‘Pamela, a Love Story’ Is No Curated Experience
Written by Miranda Vidak
2/6/20239 min read


My friend Brandon often tells me - “Miranda, society peaked in the ‘90s”. And sometimes he tells me he’s jealous I got to be a teenager and a young adult then and do all the stupidly cool things people did in the ‘90s.
If you give me the option to be 20 right now, today, and erase the ‘90s from my memory and all my experiences, I would not take you up on that. Those times were priceless. You can’t have them.
When I say the society peaked in the ‘90s, I don’t mean all the misogyny and sexism without any accountability; I mean life without the social media, the pressures of competing online, and instead engaging in pure, uncomplicated fun.
When you calculate all the times humans inhabited this planet, from the beginning until today, and you add and subtract all the good things and the bad things each era represented - the ‘90s will win the competition.
Society peaked in the ’90s.
Pamela, a love story documentary made my heart flutter by reminding me of that time. She said it in the most sensible sentence:
“We just had fun back then, it was never a big curated experience, we were just in the moment.”
The simplicity of her as a human being and the softness she’s using to tell her nuanced life story shocked me. Threw the air out of my lungs, kicked me in the butt; I forgot this exists!
We’re so used to aggression, commenting, fighting, comparing, jealousy, hysterics about everything; the opposing opinions, people, events, and politics, and here comes this woman who had been done so wrong by so many, yet she speaks without urgency, anger, bitterness, even when confronted with let’s say Meghan McCain on ‘The View’ and keeps her opinion solid while this cow shrieks at her.
Look at this video. How does she do this? What kind of sorcery is it to be this calm in the face of shriekingly wrong in-your-face opinion?
I can’t even begin how instructive her documentary is. Enlightening even. On media practices, on life, love, abuse, family, redemptions, love and just keeping your heart pure.
This woman is a phenomenon.
I can’t pin it down, but I’ve never seen a woman that can be unbelievably sexual but also not threatening (possibly Bellucci). I spent the last 4 days scooping the internet, all of it, every article written about her newly released documentary & memoir; out of all the comments on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and under the articles - I haven’t found one hateful comment about Pamela.
Not not many, or some slightly negative. NONE.
How is this possible?
There’s NO woman on this planet that guys find incredibly sexy, but women don’t find threatening.
Only women like Angelina - like Angelina. Everyone else, mostly the minivan majority hates her.
How is this possible? I’m not talking just now, apparently, it was like that in her prime too.
Pure heart. I have no other explanation.
But mostly I think it’s because Pamela is not trying to be anything, she’s just being.
And she made me yearn. Badly. I felt almost palpable pain reminding myself of her life, nostalgic about those uncomplicated times. And she made me pine about the real stars from the ‘90s, compared with the social media influencer abuse we’re subjected to today.
As Nina Metz puts it into words:
“I was struck by how committed she is during rehearsals. It’s a reminder that Anderson’s fame precedes the social media era of influencers who get by with neither talent nor charisma. She has the stuff. And by the time she takes the stage, you’re rooting for her — and she’s good. Really good.”
She just IS.
A big part of Pamela’s documentary is a love letter to Tommy Lee. I’m conflicted about this.
Here’s how. I love Tommy Lee. I think he is the most beautiful human to walk this earth, and the combination of his eyes, brows, nose, and lips - when I see it, it feels like home. I’m weak on Tommy and I’m conflicted.
I grew up obsessed with Pam and Tommy. First and foremost visually. He is everything. She is everything. Blondes are not usually my taste, but her, it was just some unexplainable magic. The teeth, lips, something about her face speaks the American dream that I wanted to see in person, when I was growing up. His and her face is homey to me.
Together, it’s something you don’t often see.
I want to picture them old with a few teeth missing, on a bench somewhere, tattooed, age 80, talking shit.
But do we need it?
Does she need it?
If you watched the doc, you know what the focal point of the documentary is.
"I really loved your dad for all the right reasons and I really don’t think I’ve loved anybody else.
I think I’d rather be alone than not be with the father of my kids. I think it’s impossible to be with anybody else, but I don’t think I could be with Tommy either.
It’s almost like a punishment.”
This is where I’m conflicted.
The assault. He assaulted her, and we should say how brave she is to leave him. No one should take abuse, especially with a 7-month-old child in their arms.
But I dug more into it, since my memory records a slight something else there, from back then. I knew there was something else to the story.
Tommy Lee pushed her and apparently kicked her from behind. She told Howard Stern she later found out he was on steroids, trying to bulk up for her, since he was always so skinny. Aggression, blank eyes = steroids. Not an excuse, an explanation.
She did not know this at the time. When he went to jail she found needles in the house and concluded he was on heroin. She picked up her kids, no explanation, no working on anything, “no gray area” as she said in the documentary, and filed for divorce.
The time when they actually were able to communicate in a civilized way, probably came much, much later. And she got the whole picture when it was possibly too late.
I’m not condoning his behavior. No sane person is.
But Pamela takes a little blame here too. Known as a person who doesn’t think too hard and just up and leaves; on one hand - I’m impressed she chose the happiness of her kids over her own happiness, afraid this might happen again. Many mothers don’t do this, they are desperate for a guy and they ruin their kids’ lives.
But also, and this is my confliction, what if she stayed? What if she stayed a minute and let him explain, trying to work on it?
All his interviews in the aftermath have the same manifesto - “I wish I was given a chance.”
You can see the regret on her face that paints someone feeling part of the blame.
Of course, we all know they got back together again and even married in 2008-2010, so a second chance was taken, but was the mutual blame, one for the assault, one for leaving - too much to get over?
No one will ever know but them.
And not sure if the Tommy Lee of recent years is worthy of her today.
Getting pissed off she mentioned him in the 2018 interview with Piers Morgan and tweeting something dubious about her which got him decked by Brandon Lee, his son?
Brandon’s comment on his dad’s Instagram, over being aggravated about the lack of a Father’s Day message, is so poignant to me:
“Someone like you couldn’t raise a man like me.”
Brandon is a gem.
We like men raised well like Brandon.
Although the idea of Pam and Tommy filled the nostalgia in all of us, the documentary’s love letter might just be about her sons, and not Tommy.
After being undermined by men all her life, her sons ultimately became the protectors she never had. Her sons became what Tommy Lee should have been to her. Righteous. Protective. Kind. Supportive.
How big the power of Pamela Anderson is, shows in all the love and adoration she had been receiving all over the world. Her energy and charm at 55 are so overwhelming, it’s sad to be reminded of Kim Kardashian and Megan Fox copying her style but having no energy or aliveness of Pamela to pull that off.
At the documentary’s premiere, when her son teases her about falling in love so often, she stops him softly but authoritatively and says - “Wait, wait, yes, it is one of my favorite thing to fall in love, but I’m always in love, I have the most romantic life right now, and I’m alone. You can set flowers on the table, you can light candles and write poetry, you don’t have to have somebody in your life, you just have to live a romantic life.”
Lots of writers did a piece on ‘Pamela, a love story’ focusing on men in her life degrading her and not getting her seriously.
I don’t often take that spin because it’s not much to say, we know the damages of the patriarchy.
I’m more annoyed with women, and how they treat other women. Being “attacked” by said patriarchy is different to me than being undermined, insulted, disregarded, or done harm by other women. I feel like the attacks from the outside never sting as much as the ones from the inside.
There’s only one unpleasant thing that came out of Pam’s telling her story, and that came with courtesy of Tommy Lee’s current wife.
In his colorful life, Tommy Lee was married to:
Heather Locklear - legend
Pam Anderson - legend, icon
Brittany Furlan - Vine girl
Brittany found offense at Pam releasing her story.
First, she tweeted: “You know what’s good for your mental health? Living in the present.”
Then she addressed the public on TikTok letting her 16 followers know she was doing ok amidst another woman telling her life story.
Then she recorded a video, in Pam’s 90’s Filter on TikTok mocking Pam while insinuating she would be happy if Brittany died.
And finally, she leaked Pam’s messages to Tommy to a TikTok gossiper who made it public.
I’m very familiar with this retroactive jealousy.
I can not for the life of me understand women who date guys that were in huge, iconic relationships before them and can’t seem to comprehend what they’re following up. Women who are bitter for not being with those guys, in their prime, with huge media interest, jealous of a woman that was there before them.
Can you erase the past?
Why would you want to?
Why can’t someone’s past be respected, as the present and future?
You can be any woman. You are any woman. You are a young girl, you are an older woman, you are an old woman, you are depending on someone and you are independent, you are ALL women.
Never forget that.
Tides can turn, and probably will; you will at some point in your life be what you despised or insulted once.
I was in that kind of relationship, I won’t post about it, google it if interested, and my ex-boyfriend’s next girlfriend couldn’t take it. But what’s not to take? It was so foreign to me, I thought he was joking when he told me “she just doesn't like me”.
This is the conundrum that gets me, the audacity: when we were together, I helped him get the biggest acting role of his life where he made tons of money. I got him that Hollywood life, papers, and the ability to be where he wouldn’t otherwise be.
His new girlfriend, later wife got to enjoy the life he has because I helped him get it. You don’t like me, but ya like the life?
She forbade him to talk to me, got someone to erase the information about our relationship from Wikipedia, and made him throw away boxes of our magazines together. He even told me she told him how she’s pissed I got to be with him in his prime, and not her.
What is wrong with us women?
I can’t really understand if this jealousy is founded on actual fear, or if it’s just instinctive? Do these women really fear losing this guy? Makes no sense to me, because if I wanted to stay with him, she wouldn’t be there.
Doesn’t this realization solve the problem? Or that’s exactly what’s making them insecure?
Because if you ask me, I can have lunch with them both, and help feed their future 4 kids chicken and fries.
Brittany just showed the power of Pamela, at 55 years old, having a homely girl of 36 years of age shitting her pants if she’ll possibly reach for Tommy.
If I was Pamela, I would steal him, just because of this raging disrespect, play for a few days and drop him around the corner.
(Tommy I would never drop you this is just for the sake of the article!)
I want to continue my 2023 in the soft-spoken, uncomplicated but strong Pam style.
And while I do that, someone better cast Pamela in White Lotus, season 3, as Tanya’s long-lost sister who came to investigate her murder while messing up everyone’s damn lives!