Trailer for the docu "Pamela, a love story" about Pamela Anderson (Netflix)
Pamela Anderson is a name that brings with it a whole world of images to a generation of people who grew up when she was a brand in the 90s and 2000s, and all these images are related to sex.
In those years, Pamela was synonymous with a sexy woman, and represented the ideal of beauty of that time down to the last detail: very blonde, very thin, with particularly large breasts.
She was known as a Playboy model whose nude photos adorned dozens of sticky magazine pages, as a mediocre actress in the cheesy hit series "Gulf Guard" that no one expected her to shine anyway, but mainly to run in slow-motion dressed in a revealing bikini.
Then came the surprising marriage to the wild rocker Tommy Lee after only four days of acquaintance, and the highlight that positioned her (and to a lesser extent, him) as the punch line for the crude joke of the decade - a sex tape that was the first viral video.
These were decades when no one thought twice before asking her about her boobs, in interview after interview, nightly show after nightly show.
The smug Light Night hosts would mock her with every opening monologue, then sneer as she sat across from them on the couch and asked questions about her sex life.
That's how they played this game and at the time no one raised an eyebrow.
I'd like to believe that viewers of Netflix's new documentary, Pamela, A Love Story, will look at this chronicle of humiliation and feel outrage for it, or at least move uncomfortably at this montage of sexism.
without makeup.
"Pamela, a love story" (Photo: Netflix)
The film's strength is the time it's been since Anderson was in the mainstream as a walking sex symbol.
Documentary works like this work because of the perspective we get with the passage of time.
She is no longer the same young girl, we as a society have already progressed, and what was the accepted discourse two or three decades ago does not pass today.
This is the right time to go back to the events branded by the media and hear how she felt that the joke was on her.
Netflix has released several such products in recent years, such as the movie "Britney vs. Spears", and of course the obvious example of the series "Harry and Meghan", stylish and cute documentaries that aim to take a well-known story that happened on the pages of magazines, on TV talk shows and gossip articles, and turn them on their head.
The protagonists of these documentary works seek to show us their version of the life story that we, consumers of pop culture, have pretended to understand and judge based on information we received through a voracious media that chewed them up and spat them out in order to sell a newspaper or for clickbait.
The film uses every footage you can get your hands on, and when it comes to Pamela Anderson's career, there is no shortage.
Like Britney, Harry and Meghan, she lives a large part of her life in the eyes of the camera, and in her case still fully naked, so it was very easy to dismiss her feelings, needs and right to privacy when she is not undressing for work needs.
Her story is a perfect example of how much we as a society allow the boundary between public and private to blur, and Pamela understands this more than anyone.
She understands the irony that exists in the fact that in this film she intends to expose her mind and soul, as she once exposed her body.
She sits without make-up at all, and speaks directly and honestly to the camera, laughing at herself, radiating warmth and charm but also great intelligence.
She gave the production all her home videos, and all the many diaries she'd written throughout her life, but didn't feel like reading them herself, so they used an actress' voice to interweave selected pieces she'd written over the years.
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Learned that a relationship inevitably comes with pain.
"Pamela, a love story" (Photo: Netflix)
The diaries describe key moments such as the arrival at the Playboy mansion, the first time she was photographed naked, etc., and it is a story of a young woman who arrives from a small island in Canada to the heart of the city of sins and her head spins, but she finds a freedom there she has never known.
She dates every hunk we grew up with in the nineties, until she meets the one who became the love of her life and the father of her children, Tommy Lee from the rock band Motley Crue.
We accompany her in this relationship, while the system continues to take advantage of her and she continues to accept it.
The famous sex tape case is discussed here at length, as a defining event that never ends, and one that pretty much ruined her life and certainly her career.
Just when she thought she had put it behind her, the series "Pam and Tommy" arrived, and once again they pretended to tell her story without even asking her permission or opinion.
The elements of coercion and lack of control in her life are recurring motifs in her story.
At the very beginning of the film we hear about her troubled childhood, her parents who fought with each other violently but also reconciled with passion.
She tells directly about the sexual abuse she experienced at a very young age by the babysitter she looked after.
About the rape she went through at the age of 12 by a 25-year-old guy. About the feeling of shame and self-hatred that developed in her in response to these difficult events.
These traumas later echo in the choices she makes throughout her life.
She learned at an early age a twisted notion that affection necessarily comes with pain, that being in a relationship means fighting and throwing things, and that people use sex as barter.
She saw nothing unusual in a series of failed relationships with unstable men, because from what she learned at a young age, if he doesn't hurt you, he doesn't love you.
Her work as a Playboy chick gave her a sense of empowerment, but the larger context seems to have eluded her.
In the sex industry she was an object and nothing else, therefore the world,
who saw no problem in buying magazines in which she is naked, also saw no problem in buying a private tape that was stolen from her home.
No one but her makes the distinction between the time she chose to undress and the time it was forced upon her.
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It's hard not to fall under her charms.
From "Pamela, A Love Story" (Photo: Netflix)
The film is called "Pamela, a love story" and there is no doubt that this is its main theme.
The narrative is a story about a girl, then a young woman, and now an experienced woman, all she does is look for love.
Her biography is like a "friend between the dots" of relationships.
Men who, as a result of meeting them, made fateful decisions, such that to the observer seemed capricious and irresponsible, and she herself admits that they were made without thinking about the future.
Pamela is a woman driven by pure emotion.
She loves a lot and is hurt a lot.
In love with love and want to constantly feel this emotional roller coaster.
Throughout the film she speaks in these terms, maintaining the optimism and hope that maybe this man, this marriage, will lead to rest and inheritance.
It's hard not to fall under the charms of this woman, who speaks with such sincerity and sweetness, and managed to keep an open mind and charming innocence, even after the wild life she had until now.
No matter how much she has been hurt, betrayed, despite sexual assaults and violence, despite marriages that fail again and again, she still believes in romance.
Where Pamela is towards the end of the movie, it seems like she's decided to try to be self-sufficient, to focus on self-love, to be good to herself and her two boys, and that feels like the healthiest choice for her.
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The gap between a scandalous life and a sweet personality.
From "Pamela, A Love Story" (Photo: Netflix)
It's not the most sophisticated documentary you've seen, but it's interesting and fluid, and just does its job - makes us feel empathy for Pam, even makes us want to protect her.
He certainly makes a fascinating retrospective of sensational events, reframes them and shows the exploitative culture in which we live.
The gap between Pamela Anderson's scandalous life and her sweet personality helps the film a lot.
In this way, the creators can satisfy both the voyeuristic impulse of the viewers and their need to feel that they are actually on the side of the good guys.
They can cringe at the pain of a character being exposed against her will, and know that they really wouldn't have been tempted if, say, sometime in the early 2000s, they would have received a link to their hotmail with the title "Pamela Anderson's hot tape - come in!"
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