Behind the fame and scandals, the protagonist of “Baywatch” narrates how she lived her rise and fall in the documentary “Pamela Anderson: a love story”
As it happens with all the stars, the public of the world thinks they know her life and she feels with the right to comment and judge. The case of Pamela Anderson is one of the most emblematic about fame, the violation of privacy and the power of media phenomena to ruin a career. The Canadian-born model and actress had her splendor during the 90s, a time when she became one of the great figures of the decade.
Her meteoric rise began with photos of her in Playboy magazine, with Anderson becoming one of her leading models. But, her true fame came with Baywatch (1992-1997), a series where the entire cast exploited the sex symbol status of each one of them, although Pamela was the one who benefited the most from this television phenomenon.
Pamela Anderson: A Love Story traces her film and television career, as well as her involvement with Playboy merchandise, but explores her private life and her present as never before. Of course a strong point is the theft and dissemination of the private video of Pamela and her husband, Tommy Lee, which was stolen from their home and turned into a hacking phenomenon that destroyed their lives and ruined her career.
Without makeup, Anderson is shown in her family home in Canada, away from it all, reminiscing about her life, showing family videos, telling the stories of her parents and reading texts that she wrote throughout her life. she. She simply humanizes and fully shows the woman who for a full decade was the sexual obsession of millions of people. It is a very strong contrast that already in this age of humanity should not surprise anyone.
Anderson never got the movie career she dreamed of, and her TV success was reduced to one series. She got her start in the artistic world by exploiting her sexuality, which through no fault of hers later condemned her to become a victim of internet madness. Without a career, she had to learn again and make the most of the caricature place that, according to herself, the world ended up giving her.
However, there is something significant that almost no one mentions and that even the famous miniseries Pam & Tommy (about the theft of the tape and its consequences) narrates accordingly. Pamela Anderson had a child when the video surfaced, and she would soon become pregnant again. She had already lost a pregnancy and the suffering of those years was terrible. This film does some justice on that subject. Her two children appear in the film, which also helps to better understand the person behind the star.
Unfortunately, in the movie, one of her sons only watches the first three episodes of Pam & Tommy, precisely those that are very different from the others. I hope you’ve seen the rest, because the look on Pamela Anderson is much more generous and fair than it seems at first.
There is no doubt that she was a victim, but this is not a complaint documentary, rather the opposite. What you see here is the madness to which she was subjected, her life with its ups and downs and the acceptance of many mistakes. Her fame will always be related to her sexuality, beyond her current activism and her desire to continue growing. Revered and underestimated at the same time, Pamela: A Love Story is a Netflix documentary that helps to fully understand it.