The Problems with Pam & Tommy

[Content note: this blog post contains descriptions of sexual violence, including victim-blaming, lack of consent, and traumatization, which may be upsetting for survivors.]

Pam & Tommy, a series currently airing on Hulu, has garnered a significant amount of attention in the past month. The show’s plot revolves around the “leaking” of a sex tape that belonged to public figures Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, which was stolen and uploaded online without their knowledge. Hulu has heavily promoted the show to the point where outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, and the Washington Post have contributed their own reviews.

Although the general commentary about this show seems to concede that the leaking of the sex tape was problematic, there are many more troubling issues at hand. Ultimately, Pam & Tommy does nothing to question a culture that promotes sexual violence. It also seemingly sidesteps the lack of consent, victim-blaming, and re-traumatization for Anderson.

• Consent. Lack of consent has a consistent theme in both real life and in the Hulu depiction. In 1995, neither Anderson nor Lee consented to having this tape uploaded online to the public. Similarly, Pam & Tommy was created without consent in mind. As the subject, Anderson did not participate in the series production and has also expressed that the stolen tape was “a violation” and that it still brings about painful memories. Unless someone has freely given their explicit permission, there is no consent. The series has failed Anderson as a survivor in this regard.
• Victim-blaming. Following the leak of the stolen tape, critics quickly blamed the couple for making it in the first place. Critics have also further blamed them for complaining, as they sold the rights to the video, with no regard to the pressure put on them during this time. During an interview with Jay Leno in the mid-1990s, Anderson disclosed: “To have something so intimate stolen from you. Something private from inside your marriage. And have it taken and exposed to the world — it’s devastating.” The same kind of rhetoric around victim-blaming is also used in explicit image explotation (better known as revenge porn cases), where survivors who consented to having their photos taken during a sexual encounter later experiencing humiliation when those photos are shared without their permission. When the focus is on blaming survivors rather than holding perpetrators accountable, survivors will struggle to heal.
• Retraumatization. All survivors deserve validation, support, and agency. This includes public figures. Anderson has had none of these options available to her as the series has aired. Rather, she has expressed that she has had to relive the painful experience, which is indicative of retraumatization.

Despite movements to raise awareness about problematic representations of sexual violence (especially post #MeToo) Pam & Tommy has not followed that trend. It is clear that sexual violence remains a driving plot point in American popular culture, and it is critical who tells the story. And if there are stories to be about shared about sexual violence, those stories should be told by survivors themselves. Consider the FX show Impeachment: American Crime Story, which is a limited series that examined the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The show tells the story from the perspective of Monica Lewinsky, who as a survivor, was very involved in the production and approved every word in the script. Survivors’ stories can be effectively shared if the storytelling further empowers survivors and offers them a way to heal. Anderson–and other survivors–deserve better.