locked in a safe to become a cultural joke? What was the reaction of the general public? It’s the latest in a long line of TV series, movies, and podcasts that are trying to get to the bottom of such questions. While Pam & Tommy makes its case, it’s not as cut and dry as the show wants to think.

What is Pam & Tommy?

Photo: Hulu

Pam & Tommy is a show about Pam and Tommy — you guessed this maybe; it’s specifically Pamela Anderson (star of Baywatch, Improvements to your home and more) and Tommy Lee, the drummer for Mötley Crüe. From 1995 to 1998 they were married. Their sex tape, which was then stolen and sold for distribution, eventually became widely known. This miniseries of eight episodes focuses on the events leading up to and after that movie at home, the effects it had on the couple’s lives and wider culture.

Who’s behind the show?

Pam & TommySeth Rogen & Evan Goldberg, the producing team behind so many diverse works. Superbad, 50/50 – The BoysPlease see the following: InvincibleHe snatched the rights to an article in 2014 Rolling Stone by Amanda Chicago Lewis. This article detailed the crimes through the eyes of Rand Gauthier who was the one who stole the safe. In the series, Gene plays Gauthier. Robert Siegel also produced the episodes and wrote both of the first two episodes. The Wrestler.

Craig Gillespie (director behind the episodes) directs the first three episodes. I, Tonya; while the show doesn’t have the same naked self-awareness as the movie, there’s certainly a familiar hum to the tempo of it. Stars Lily James and Sebastian Stan are the creative spark behind the camera. With the help of amazing prosthetics and makeup, they play Anderson and Lee.

What’s it about?

Many of these are Pam & TommyThe pilot steers us around the plane, keeping our eyes on one place: 1995 Summer, when Rand determined that he would take their safe to retaliate for Tommy’s unfair construction job. Merely hoping to recoup some of the approximately $20,000 he was owed, he’s happy enough to tool around with the couple’s jewels, money, and guns — at least until he figures out what’s on the VHS tape among his new treasures.

Hulu’s first three episodes are available on Hulu starting Wednesday. They show the process of the tape entering circulation. Tommy and Pam meet and fall in love (all within four days); Rand attempts to find out how much he would be paid for the tape. Everyone tries their best to do the next big thing in the culture wars of the 1990s.

What’s it really about?

Photo: Hulu

Photo: Erica Parise/Hulu

Photo: Hulu

Much like so many other media, Pam & Tommyit is the story behind the pictures. Follow these steps to American Crime Story: Impeachment (and, so, OJ vs. the People), You’re Wrong AboutYou can also call it: Britney Spears: Framing BritneyThe Show takes a bashed, sexualized punchline, and draws back the curtain so we can see the human behind it.

Anderson and Lee were harassed and pinched by paparazzi. And while Monica Lewinsky claimed her story as the first of anyone “destroyed” by the internet, Pam & Tommy argues that the couples’ sex tape was maybe the proto-internet sex scandal, with news outlets and porn sites alike helping it gain traction. As Lewis notes in her article: “It was a porno that appealed to people who didn’t usually watch pornos, a voyeuristic dive into the guileless intimacy between two tabloid darlings.”

The blindspots and dawning of the internet age continue to be reacted by pop culture, Pam & TommySimilar difficulties exist. While Lee has publicly supported the project (even meeting with Stan), Anderson has remained mum, aside from a few quotes about feeling violated all over again by the project, which she (per a “source”) found “very painful [… and] shocking that this series is allowed to happen without her approval.” She joins Britney Spears, who was “embarrassed” by her New York Times documentary, as women who might benefit from such reevaluation, but aren’t hoping to relive one of the most difficult periods of their lives. It’s a strange, thorny angle on a series that ostensibly puts the heart of its series in a woman maligned for having her sex tape shared without her consent.

So, is Pam & Tommy good?

Photo: Hulu

These (increasingly crowded) airspaces are difficult to navigate. Pam & TommyIt struggles to make their case different. Even if you’re not familiar with the contours of Anderson and Lee’s story in particular, we’ve come to know the beats of what stories like this will do. Pam & TommyIt can sometimes be a bit too explicit about its goals, with dead-on dialog directed more at the 2022 audience than to the characters of 1990s.

So it’s where the show can set itself apart from the other narratives that come to count, like the performances by Lily James and Sebastian Stan. Stan directs Tommy like a livewire, his current flowing alternately funny and joyous. They seem entirely born from a man who is above all, a person who just tries not to give a damn. James’ Pamela is doe-eyed and optimistic, making the hardest parts of the narrative the ones where she is clobbered by reality. The Anderson-Lee romance story begins to decay, but they are able to discover the sweetness together. By the time the show reminds you that these two still apparently call one another the “love of my life,” Pam & Tommy Already, they have tried to make you believe it.

This series takes an inordinate interest in the way these two find something that neither of them was able, and helps each other appreciate their own abilities more than they could. It’s why the second episode has a prolonged montage of the two nakedly adoring each other’s bodies, or why Sebastian Stan as Lee mulls over his love life with his penis (an animatronic voiced by, if you can believe it, a toned-down Jason Mantzoukus). The scene is uncomfortable and a little lurid, considering the wider context of the story and Anderson’s apparent wishes, but it’s also wholesome; both they and their bodies have been so commodified that to be simply themselves is its own relief.

This scene highlights the tension and constant stress that underpins all of it Pam & Tommy. Siegel and Gillespie’s series manages to artfully make its point and build out what an immense tragedy the entire affair was, even if it whiffs certain moments to make them a little too clean. While the show offers a variety of commentary without being overloaded with information, it is often prone to feeling solitary and off-the-cuff. Although the Anderson-Lee couple are portrayed as having intimate partner violence, episodes seem to show that the show is determined to portray the sex tape in its entirety as the cause of all the problems. But unlike the stagey, Wikipedia-come-to-life elements of Impeachment, Pam & TommyIt has a point and an angle. Rogen’s Rand comes to represent some of the best of that promise (as in the first three episodes, where his cruelty has a purpose) and the worst, when his character starts to feel superfluous to the people who are actually getting fucked over by the whole situation.

But ultimately, Pam & TommyIt is part of a parade that is so focused on correcting the damage done, that we have a new show genre that has not only butInvitesMedia should be subject to greater ethical oversight. Exercising too much influence from stars can lead to disaster. But if you’re setting out to vindicate someone, it’s hard to justify doing that against their wishes.

When and where can you watch Pam & Tommy?

Hulu has the first three episodes available now. Every Wednesday, new episodes of the miniseries’ eight-part series will be available on Hulu.