Meredith Jones has vague memories of the real-life drama that has served as inspiration for Pam & Tommy, a new series currently streaming in Australia on Disney+.
"I just remember the scandal at the time," Dr Jones said.
"I hadn't quite remembered that the tape was stolen."
The tape Dr Jones is referring to is a sex tape.
Featured on it is former Baywatch actor Pamela Anderson (played by Lily James) and her then-husband, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan).
Seth Rogen plays the disgruntled contractor who stole the tape from the couple's home, and leaked it to the world, initially on VHS before it hit the Internet in 1997.
Dr Jones is director of the Institute of Communities and Society at Brunel University London, and is an expert on popular culture, especially when it comes to women's bodies.
She told the ABC that the slow reveal in the series, which began by centring the male characters while presenting Anderson as a "doll-like figure," evolved to cement her as "the real victim".
"By the third episode, we're beginning to see that actually, she is the one who's going to be most affected by this," Dr Jones said.
She believes Anderson was trying to model herself on a Marilyn Monroe-type figure: someone who was considered sexy, but was still well regarded for her acting skills and talent.
"I thought that the part in the third episode where she's talking about Jane Fonda and admiring her activism, her intellectual work, alongside her really owning her sexuality as an actress — that was really poignant, I thought, because of course, we know now that Pamela Anderson didn't reach that sort of level of recognition."
Dr Jones said we'll never know for sure whether Anderson would have got there, but it's evident the sex tape did her career lasting damage.
Dr Jones doesn't believe society has changed since the 1990s when it comes to that double standard.
"I think that some women now are more able to take control of a sex tape, and in some ways, benefit from it," she said.
"My guess, with Kim Kardashian, is that she would still say she would prefer the sex tape to have never existed."
She said the work the reality star and her family had to do to turn her sex tape into a positive — if they did, indeed, manage to do that — was immense, and most women don't have those sorts of resources.
"In a way, she created a form of celebrity that had never existed before, and she managed to weave the sex tape into that.
"But, for someone who's in a more traditional career, just like a straight Hollywood actress, weaving a sex tape into that is probably going to end up in disaster."
Dr Jones said some actresses were often forced to tread an almost impossible fine line where they're both lauded for being sexy, and shamed.
Music writer and critic Bernard Zuel said that, while Anderson's career may have suffered due to the sex tape, it had the opposite affect for Tommy Lee.
"I'd like to say I don't remember because I was too young but, sadly, I do remember it," he said of the furore surrounding the sex tape.
"The band were rubbish, and still are rubbish.
"They were not given much credence in broader music, and certainly sniffy critics like me couldn't take them seriously, and if we did, it was just to put them down.
"So, the fact that a sex tape came out was just in keeping, wasn't it?
"That's what you thought would happen with someone from that band."
Zuel — who has read Motley Crue's book The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band — said the book confirmed the "appalling" truth about the band.
He said part of the reason the sex tape was "good" for Lee's reputation was because he was depicted with his wife, and not a conquest.
"You're playing that kind of music with a reputation for being a band that was extremely active sexually, then what you want is to either have people talk about you being a stud, or talk about you being a stud with significant appendage.
"And what more could you ask for than Tommy Lee, who wasn't known for doing much except playing drums, having more than two sticks in his hands?
As for the series itself, Meredith Jones said that, if it wasn't already such a well-known story, she would feel that Pamela Anderson was being exploited in some way by it but, given it's already so public, there's merit in telling the story with a bit of hindsight and a more modern spin to it.
"I think that retelling this sort of story from a slightly more enlightened time is a good way to put these things in perspective and, perhaps, give back the victims a little bit of power and a little bit of a voice.
"But, of course, Pammy may think completely differently.
"It's a shame she's not an executive producer or something.
"That would have made me feel really good about it."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMia2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIyLTAyLTA1L3BhbS1hbmQtdG9tbXktcGFtZWxhLWFuZGVyc29uLXRvbW15LWxlZS1zZXgtdGFwZS1pbXBhY3QtdHYvMTAwODA3MTA00gEA?oc=5
2022-02-04 19:55:59Z
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