September 29, 2023 • 40 mins
When lifeguard CJ Parker, played by Pamela Anderson, ran in slow-mo down a sandy California beach in her iconic cherry red swimsuit — you know the one, low in the front, hiiiiiigh on the sides — she didn’t just turn “Baywatch” into the number-one TV show in America, she became the enduring symbol of 90s sexuality. In this episode, Jess and Susie trace that swimsuit’s surprising history — and its ripple effects.
Guests:
- Pamela Anderson, actor, activist and author
- Susan Douglas, professor of media studies at the University of Michigan and author of “Enlightened Sexism”
FOR MORE:
- Pamela Anderson Doesn’t Need Your Redemption. She’s Just Fine. (NY Times)
- How Baywatch Went from Early Belly Flop to the Big Screen (NY Times)
- Pamela: A Love Story (Netflix)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the mid nineteen nineties, when Pamela Anderson was at
the height of her fame, she sat down for an
interview with talk show host Regis Fielden. He was the
co host of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, and
pam was there to promote Baywatch, which was rated number
one in.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The world at that time.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Regis was asking her about the sudden and wild popularity
of that show, where she played c J. Parker, a
veteran lifeguard patrols the beaches of southern California in a
cherry red one piece swimsuit. And that suit, well, that
suit was what Regis and seemingly all of America really
(00:37):
wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And I love your red bathing suit.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I don't think there's a bost blattering, but there's.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Something about those one piece suits.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Oh I like one piece suit.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
That was bikini.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Excuse me what you can't see?
Speaker 1 (00:54):
And what gets that laugh at the end is the
face Regis makes after he says that he's biting his
thumb like a horny teenage boy who just can't contain
himself thinking about that swimsuit. And you know what, he
wasn't entirely alone. There was something about that swimsuit.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Banacarum.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a
cultural moment from the past that shaped us.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
And that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
This week, we're talking about a swimsuit, a very specific
swimsuit worn by Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, that classic and
can't be Lifeguard drama. But we're also talking about what
that swimsuit represented, which was a particular view of sexuality
that defined nineteen nineties America, which happens to be the
era we.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Grew up in.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So jess we're talking about that famous red swimsuit. But
like everything else on this show, it's not just a swimsuit, right.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That suit became one of these key artifacts nineties culture,
Like we all remember it. It hung on posters in
bedrooms of teenagers all across America and the world. It
eventually was like plastered onto beer cooozies and beach towels.
I was like going down the rabbit hole on eBay.
There's calling cards. I remember calling cards when you would
(02:18):
have to like go into a payphone and dial Yeah,
so that's some suit with Pam and it was on
calling cards.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
That's weird.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It was on pinup calendars, like basically anywhere you could
put an image and sell it. There was Pam in
that suit. And side note, she never made a dime
from any of those.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Because she didn't have any rights to her own image.
The image was around. That's wild too. So what made
you think about that suit?
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Now?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, so you'll remember that she released a memoir recently,
and she was also the subject of a Netflix documentary
that was actually produced by her son, all about her life.
And so late last year I traveled to Canada and
basically it got snowed into Pamela Anderson's house that sounds
amazing in Lady Smith, Canada, where she grew up, which
is where she now lives, in order to write a
(03:06):
profile of her and at one point, to tie this
back to the suit, I found myself in Pamela Anderson's
attic as you do.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
And you know, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
It's full of old magazines, interviews, She's done, all of
her Playboy covers. She's very into scrapbooking, so it's like
scrap books she made for her kids who are now grown.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Old report cards.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
There was like a wedding scrap book album she had
made for Tommy Lee. Her ex husband was married to
someone else now but who's the father of her children?
They co parent And I also uncovered an old bay
Watch barbie.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Do you remember that there was a bay Watch Barbie?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I mean, I don't know that I remember it, but
I can immediately conjure up the image of it, so
I must have been aware of it in some way.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So it's not specifically branded as the Pamela Anderson bay
Watch Barbie, but of course she looks like Barbie, and
Barbie looks like her. She is the Quintus Barbie exactly,
so you know, the Barbie's wearing the red soup. The
barbie has the lifeguard Booie. There's a little dolphin which
is very palm. Also shows an animal rights activist. Yeah, and
to show the impact of this suit, but also the show.
(04:15):
This is one of the top selling barbies of all time. Really,
it's another little data point that tells you about the
impact of that swimsuit and that suit on that show.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So we're talking about the swimsuit, but for those who
need a little refresher Baywatch.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
What was Baywatch, Susie? Do you have a recollection of Baywatch?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean, I knew that Baywatch was a lifeguard show.
It felt like it was on TV all the time
in the ninety years it was.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It ran from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety nine,
and the show was about a group of lifeguards who
patrolled the beaches of La County. The action usually revolved
around like dramatic water rescues, so lifeguards diving into waves
or even jumping from helicopters into the open ocean. But
you know, there were also, as you can imagine, really
dramatic things such as shark attacks, earthquakes, like hot affairs,
(05:07):
and even murder, so you know, like your usual beach
day drama.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Okay, And I remember it as really being a show
that starred Pam Anderson, although I also remember that David
Hasselhoff was like a big character on.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
The show, right, a big character on the show. He
was like the captain of the team or something, so
a lifeguard team. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That is all true.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But while Pam, you know, universal sex icon of the nineties,
and some could argue still today, was indeed a big
part of it. She didn't actually join until the third season.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Really, yep, I had no idea. I mean, I just
think of that show as so tied to her. I
can't imagine that show without her.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And the thing about Pam Anderson in that show is
that it was really her who took this swimsuit and
cemented it into the American psyche in this way that
none of us will ever forget. But of course that
is how we feel now, and I was really curious
how Pam felt about it back then. So I went
(06:08):
back to Pam and I asked her what it was
like to act in that suit.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
I guess that's a difficult question to ask.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I was just doing what I was told wearing the costume,
and I would have been on the beach anyway, So
it was fun to act in a swimsuit. I was
getting a tan and doing a job at the same time.
I know a lot of the girls kind of complained
about wearing a swimsuit all the time, but I actually
really enjoyed it. It was either the red swimsuit or
(06:34):
the black swimsuit. Where we did all of our workouts
and all of our slow motion montages. People always ask me,
how did you stay in such good shape on that show?
And I thought, well, just wear a bathing suit every
single day and you just don't eat that bagel.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I love hearing her voice, but unfortunately I do eat
the bagel.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Is that bad?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
But yeah, it really is amazing that you can immediately
conjure up what that swimsuit looks.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Like, trying to remember if there was one image of
that suit that like really crystallizes this. And it's almost
like there's dozens of moments. So if you look back
at the show itself, you see Pam in the red
suit grabbing her booie and running towards the water. We
see Pam in the suit bent over like sexily lotioning
(07:19):
up with.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Sunscreen as one does.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
We see Pam and her swimsuit on the jet ski.
We see Pam going to save a drowning man, but
like turns out, the guy isn't really drowning, He just
wants to Pam and h in the red swimsuit save.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That must have been a lot of the cave prompting
a false rescue is a crime?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Can bust me for that?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I love you? And so much slow motion running like
slow motion from every angle from back, below, side, top,
any angle you could possibly do slow motion. But the
show's opening credits are.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Really what I remember.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
The watch Sam song I'm Always Here some by the
eighties hair metal band Cobra. I love the hair metal
band plays in the background, and so as the opening
credits play on, you see these scenes of you know,
sunny California beach sand babes and bikinis like sun umbrellas,
kids laughing, and then you meet c J.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Parker. She's got her hands on her hips.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
The camera slowly pans from her very perfect and very
tam legs up to the top of her cherry red
swimsuit and then up to her face, and we see
that that suit is extremely low cut on the top,
very high cut on the hips, and like basically side
boob is in full effect.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So obviously a very functional lifeguard totally functional suit. And
so wait, you're telling me that there's more to the
opening than just Pam, because I remember the entire opening
is just being Pam running down the beach.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I love that that's the way you remember it, because
that's what I think most people's takeaway was. But actually
it introduces all the characters there's also a beach scenes like,
it's giving us a glimpse into southern California beach life.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
But what do we remember we remember par.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
What do we actually know about the swimsuit?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I mean, it really does not seem like a functional lifeguard.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Sh Okay, so funny you should raise that because the
original suit. So I mentioned that Pamela only joined in
season three. So the original suit was inspired by real
California lifeguards. It had like an official Elie County lifeguard
patch like the real kind. And the creators of this show,
one of them had actually started out as a lifeguard
in California. So they were quoted at the time talking
(09:39):
about how they wanted these suits to be quote practical
and actually work in the surf. They wanted to have
good support in the bust, they wanted to have minimal
creep in the back, and as one of them said,
it was all about athletics and functionality.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wait, so the original swimsuits were standard issue like lifeguard
swim suit.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yes, they were truly based on real lifeguarding. They wanted
to replicate what actual lifeguards wore. At one point, one
of the co creators of the show had this whole
description about how they wanted the suits to work in
the water in big surf. You know, they were talking
about how if you're a real lifeguard, you have multiple
victims that can be grabbing onto your hair, your suit,
your arms, your legs, and they could easily rip off
(10:22):
a swimsuit if they're desperate enough, they're you know, they're drowning.
So they couldn't have two piece swimsuits. It was too risky.
These needed to be legit swim suits.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think this is taking things a little literally for
a TV show.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
No, I mean, okay, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
This was a show that began as something that was
meant to be a serious lifeguard show. This was at
a time early nineties, like this was the era of
like LA Law, Law and Order, NYPD, Blue Er, like
all of these shows about like doctors, cops, whatever, where
we were like going inside behind the scenes, and they
(10:58):
really like exactly got it. So the original conceit for
Baywatch was to be a quote serious lifeguard show. And
in fact the title Baywatch that's actually a real name
of the rescue boats that patrol.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So then California pages.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Did you know, I did not know that I grew
up in California.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what happened was Baywatch was canceled the serious Baywatch
was canceled after its first season on NBC, and then
it was basically saved by a syndication deal. In the process,
the production budget was slashed by a third and a
lot of the original cast members either quit or were fired.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
They basically rethought the show.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
It got a little bit sexier, they took themselves a
little bit less. Seriously, that makes sense. They didn't have
as much money. This is actually how the slow motion
run gets put into the show, because they were trying
to save money and take up more airtimes, so they were.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Like, let's just slow it down.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So that run actually came from one of the creators
of the show. His name is Greg Bonan. He was
the one who was a lifeguard, so he sort of
thought he knew everything about lifeguarding.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, I mean, he might have known everything about he
also seems beside the point, but he.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Also got his start as a TV producer for the Olympics,
so he would film the athletes in slow motion to
show their athleticism. Oh and so he brought that idea
over to Baywatch, you know, to show their athleticism like questionable. Yeah,
And later on, David Hasselhoff he goes on to become
an executive producer of the show, and he's basically made
(12:25):
it seem like the sexiness was kind of an accident,
so he told Men's Health in twenty twelve, we didn't
have enough financing to finish the show, so we found
a way to fill the hour by shooting people running
in slow motion. We said, Wow, girls in bathing suits
look good running in slow motion, so let's just shoot.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
That, and they just like put in huge like chunks
of that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I mean it would actually someone should do a study
of this.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
To actually figure out how much of that show, percentage wise,
is just running in slow motion.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's probably more than dialogue.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
That is a fascinating way to fill time.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So anyway, then in nineteen eighty two, in it's third season,
this is when Pamela Anderson is cast. She actually replaces
another actor who quit because she didn't like the new.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Direction of the show.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
The slow mo or the sexiness, I.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Mean, I think they go hand in hand. But pam
takes on the role of c. J. Parker, who was
supposed to be the most experienced lifeguard on the show Fancy.
She was a character who was actually partially based on Pam,
the real life Pam.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
She was like a dreamer.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
She was really into like new agy stuff and crystals
and mindfulness.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I love the idea that they were like, we should
meet with Pam and see what she cares about it,
like write it into character.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
She was into animal rights.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, because it's like, you know, it's important for this
to feel really authentic, and.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
She exactly and she was constantly falling in love. So
they also redid the bathing suits.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Ah, but the bathing suits got redone for Pam.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
They didn't just redo the suits for Pam. They readed
them for everyone. But this was kind of part of
this sexier rebrand. So what happens, Well, the new suits
have a much lower scoop in the front. They have
high cut legs on the sides to kind of show
or fake the appearance of height. They often have this
really low back, though some of them had crossbacks, and
(14:13):
it actually is funny. There's quotes from different actors over
the years talking about that swimsuit. Kelly Packard, who didn't
join until much later, but she played lifeguard April in
season's eight and nine.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
She once said that her swimsuit was.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So far up her butt that she started crying because
it was patonful.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
At a certain point, you know, as this rebrand is happening,
actually putting on the simsuit is part of the audition.
But I don't think anyone knows this in advance. So
like years later, Carmen Electra has this story. She tells
The New York Times about how she showed up without
having shaved her legs, and she was like, oh God,
I hope they don't notice.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like that is something you
should warn someone about. But it really does feel like
it has the potential to lead to some awkward situations.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
It's so objectifying, right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
You're being asked to put on this ssuit.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, it's interesting because a few years ago Esquire brought
together all of the original actors and did this oral
history of the show. And Tracy Bingham, who played the
first black bay Watch Babe, she came on in ninety six,
So that gives you an idea of how white the
show was.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
It started in eighty nine, so white.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
I remember that show as being so white.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
She describes being in her trailer and one of the
producers coming in and asking her to put on her
suit and then basically like touching underneath her breasts to
make sure she wasn't patting them.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
That's not okay. Does Pam ever talk about that about
sort of those experiences.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Well, so it's interesting because Pam got her start in Playboy,
So it sort of sets up this tone. She was
discovered in her small town where she grew up in Canada.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
She was in her early twenties.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
She was at a football game and the JumboTron camera
pans over to her and she's wearing this crop top
with the Bats you know, that beer brand on it.
And so of course Labats is like, who is this woman?
They hire her to getting discovered this way? Yeah, and
so she goes on to become Playboy's most photographed cover
model of all time.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh wow, but that takes a few years.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So at this time she was working as the tooltime
girl in Home Improvement.
Speaker 6 (16:14):
I don't think so well.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
The whole role.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Of the tooltime girl was like, not to speak, but
just to like look cute in a pair of daisy
dukes and have a tool belt on and like handover
the tools and so that was the period she was
in when she auditioned for Baywatch.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's interesting because I do really think of Playboy and
Pam as very intrinsically connected. Like to me, when I
think of the classic Playboy cover model, I do think
of Pam.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And that's so interesting too, because actually Baywatch and Playboy
are intrinsically connected in the same way. Playboy became this
kind of natural casting choice for Baywatch at the time.
Also side note, it was often jokingly referred to as
Babe Watch.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah, that feels right.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So in season one, the actress who played Shannie McClain,
this is a character who was on the first two
seasons she had previously posed for Playboy, then came Pam
as c J. Parker, later on Carmen Electra who played
Lonnie mackenzie Kelly Monico, who made several appearances Playboy even
did a Babes of Baywatch issue in the late nineties.
(17:16):
So they were going to Playboy in some ways to
recruit actors for Baywatch. And in that same oral history
I mentioned for Esquire, it's funny because one of the
producers basically says in front of all the other actors
that they basically hired a bunch of hot women who
would look good in a swimsuit but couldn't act.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I mean that makes sense, because looking good in a
magazine has nothing to do with being able to deliver
a dialogue.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
But they sure could run.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I didn't realize how big bay Watch was until I
was researching this. Oh right, Yes, it was one of
the first TV shows to be syndicated, which meant that
basically they could run it on multiple channels, which probably
explains what it seems like.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
It was.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
At its height, it had billions of viewers, literally billions.
It was the most watched TV show in the world,
and actually, at a certain point it was literally shown
in every country.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Ye how's that even possible? That check this, okay, I mean,
I believe you.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
It's just some of the foreign syndications eventually started, including
what Pam calls the Pamela clause, which they wouldn't buy
the episodes unless she appeared in them. She of course
didn't get paid any extra for that, but that's impressive.
And then one of the most interesting things I found
was it there's actually an economic theory name for Baywatch,
(18:39):
having something to do with the export of culture into
foreign countries called the Baywatch effect.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Oh so that's interesting because it's not really even just
an economic export, right, It's like the way we think
about America, the way other people in other countries think
about us, must be so shaped by this sort of
quintessential California show. I mean, I grew up in you know,
large part in California, so I always sort of had
this image of the quintessential California girl. But that becomes
(19:07):
just the American in most.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Places, absolutely, which actually reminds me of Borat. All I
could think about was this lovely woman in her red
water panties.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Who was this cj oh.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Right, Because in that movie, he's going looking for Pam Anderson.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
He's here to like Mary Pam, and then he tries
to kidnap her.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Because it's a huge theme all that he knows of America.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense, and it's interesting because
I do really think for most of the world, that
sort of blonde Barbie girl is what America represents to
them in some ways, this sort of like care free,
sunny lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And of course I grew up in Seattle, which is
the opposite of the sunny happy used to the suicide
capital of the World.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
It's oh interesting, did not know that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Strangely, I also grew up watching Pamoy Anderson on Baywatch
awkwardly with my god. I distinctly remember this with my
two younger brothers, who are twins are three years younger,
and my dad in like our dingy TV together like
a family as a family, and like how did that happen?
I do remember my mom always kind of like making
(20:18):
remarks about how.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
This was trash TV.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Yeah, I mean it's and.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I think there was just not a lot else on.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
We didn't have cable, there weren't that many options, and
this was like on NBC, so it was supposedly a
family friendly show. Yeah, so okay. Pam joined that show.
In nineteen ninety two. I was in middle school. I
was like insecure, hated my body. I had just taken
part in a protest called skirt Fest at my middle school.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
What did that protest?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
My seventh grade boyfriend had been kicked out of class
for wearing my skirt.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Oh this was the era.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Do you remember those like long flowy skirts that everyone
was wearing kind of like hippie grungy.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Kids was original boho chic.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yes exactly, but like not cheek at all.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Anyhow, he got in trouble for wearing a skircho class
and got kicked out of class, and so we staged
a walk out and we picketed in front of Washington
Middle School, and we got the high schoolers to come
and they supported us, and we made the local newspaper.
But how does this relate to pant I mean, A,
we were never wearing swimsuits because it's dark and treary
(21:24):
in Seattle all the time, so like the idea of
us in a red swimsuit would never happen. Also, like
bright colors, we don't do that in Seattle. It's ray
only and it every day. And yet we all knew
who she was, We all knew of the sex goddess
in the red swimsuit. We all, i think, subconsciously still
compared our bodies to that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, I think it would have been impossible to be
a preteen or teen girl in this era and not
compare yourself to what was so obviously the ideal. Right,
Like you and I are both brunettes, for example, and
I was obviously conscious of that growing up in California.
I think it's a very natural thing as a woman
to see kind of what the idealized female form is
(22:06):
in culture. And then especially as you're sort of trying
to understand your relationship with your body, ask yourself in
what ways you differ from that or what ways you
aspire to that? And I think most girls would have
felt that way.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I mean, you know, even in my like grungy skirt
in rainy dark depressings. Yeah, that red swimsuit became synonymous
with sex and the ideal, and in many ways it
was a straight male fantasy of the ideal.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Yeah, the distillation of that fantasy.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
You know, it's like, what is the impact of a swimsuit?
It's such a tiny thing.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
You can really dig into this and say, Okay, what
did that teach us about bodies? To wear a sim
suit like this, one had to have absolutely bionic, unmovable breath. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I mean, one thing I have thought of is that
when you're watching that slow mo run, if you were
a normal like with natural breasts, your rest would just
be like right and balancing like crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And param Anderson has talked at length about like regretting
her breast implants, and she got them at this time,
and then she got them removed and she got them again.
So it's not like she would deny this either. But yes,
that is not some suit that a person with natural
breast can wear.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
Oh, run in at least or run in.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, the high cut, like you have to be completely
waxed to wear some suit that high cut.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
And that's interesting because I feel like now or well
now there's a backlash. But there was this period where
Brazilian bikini waxes became very ubiquitous. But when we were
you know, in the nineties, that was not super common.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
It's so funny because that was like we were all
getting those in high school.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
You were, yes, wow, much more advanced.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But actually, we can't talk about all this in a vacuum,
like you have to understand what was happening culturally at
the time. So this is like mid nineties, it's kind
of like the height of raunch feminism. You know, we've
come so far toward equality that now we can like
OBJECTI virus and it's totally fine.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
This is like the girls gone well, there has gone wild.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's like spring break. Is this also like when the
restaurant Hooters, Well.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Certainly I think one of the most popular sort of
moments for restaurants, as they call them, the hooters of
the world were very much part of the mainstream cultural conversation.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And also shows like The Man Show, which has male
comics and then a sideshow of women in bikinis jumping
on trampolines, girls jumping on trampling. So, as I was
trying to think through what was happening in the culture
at the time, I called up Susan Douglas. She's a
(24:40):
professor of media studies at the University of Michigan and
the author of a book called Enlightened Sexism. And that
book is fascinating because it basically makes the argument that
this kind of raunchy objectification is coming on the heels
of or at the same time really as serious gains
in women's rights.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Oh, that's interesting because it feels it's kind of a
backlash to the eighties image of like the Wall Street
working girl with her business suit and her new ten
waves white sneakers with their pumps in her bags exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
And so in a way, this objectification is almost like
a reaction to feminism and to too many or allegedly
too many games, because we're always getting too ahead of
ourselves and so this is what she calls what she
charms and latent sexism, which is essentially this idea of like, hey,
full equality has been achieved, Like we have that Wall
Street woman who is breaking the glass ceiling. So sexual
(25:33):
objectification of women like Pamela Anderson can't really hurt us anymore, right, No,
it's progress.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
We can be feminist and sexy.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Anyway, here's Susan who will describe it much better than
I can.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
I think it's easy to forget what a swirl the
nineties was of feminist revolt, girl power third wave on
the one hand, and the increasing objectrification of women, and
also the discovery of teenage girls as a really really
(26:08):
important niche market. So you do have this kind of
revival of feminism at the same time that you have
a backlash against it, and this is what made Susan
Feluti's nineteen ninety one book Backlash a smash bestseller. And
(26:28):
you were also getting the increased sexualization of women and girls, you.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
Know, which it started back when in the eighties with
Brickshields and those Calvin Klein ads, And so you start
getting this kind of ironic sexism where of course full
equality has been achieved, so it's really not possible to
hurt women anymore with sexist depictions in the media because
(26:58):
everything is allegedly equal, when of course it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
It's so interesting because I feel like this is the
thing we're kind of seeing again now. And I mean,
obviously history repeats itself, but every time it feels like
there's some sort of conversation that makes men uncomfortable like
me too. Then there's like this backlash that's like, no,
it's too far, it's gone too far.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Another thing I learned to mention.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I don't want to give it too much credit, but
that swimsuit literally spawned a generation of plastic surgery. Pam
Anderson has talked she famously got implants. She's talked many times,
and she's very open about it, about regretting it. She
called it a vicious cycle that she could never break
out of. Side note Ripley's Believe it or Not. At
one point offered to put her removed implants.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
On display in its museum.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
She said, no, yeah, good for her.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
But cosmetic surgeons over the years have talked about how
she truly ushered in this era of plastic surgery that
made them.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Rich like her body, atomic impact exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Her body became the reference point, and typically people would
come into plastic surgery offices with photos of her in
that red swimsuit and say, like, I want that body.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
That body specifically, so like liposection, like whatever it would
take to make your body.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Look like that, liposection to perfection.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
Do you have any pictures of about the size that
you might want to make.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Sure Pamela Anderson, I'd say, so.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That's a clip from this MTV show you might remember it.
It's from the early two thousands called I Want a
Famous Face, and it shows you exactly what I'm talking about.
This young woman is using Pamela Anderson as the literal
reference point for.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
The plastic surgery that she wants.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I mean, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Pam is beautiful if you're trying to get plastic surgery.
It's like a smart reference point, I guess.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And so, of course you know that show is extreme,
but I actually found some pretty stunning data about plastic
surgery from that time. So pam joining Baywatch in nineteen
ninety two, and with the data shows is that in
the next ten years, so from nineteen ninety two to
two thousand and two, rest augmentations in America went up
by five hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh my god, I mean people won't be able to
see my face, but I did, like a comically shocked
face just now.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
It's a huge number.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
And in one article I was reading about those stats,
there's this plastic surgeon quoted who basically says, like we
were blessed with they watch. It was like an hour
long plastic surgery commercial.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
They should have given her a kickback.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And the funny thing is, you know, based on my
conversations with her and thinks she's said over the years,
as all of that is happening, she herself does not
feel good about her own body. God.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
That is really the true female experience, right, It's like,
no matter how much other people admire your body, and
can still find the flaws right.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
And interestingly, in Pam's case, that's even more complicated because
so many people have literally seen her naked.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Right, I mean, we haven't even really gotten into the
sex tape yet.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Okay, so we do need to talk about the sex tape.
Pam is on Baywatch. She starts dating the rock star
Tommy Lee, and during their honeymoon, they start filming. It's
what has been called in the popular culture a sex tape,
but actually it's like a very long VHS with like
tender moments of them getting together.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And then them on their honeymoon, and.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yes, there are a few minutes in this very long
tape of them having sex.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
That sex tape gets stolen from.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Their home, from a safe in their home and distributed
and basically Pam now talks about this as the great
humiliation of her life.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Right, totally without their consent, right, I mean, I think
the popular culture now sort of assumes most sex tapes
are lead by the people in the sex tape, But
in Pam's case, it genuinely was just this personal memento
that they had made of their romance, and then somehow
somebody got their hands on.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
It and this of course, there have been podcasts done
just on this tape, but yes, this is like the
start of online pornography. She sues them, they lose in court,
But this is all happening during Baywatch, and so it
connects because for a time after the tape went public,
foreign distributors and the networks began demanding that Pam be
(31:15):
taken off there like they thought this was going to
be too controversial for the show. But interestingly, and maybe
not that surprisingly, it actually helps space.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
We well, now it's not surprising because we know that,
like Kim Kardashian's entire career was kicked off by a
sex stage. But back then, I can see how executives
might have thought that there may be some sort of
backlash against it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
And you know, why are we talking about this?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So the thing is there's this connection between that swimsuit
and what would happen to her in her later life
and the way that she was kind of set up
as this object in many ways. She starts in Playboy
where she poses nude. She goes on to be this
bomshell on Baywatch that is spread across beach towels and
(31:58):
calendars and everything else. And then there's this sex tape
which is distributed without her consent, and it's not just
her nude, it's pornograph.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah, it's pornography. And there's this real sense that her
body belongs to the public.
Speaker 6 (32:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
One of the oddest things to me, you know, in
spending time with her and researching her and reading every
interview she's done, watching the documentary, is this sense in
truly an anecdote after antatyote after anecdote, that she almost
becomes like a public commodity in some way, like people
feel entitled to her in almost.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
A physical, physical ways.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
There are a few clips where you can really hear it.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
She goes on Howard Stern ostensibly to talk about her career,
and he ends up spending the whole time talking about
how cute her private parts are.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, you know, gonna be slaughtered. Anty. Let me just
look at you perfectly. Let me show KEI in for
a second.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Come on, don't sit down so quick.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Matt Lauer, who goes on to be fired for sexual misconduct,
does an interview with her where the first question is
asking her about her breasts.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
May we talk briefly about your Oh my god, I
mean that's so crazy, because Matt Lauer was a serious
journalist like that would have been in a news interview.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, that's a really good point. There's another example.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
At one point, she takes part in a roast on
Comedy Central, and so you know she's agreed to do this,
so in some ways she's in on the joke. But
again it's her ex husband Tommy Lee who's roasting her,
and this is the way the monologue begins.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
This is actually a special time for Pam to be
here because she just turned thirty eight and her kids
just turned fourteen.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And it's almost like this becomes weirdly physical in a sense,
like people or fans feel like they are entitled to
her physical space. Right.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
They claw at her at events, right, They're trying to
get to her a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
And so she in her book, she has a couple
of different stories. One about Tim Allen, who was a
star of Home Improvement where she was the tool Time girl,
and on her first day on the set, she walks
out and he's in a robe and they're outside of
the dressing rooms and he flashes her and he says,
now you've seen me naked too. He since denied that,
of course, but it's in her book. There's another scenario
(34:05):
that she talks about also in her memoir where she's
traveling to Uruguay for some sort of fan event and
she gets out and the car is surrounded by teen boys,
hundreds and hundreds of teenage boys, and they're like shouting
for her, and then suddenly they're like clawing at her,
and her bodyguard has to literally throw her over his
shoulder and like get out of there, and by the
(34:26):
time she gets back to the truck or the suv
or whatever, her clothes have been physically torn.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Off of her.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
That sounds terrifying.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
There's this other story she told me, which she also
writes about in her book, but basically, she comes home
one day to Malibu when she's living there and a
deranged fan has broken into her home, is in the
basement and has fallen asleep in the swimsuits, and they
basically have no idea how long she's been there.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
God, there's so much like invasion of her, like.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
A personal space.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, for what it's worth, the suit is now a
safe in her son's home.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
It should really be in the Smithsonian. It really should actually, Yeah,
I mean seriously.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Even as late as two thousand and three. You remember
that book with Chuck Cluster in Books Sex, Drugs and
Cocoa Puffs.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
Of course, he.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Writes about Pamela Anderson in there, and there's this quote,
am I physically attracted to Pamela Anderson, of course, But
the more I see her, the more I realize I'm
not looking at a person I'd like to sleep with
I'm looking at America.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
That really is the thing, Right, She's so intrinsically tied
up with the idea of America for so many people,
she becomes almost like a symbol rather than a person.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Right, She's like a souvenir that everybody wants to own
a piece of. And I mean, look like Pamela Anderson
is certainly not the first woman in our culture to
become a sexual commodity or even to own her part
in that. I mean, I was thinking back to you know,
there's like Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe to a large degree,
even I think like Lil Kim in the nineties to
(35:53):
some degree. But I'm trying to think about what the
difference is for pam Maybe the difference is those people
had careers first to fall back on, before it became
about their bodies, before it became about the physicality or sex.
And with her, that's what she was from the beginnings.
She didn't have anything to fall back on. She was
established as a sex suctor.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Like a one dimensional pin up, so people didn't really
see her as human in many ways, like they don't
see her as a living, breathing human. They just really
see almost this image of her in their minds that
they disassociate with her as a person. And now she's
sort of taking control of her narrative. She's read the Facebook,
she's doing all.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
This, She's inserting some of the complexity back in.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I don't know how much time you're spending on TikTok
these days, but I do spend a.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
Lot of time.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
One day.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
There's a whole embarrassing amount hashtag pamcore, like it is
a full aesthetic. It is bad people are doing, like
the thin penciled eyebrows, the lip liner, like the tossled
bun on the top of the head, the bangs like.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
This part of like the bimbo core thing.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
It's a little bit of bimbo core. It's a little
bit barbiecore. And Pam is back. But I have to
tell you this other story actually, which is that when
I was with her at her home in Canada, we
were sitting in her kitchen. We were baking Christmas cookies.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
And all that sounds nice. It's like a celebrity Hallmark.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Movie totally, and actually she's an amazing cook.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
But you know, so I'm recording all of this obviously
because I was doing this profile of her, and so
we're hanging out in the kitchen. Her assistant Jonathan was
near us. He's sort of helping out, and I pull
out my phone to show her this TikTok filter that
lets you basically put nineties Pam onto your twenty twenty
three human, not pam face. And so Pam was not
(37:35):
on social media, so she'd never seen this, and she
literally screamed, Oh, that's so funny.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
What the fuck that's insane.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
You gotta do this?
Speaker 5 (37:47):
What the hell? I mean, my kids know about this.
This is insane.
Speaker 6 (37:53):
This is like the extent of mine.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
That's hysterical. That's such a sweet and funny moment.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Like it's really lovely to hear her finally getting to
enjoy some of this attention and actually be able to
laugh at all the absurdity of it.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah, I mean, I was actually thinking about that. It
kind of wraps up the idea for this episode perfectly,
Like there are certainly parts of Pamela Anderson's life in
retrospect that she wants to stay in the past, Like
she doesn't want to be that cartoonish nineties version of herself,
and she has said that, but at least now she's
(38:29):
getting to decide, you know, what she wants to embrace
in what she wants to leave behind, And in some
ways this suit actually is a happy memory for her.
Here's what she said when I asked her about it recently.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
Just represents the time in my history, one of my
favorite times, just to be so carefree on the beach
working when my sons were just born. Putting on that
redslim suit just a couple months after I gave birth.
You know, I had to get back in the suit.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
It made me feel makes me feel happy to think
about it. It was really a beautiful time in my life.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
That really does feel like a perfect place to end it.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
So.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I guess that's our show for this week. See you
next week.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
This is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Is there a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about
and want us to explore in a future episode. Email
us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find us
on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at susib NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist
Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcast and the Media.
Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attiya is our researcher and
associate producer.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Additional editing help from Mary Doo and Mike Coscarelli. Sound
correction and mastering by Amanda Rose Smith.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
We are your hosts Susie Vannacarum.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers. For even more,
check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
See you next week.
In the mid nineteen nineties, when Pamela Anderson was at
the height of her fame, she sat down for an
interview with talk show host Regis Fielden. He was the
co host of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, and
pam was there to promote Baywatch, which was rated number
one in.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The world at that time.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Regis was asking her about the sudden and wild popularity
of that show, where she played c J. Parker, a
veteran lifeguard patrols the beaches of southern California in a
cherry red one piece swimsuit. And that suit, well, that
suit was what Regis and seemingly all of America really
(00:37):
wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And I love your red bathing suit.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
I don't think there's a bost blattering, but there's.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Something about those one piece suits.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Oh I like one piece suit.
Speaker 5 (00:49):
That was bikini.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Excuse me what you can't see?
Speaker 1 (00:54):
And what gets that laugh at the end is the
face Regis makes after he says that he's biting his
thumb like a horny teenage boy who just can't contain
himself thinking about that swimsuit. And you know what, he
wasn't entirely alone. There was something about that swimsuit.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Banacarum.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
This is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a
cultural moment from the past that shaped us.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
And that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
This week, we're talking about a swimsuit, a very specific
swimsuit worn by Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, that classic and
can't be Lifeguard drama. But we're also talking about what
that swimsuit represented, which was a particular view of sexuality
that defined nineteen nineties America, which happens to be the
era we.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Grew up in.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
So jess we're talking about that famous red swimsuit. But
like everything else on this show, it's not just a swimsuit, right.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That suit became one of these key artifacts nineties culture,
Like we all remember it. It hung on posters in
bedrooms of teenagers all across America and the world. It
eventually was like plastered onto beer cooozies and beach towels.
I was like going down the rabbit hole on eBay.
There's calling cards. I remember calling cards when you would
(02:18):
have to like go into a payphone and dial Yeah,
so that's some suit with Pam and it was on
calling cards.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
That's weird.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It was on pinup calendars, like basically anywhere you could
put an image and sell it. There was Pam in
that suit. And side note, she never made a dime
from any of those.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Because she didn't have any rights to her own image.
The image was around. That's wild too. So what made
you think about that suit?
Speaker 5 (02:43):
Now?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, so you'll remember that she released a memoir recently,
and she was also the subject of a Netflix documentary
that was actually produced by her son, all about her life.
And so late last year I traveled to Canada and
basically it got snowed into Pamela Anderson's house that sounds
amazing in Lady Smith, Canada, where she grew up, which
is where she now lives, in order to write a
(03:06):
profile of her and at one point, to tie this
back to the suit, I found myself in Pamela Anderson's
attic as you do.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
And you know, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
It's full of old magazines, interviews, She's done, all of
her Playboy covers. She's very into scrapbooking, so it's like
scrap books she made for her kids who are now grown.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Old report cards.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
There was like a wedding scrap book album she had
made for Tommy Lee. Her ex husband was married to
someone else now but who's the father of her children?
They co parent And I also uncovered an old bay
Watch barbie.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Do you remember that there was a bay Watch Barbie?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I mean, I don't know that I remember it, but
I can immediately conjure up the image of it, so
I must have been aware of it in some way.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So it's not specifically branded as the Pamela Anderson bay
Watch Barbie, but of course she looks like Barbie, and
Barbie looks like her. She is the Quintus Barbie exactly,
so you know, the Barbie's wearing the red soup. The
barbie has the lifeguard Booie. There's a little dolphin which
is very palm. Also shows an animal rights activist. Yeah, and
to show the impact of this suit, but also the show.
(04:15):
This is one of the top selling barbies of all time. Really,
it's another little data point that tells you about the
impact of that swimsuit and that suit on that show.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So we're talking about the swimsuit, but for those who
need a little refresher Baywatch.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
What was Baywatch, Susie? Do you have a recollection of Baywatch?
Speaker 3 (04:35):
I mean, I knew that Baywatch was a lifeguard show.
It felt like it was on TV all the time
in the ninety years it was.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It ran from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety nine,
and the show was about a group of lifeguards who
patrolled the beaches of La County. The action usually revolved
around like dramatic water rescues, so lifeguards diving into waves
or even jumping from helicopters into the open ocean. But
you know, there were also, as you can imagine, really
dramatic things such as shark attacks, earthquakes, like hot affairs,
(05:07):
and even murder, so you know, like your usual beach
day drama.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Okay, And I remember it as really being a show
that starred Pam Anderson, although I also remember that David
Hasselhoff was like a big character on.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
The show, right, a big character on the show. He
was like the captain of the team or something, so
a lifeguard team. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
That is all true.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
But while Pam, you know, universal sex icon of the nineties,
and some could argue still today, was indeed a big
part of it. She didn't actually join until the third season.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Really, yep, I had no idea. I mean, I just
think of that show as so tied to her. I
can't imagine that show without her.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
And the thing about Pam Anderson in that show is
that it was really her who took this swimsuit and
cemented it into the American psyche in this way that
none of us will ever forget. But of course that
is how we feel now, and I was really curious
how Pam felt about it back then. So I went
(06:08):
back to Pam and I asked her what it was
like to act in that suit.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
I guess that's a difficult question to ask.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
I was just doing what I was told wearing the costume,
and I would have been on the beach anyway, So
it was fun to act in a swimsuit. I was
getting a tan and doing a job at the same time.
I know a lot of the girls kind of complained
about wearing a swimsuit all the time, but I actually
really enjoyed it. It was either the red swimsuit or
(06:34):
the black swimsuit. Where we did all of our workouts
and all of our slow motion montages. People always ask me,
how did you stay in such good shape on that show?
And I thought, well, just wear a bathing suit every
single day and you just don't eat that bagel.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
I love hearing her voice, but unfortunately I do eat
the bagel.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
Is that bad?
Speaker 3 (06:54):
But yeah, it really is amazing that you can immediately
conjure up what that swimsuit looks.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Like, trying to remember if there was one image of
that suit that like really crystallizes this. And it's almost
like there's dozens of moments. So if you look back
at the show itself, you see Pam in the red
suit grabbing her booie and running towards the water. We
see Pam in the suit bent over like sexily lotioning
(07:19):
up with.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Sunscreen as one does.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
We see Pam and her swimsuit on the jet ski.
We see Pam going to save a drowning man, but
like turns out, the guy isn't really drowning, He just
wants to Pam and h in the red swimsuit save.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
That must have been a lot of the cave prompting
a false rescue is a crime?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Can bust me for that?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
I love you? And so much slow motion running like
slow motion from every angle from back, below, side, top,
any angle you could possibly do slow motion. But the
show's opening credits are.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Really what I remember.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
The watch Sam song I'm Always Here some by the
eighties hair metal band Cobra. I love the hair metal
band plays in the background, and so as the opening
credits play on, you see these scenes of you know,
sunny California beach sand babes and bikinis like sun umbrellas,
kids laughing, and then you meet c J.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Parker. She's got her hands on her hips.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
The camera slowly pans from her very perfect and very
tam legs up to the top of her cherry red
swimsuit and then up to her face, and we see
that that suit is extremely low cut on the top,
very high cut on the hips, and like basically side
boob is in full effect.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
So obviously a very functional lifeguard totally functional suit. And
so wait, you're telling me that there's more to the
opening than just Pam, because I remember the entire opening
is just being Pam running down the beach.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
I love that that's the way you remember it, because
that's what I think most people's takeaway was. But actually
it introduces all the characters there's also a beach scenes like,
it's giving us a glimpse into southern California beach life.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
But what do we remember we remember par.
Speaker 5 (09:10):
What do we actually know about the swimsuit?
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I mean, it really does not seem like a functional lifeguard.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Sh Okay, so funny you should raise that because the
original suit. So I mentioned that Pamela only joined in
season three. So the original suit was inspired by real
California lifeguards. It had like an official Elie County lifeguard
patch like the real kind. And the creators of this show,
one of them had actually started out as a lifeguard
in California. So they were quoted at the time talking
(09:39):
about how they wanted these suits to be quote practical
and actually work in the surf. They wanted to have
good support in the bust, they wanted to have minimal
creep in the back, and as one of them said,
it was all about athletics and functionality.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Wait, so the original swimsuits were standard issue like lifeguard
swim suit.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yes, they were truly based on real lifeguarding. They wanted
to replicate what actual lifeguards wore. At one point, one
of the co creators of the show had this whole
description about how they wanted the suits to work in
the water in big surf. You know, they were talking
about how if you're a real lifeguard, you have multiple
victims that can be grabbing onto your hair, your suit,
your arms, your legs, and they could easily rip off
(10:22):
a swimsuit if they're desperate enough, they're you know, they're drowning.
So they couldn't have two piece swimsuits. It was too risky.
These needed to be legit swim suits.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I think this is taking things a little literally for
a TV show.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
No, I mean, okay, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
This was a show that began as something that was
meant to be a serious lifeguard show. This was at
a time early nineties, like this was the era of
like LA Law, Law and Order, NYPD, Blue Er, like
all of these shows about like doctors, cops, whatever, where
we were like going inside behind the scenes, and they
(10:58):
really like exactly got it. So the original conceit for
Baywatch was to be a quote serious lifeguard show. And
in fact the title Baywatch that's actually a real name
of the rescue boats that patrol.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
So then California pages.
Speaker 5 (11:13):
Did you know, I did not know that I grew
up in California.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
So what happened was Baywatch was canceled the serious Baywatch
was canceled after its first season on NBC, and then
it was basically saved by a syndication deal. In the process,
the production budget was slashed by a third and a
lot of the original cast members either quit or were fired.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
They basically rethought the show.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
It got a little bit sexier, they took themselves a
little bit less. Seriously, that makes sense. They didn't have
as much money. This is actually how the slow motion
run gets put into the show, because they were trying
to save money and take up more airtimes, so they were.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Like, let's just slow it down.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
So that run actually came from one of the creators
of the show. His name is Greg Bonan. He was
the one who was a lifeguard, so he sort of
thought he knew everything about lifeguarding.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, I mean, he might have known everything about he
also seems beside the point, but he.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Also got his start as a TV producer for the Olympics,
so he would film the athletes in slow motion to
show their athleticism. Oh and so he brought that idea
over to Baywatch, you know, to show their athleticism like questionable. Yeah,
And later on, David Hasselhoff he goes on to become
an executive producer of the show, and he's basically made
(12:25):
it seem like the sexiness was kind of an accident,
so he told Men's Health in twenty twelve, we didn't
have enough financing to finish the show, so we found
a way to fill the hour by shooting people running
in slow motion. We said, Wow, girls in bathing suits
look good running in slow motion, so let's just shoot.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
That, and they just like put in huge like chunks
of that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I mean it would actually someone should do a study
of this.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
To actually figure out how much of that show, percentage wise,
is just running in slow motion.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
It's probably more than dialogue.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
That is a fascinating way to fill time.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
So anyway, then in nineteen eighty two, in it's third season,
this is when Pamela Anderson is cast. She actually replaces
another actor who quit because she didn't like the new.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Direction of the show.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
The slow mo or the sexiness, I.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Mean, I think they go hand in hand. But pam
takes on the role of c. J. Parker, who was
supposed to be the most experienced lifeguard on the show Fancy.
She was a character who was actually partially based on Pam,
the real life Pam.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
She was like a dreamer.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
She was really into like new agy stuff and crystals
and mindfulness.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I love the idea that they were like, we should
meet with Pam and see what she cares about it,
like write it into character.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
She was into animal rights.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Yeah, because it's like, you know, it's important for this
to feel really authentic, and.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
She exactly and she was constantly falling in love. So
they also redid the bathing suits.
Speaker 5 (13:48):
Ah, but the bathing suits got redone for Pam.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
They didn't just redo the suits for Pam. They readed
them for everyone. But this was kind of part of
this sexier rebrand. So what happens, Well, the new suits
have a much lower scoop in the front. They have
high cut legs on the sides to kind of show
or fake the appearance of height. They often have this
really low back, though some of them had crossbacks, and
(14:13):
it actually is funny. There's quotes from different actors over
the years talking about that swimsuit. Kelly Packard, who didn't
join until much later, but she played lifeguard April in
season's eight and nine.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
She once said that her swimsuit was.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So far up her butt that she started crying because
it was patonful.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
At a certain point, you know, as this rebrand is happening,
actually putting on the simsuit is part of the audition.
But I don't think anyone knows this in advance. So
like years later, Carmen Electra has this story. She tells
The New York Times about how she showed up without
having shaved her legs, and she was like, oh God,
I hope they don't notice.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
Yeah, I mean, I feel like that is something you
should warn someone about. But it really does feel like
it has the potential to lead to some awkward situations.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
It's so objectifying, right.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
You're being asked to put on this ssuit.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, it's interesting because a few years ago Esquire brought
together all of the original actors and did this oral
history of the show. And Tracy Bingham, who played the
first black bay Watch Babe, she came on in ninety six,
So that gives you an idea of how white the
show was.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
It started in eighty nine, so white.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
I remember that show as being so white.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
She describes being in her trailer and one of the
producers coming in and asking her to put on her
suit and then basically like touching underneath her breasts to
make sure she wasn't patting them.
Speaker 5 (15:29):
That's not okay. Does Pam ever talk about that about
sort of those experiences.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Well, so it's interesting because Pam got her start in Playboy,
So it sort of sets up this tone. She was
discovered in her small town where she grew up in Canada.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
She was in her early twenties.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
She was at a football game and the JumboTron camera
pans over to her and she's wearing this crop top
with the Bats you know, that beer brand on it.
And so of course Labats is like, who is this woman?
They hire her to getting discovered this way? Yeah, and
so she goes on to become Playboy's most photographed cover
model of all time.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh wow, but that takes a few years.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So at this time she was working as the tooltime
girl in Home Improvement.
Speaker 6 (16:14):
I don't think so well.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
The whole role.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Of the tooltime girl was like, not to speak, but
just to like look cute in a pair of daisy
dukes and have a tool belt on and like handover
the tools and so that was the period she was
in when she auditioned for Baywatch.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
It's interesting because I do really think of Playboy and
Pam as very intrinsically connected. Like to me, when I
think of the classic Playboy cover model, I do think
of Pam.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And that's so interesting too, because actually Baywatch and Playboy
are intrinsically connected in the same way. Playboy became this
kind of natural casting choice for Baywatch at the time.
Also side note, it was often jokingly referred to as
Babe Watch.
Speaker 5 (16:53):
Yeah, that feels right.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So in season one, the actress who played Shannie McClain,
this is a character who was on the first two
seasons she had previously posed for Playboy, then came Pam
as c J. Parker, later on Carmen Electra who played
Lonnie mackenzie Kelly Monico, who made several appearances Playboy even
did a Babes of Baywatch issue in the late nineties.
(17:16):
So they were going to Playboy in some ways to
recruit actors for Baywatch. And in that same oral history
I mentioned for Esquire, it's funny because one of the
producers basically says in front of all the other actors
that they basically hired a bunch of hot women who
would look good in a swimsuit but couldn't act.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
I mean that makes sense, because looking good in a
magazine has nothing to do with being able to deliver
a dialogue.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
But they sure could run.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
I didn't realize how big bay Watch was until I
was researching this. Oh right, Yes, it was one of
the first TV shows to be syndicated, which meant that
basically they could run it on multiple channels, which probably
explains what it seems like.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
It was.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
At its height, it had billions of viewers, literally billions.
It was the most watched TV show in the world,
and actually, at a certain point it was literally shown
in every country.
Speaker 5 (18:14):
Ye how's that even possible? That check this, okay, I mean,
I believe you.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
It's just some of the foreign syndications eventually started, including
what Pam calls the Pamela clause, which they wouldn't buy
the episodes unless she appeared in them. She of course
didn't get paid any extra for that, but that's impressive.
And then one of the most interesting things I found
was it there's actually an economic theory name for Baywatch,
(18:39):
having something to do with the export of culture into
foreign countries called the Baywatch effect.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Oh so that's interesting because it's not really even just
an economic export, right, It's like the way we think
about America, the way other people in other countries think
about us, must be so shaped by this sort of
quintessential California show. I mean, I grew up in you know,
large part in California, so I always sort of had
this image of the quintessential California girl. But that becomes
(19:07):
just the American in most.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Places, absolutely, which actually reminds me of Borat. All I
could think about was this lovely woman in her red
water panties.
Speaker 5 (19:17):
Who was this cj oh.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Right, Because in that movie, he's going looking for Pam Anderson.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
He's here to like Mary Pam, and then he tries
to kidnap her.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Because it's a huge theme all that he knows of America.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah, I mean it makes sense, and it's interesting because
I do really think for most of the world, that
sort of blonde Barbie girl is what America represents to
them in some ways, this sort of like care free,
sunny lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
And of course I grew up in Seattle, which is
the opposite of the sunny happy used to the suicide
capital of the World.
Speaker 5 (19:50):
It's oh interesting, did not know that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Strangely, I also grew up watching Pamoy Anderson on Baywatch
awkwardly with my god. I distinctly remember this with my
two younger brothers, who are twins are three years younger,
and my dad in like our dingy TV together like
a family as a family, and like how did that happen?
I do remember my mom always kind of like making
(20:18):
remarks about how.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
This was trash TV.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Yeah, I mean it's and.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
I think there was just not a lot else on.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
We didn't have cable, there weren't that many options, and
this was like on NBC, so it was supposedly a
family friendly show. Yeah, so okay. Pam joined that show.
In nineteen ninety two. I was in middle school. I
was like insecure, hated my body. I had just taken
part in a protest called skirt Fest at my middle school.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
What did that protest?
Speaker 1 (20:47):
My seventh grade boyfriend had been kicked out of class
for wearing my skirt.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Oh this was the era.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Do you remember those like long flowy skirts that everyone
was wearing kind of like hippie grungy.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
Kids was original boho chic.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yes exactly, but like not cheek at all.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Anyhow, he got in trouble for wearing a skircho class
and got kicked out of class, and so we staged
a walk out and we picketed in front of Washington
Middle School, and we got the high schoolers to come
and they supported us, and we made the local newspaper.
But how does this relate to pant I mean, A,
we were never wearing swimsuits because it's dark and treary
(21:24):
in Seattle all the time, so like the idea of
us in a red swimsuit would never happen. Also, like
bright colors, we don't do that in Seattle. It's ray
only and it every day. And yet we all knew
who she was, We all knew of the sex goddess
in the red swimsuit. We all, i think, subconsciously still
compared our bodies to that.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, I think it would have been impossible to be
a preteen or teen girl in this era and not
compare yourself to what was so obviously the ideal. Right,
Like you and I are both brunettes, for example, and
I was obviously conscious of that growing up in California.
I think it's a very natural thing as a woman
to see kind of what the idealized female form is
(22:06):
in culture. And then especially as you're sort of trying
to understand your relationship with your body, ask yourself in
what ways you differ from that or what ways you
aspire to that? And I think most girls would have
felt that way.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I mean, you know, even in my like grungy skirt
in rainy dark depressings. Yeah, that red swimsuit became synonymous
with sex and the ideal, and in many ways it
was a straight male fantasy of the ideal.
Speaker 5 (22:39):
Yeah, the distillation of that fantasy.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
You know, it's like, what is the impact of a swimsuit?
It's such a tiny thing.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
You can really dig into this and say, Okay, what
did that teach us about bodies? To wear a sim
suit like this, one had to have absolutely bionic, unmovable breath. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I mean, one thing I have thought of is that
when you're watching that slow mo run, if you were
a normal like with natural breasts, your rest would just
be like right and balancing like crazy.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And param Anderson has talked at length about like regretting
her breast implants, and she got them at this time,
and then she got them removed and she got them again.
So it's not like she would deny this either. But yes,
that is not some suit that a person with natural
breast can wear.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
Oh, run in at least or run in.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Yeah, the high cut, like you have to be completely
waxed to wear some suit that high cut.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
And that's interesting because I feel like now or well
now there's a backlash. But there was this period where
Brazilian bikini waxes became very ubiquitous. But when we were
you know, in the nineties, that was not super common.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
It's so funny because that was like we were all
getting those in high school.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
You were, yes, wow, much more advanced.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But actually, we can't talk about all this in a vacuum,
like you have to understand what was happening culturally at
the time. So this is like mid nineties, it's kind
of like the height of raunch feminism. You know, we've
come so far toward equality that now we can like
OBJECTI virus and it's totally fine.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
This is like the girls gone well, there has gone wild.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's like spring break. Is this also like when the
restaurant Hooters, Well.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Certainly I think one of the most popular sort of
moments for restaurants, as they call them, the hooters of
the world were very much part of the mainstream cultural conversation.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And also shows like The Man Show, which has male
comics and then a sideshow of women in bikinis jumping
on trampolines, girls jumping on trampling. So, as I was
trying to think through what was happening in the culture
at the time, I called up Susan Douglas. She's a
(24:40):
professor of media studies at the University of Michigan and
the author of a book called Enlightened Sexism. And that
book is fascinating because it basically makes the argument that
this kind of raunchy objectification is coming on the heels
of or at the same time really as serious gains
in women's rights.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Oh, that's interesting because it feels it's kind of a
backlash to the eighties image of like the Wall Street
working girl with her business suit and her new ten
waves white sneakers with their pumps in her bags exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
And so in a way, this objectification is almost like
a reaction to feminism and to too many or allegedly
too many games, because we're always getting too ahead of
ourselves and so this is what she calls what she
charms and latent sexism, which is essentially this idea of like, hey,
full equality has been achieved, Like we have that Wall
Street woman who is breaking the glass ceiling. So sexual
(25:33):
objectification of women like Pamela Anderson can't really hurt us anymore, right, No,
it's progress.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
We can be feminist and sexy.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Anyway, here's Susan who will describe it much better than
I can.
Speaker 7 (25:46):
I think it's easy to forget what a swirl the
nineties was of feminist revolt, girl power third wave on
the one hand, and the increasing objectrification of women, and
also the discovery of teenage girls as a really really
(26:08):
important niche market. So you do have this kind of
revival of feminism at the same time that you have
a backlash against it, and this is what made Susan
Feluti's nineteen ninety one book Backlash a smash bestseller. And
(26:28):
you were also getting the increased sexualization of women and girls, you.
Speaker 6 (26:35):
Know, which it started back when in the eighties with
Brickshields and those Calvin Klein ads, And so you start
getting this kind of ironic sexism where of course full
equality has been achieved, so it's really not possible to
hurt women anymore with sexist depictions in the media because
(26:58):
everything is allegedly equal, when of course it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
It's so interesting because I feel like this is the
thing we're kind of seeing again now. And I mean,
obviously history repeats itself, but every time it feels like
there's some sort of conversation that makes men uncomfortable like
me too. Then there's like this backlash that's like, no,
it's too far, it's gone too far.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Another thing I learned to mention.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I don't want to give it too much credit, but
that swimsuit literally spawned a generation of plastic surgery. Pam
Anderson has talked she famously got implants. She's talked many times,
and she's very open about it, about regretting it. She
called it a vicious cycle that she could never break
out of. Side note Ripley's Believe it or Not. At
one point offered to put her removed implants.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
On display in its museum.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
She said, no, yeah, good for her.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
But cosmetic surgeons over the years have talked about how
she truly ushered in this era of plastic surgery that
made them.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Rich like her body, atomic impact exactly.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Her body became the reference point, and typically people would
come into plastic surgery offices with photos of her in
that red swimsuit and say, like, I want that body.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
That body specifically, so like liposection, like whatever it would
take to make your body.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Look like that, liposection to perfection.
Speaker 6 (28:14):
Do you have any pictures of about the size that
you might want to make.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
Sure Pamela Anderson, I'd say, so.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
That's a clip from this MTV show you might remember it.
It's from the early two thousands called I Want a
Famous Face, and it shows you exactly what I'm talking about.
This young woman is using Pamela Anderson as the literal
reference point for.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
The plastic surgery that she wants.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I mean, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Pam is beautiful if you're trying to get plastic surgery.
It's like a smart reference point, I guess.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
And so, of course you know that show is extreme,
but I actually found some pretty stunning data about plastic
surgery from that time. So pam joining Baywatch in nineteen
ninety two, and with the data shows is that in
the next ten years, so from nineteen ninety two to
two thousand and two, rest augmentations in America went up
by five hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Oh my god, I mean people won't be able to
see my face, but I did, like a comically shocked
face just now.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
It's a huge number.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
And in one article I was reading about those stats,
there's this plastic surgeon quoted who basically says, like we
were blessed with they watch. It was like an hour
long plastic surgery commercial.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
They should have given her a kickback.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And the funny thing is, you know, based on my
conversations with her and thinks she's said over the years,
as all of that is happening, she herself does not
feel good about her own body. God.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
That is really the true female experience, right, It's like,
no matter how much other people admire your body, and
can still find the flaws right.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
And interestingly, in Pam's case, that's even more complicated because
so many people have literally seen her naked.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Right, I mean, we haven't even really gotten into the
sex tape yet.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Okay, so we do need to talk about the sex tape.
Pam is on Baywatch. She starts dating the rock star
Tommy Lee, and during their honeymoon, they start filming. It's
what has been called in the popular culture a sex tape,
but actually it's like a very long VHS with like
tender moments of them getting together.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
And then them on their honeymoon, and.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Yes, there are a few minutes in this very long
tape of them having sex.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
That sex tape gets stolen from.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Their home, from a safe in their home and distributed
and basically Pam now talks about this as the great
humiliation of her life.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Right, totally without their consent, right, I mean, I think
the popular culture now sort of assumes most sex tapes
are lead by the people in the sex tape, But
in Pam's case, it genuinely was just this personal memento
that they had made of their romance, and then somehow
somebody got their hands on.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
It and this of course, there have been podcasts done
just on this tape, but yes, this is like the
start of online pornography. She sues them, they lose in court,
But this is all happening during Baywatch, and so it
connects because for a time after the tape went public,
foreign distributors and the networks began demanding that Pam be
(31:15):
taken off there like they thought this was going to
be too controversial for the show. But interestingly, and maybe
not that surprisingly, it actually helps space.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
We well, now it's not surprising because we know that,
like Kim Kardashian's entire career was kicked off by a
sex stage. But back then, I can see how executives
might have thought that there may be some sort of
backlash against it.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
And you know, why are we talking about this?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So the thing is there's this connection between that swimsuit
and what would happen to her in her later life
and the way that she was kind of set up
as this object in many ways. She starts in Playboy
where she poses nude. She goes on to be this
bomshell on Baywatch that is spread across beach towels and
(31:58):
calendars and everything else. And then there's this sex tape
which is distributed without her consent, and it's not just
her nude, it's pornograph.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah, it's pornography. And there's this real sense that her
body belongs to the public.
Speaker 6 (32:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
One of the oddest things to me, you know, in
spending time with her and researching her and reading every
interview she's done, watching the documentary, is this sense in
truly an anecdote after antatyote after anecdote, that she almost
becomes like a public commodity in some way, like people
feel entitled to her in almost.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
A physical, physical ways.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
There are a few clips where you can really hear it.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
She goes on Howard Stern ostensibly to talk about her career,
and he ends up spending the whole time talking about
how cute her private parts are.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, you know, gonna be slaughtered. Anty. Let me just
look at you perfectly. Let me show KEI in for
a second.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Come on, don't sit down so quick.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Matt Lauer, who goes on to be fired for sexual misconduct,
does an interview with her where the first question is
asking her about her breasts.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
May we talk briefly about your Oh my god, I
mean that's so crazy, because Matt Lauer was a serious
journalist like that would have been in a news interview.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah, that's a really good point. There's another example.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
At one point, she takes part in a roast on
Comedy Central, and so you know she's agreed to do this,
so in some ways she's in on the joke. But
again it's her ex husband Tommy Lee who's roasting her,
and this is the way the monologue begins.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
This is actually a special time for Pam to be
here because she just turned thirty eight and her kids
just turned fourteen.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
And it's almost like this becomes weirdly physical in a sense,
like people or fans feel like they are entitled to
her physical space. Right.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
They claw at her at events, right, They're trying to
get to her a lot of the time.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
And so she in her book, she has a couple
of different stories. One about Tim Allen, who was a
star of Home Improvement where she was the tool Time girl,
and on her first day on the set, she walks
out and he's in a robe and they're outside of
the dressing rooms and he flashes her and he says,
now you've seen me naked too. He since denied that,
of course, but it's in her book. There's another scenario
(34:05):
that she talks about also in her memoir where she's
traveling to Uruguay for some sort of fan event and
she gets out and the car is surrounded by teen boys,
hundreds and hundreds of teenage boys, and they're like shouting
for her, and then suddenly they're like clawing at her,
and her bodyguard has to literally throw her over his
shoulder and like get out of there, and by the
(34:26):
time she gets back to the truck or the suv
or whatever, her clothes have been physically torn.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Off of her.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
That sounds terrifying.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
There's this other story she told me, which she also
writes about in her book, but basically, she comes home
one day to Malibu when she's living there and a
deranged fan has broken into her home, is in the
basement and has fallen asleep in the swimsuits, and they
basically have no idea how long she's been there.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
God, there's so much like invasion of her, like.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
A personal space.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, for what it's worth, the suit is now a
safe in her son's home.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
It should really be in the Smithsonian. It really should actually, Yeah,
I mean seriously.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Even as late as two thousand and three. You remember
that book with Chuck Cluster in Books Sex, Drugs and
Cocoa Puffs.
Speaker 5 (35:11):
Of course, he.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Writes about Pamela Anderson in there, and there's this quote,
am I physically attracted to Pamela Anderson, of course, But
the more I see her, the more I realize I'm
not looking at a person I'd like to sleep with
I'm looking at America.
Speaker 5 (35:23):
That really is the thing, Right, She's so intrinsically tied
up with the idea of America for so many people,
she becomes almost like a symbol rather than a person.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
Right, She's like a souvenir that everybody wants to own
a piece of. And I mean, look like Pamela Anderson
is certainly not the first woman in our culture to
become a sexual commodity or even to own her part
in that. I mean, I was thinking back to you know,
there's like Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe to a large degree,
even I think like Lil Kim in the nineties to
(35:53):
some degree. But I'm trying to think about what the
difference is for pam Maybe the difference is those people
had careers first to fall back on, before it became
about their bodies, before it became about the physicality or sex.
And with her, that's what she was from the beginnings.
She didn't have anything to fall back on. She was
established as a sex suctor.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Like a one dimensional pin up, so people didn't really
see her as human in many ways, like they don't
see her as a living, breathing human. They just really
see almost this image of her in their minds that
they disassociate with her as a person. And now she's
sort of taking control of her narrative. She's read the Facebook,
she's doing all.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
This, She's inserting some of the complexity back in.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I don't know how much time you're spending on TikTok
these days, but I do spend a.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
Lot of time.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
One day.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
There's a whole embarrassing amount hashtag pamcore, like it is
a full aesthetic. It is bad people are doing, like
the thin penciled eyebrows, the lip liner, like the tossled
bun on the top of the head, the bangs like.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
This part of like the bimbo core thing.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
It's a little bit of bimbo core. It's a little
bit barbiecore. And Pam is back. But I have to
tell you this other story actually, which is that when
I was with her at her home in Canada, we
were sitting in her kitchen. We were baking Christmas cookies.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
And all that sounds nice. It's like a celebrity Hallmark.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
Movie totally, and actually she's an amazing cook.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
But you know, so I'm recording all of this obviously
because I was doing this profile of her, and so
we're hanging out in the kitchen. Her assistant Jonathan was
near us. He's sort of helping out, and I pull
out my phone to show her this TikTok filter that
lets you basically put nineties Pam onto your twenty twenty
three human, not pam face. And so Pam was not
(37:35):
on social media, so she'd never seen this, and she
literally screamed, Oh, that's so funny.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
What the fuck that's insane.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
You gotta do this?
Speaker 5 (37:47):
What the hell? I mean, my kids know about this.
This is insane.
Speaker 6 (37:53):
This is like the extent of mine.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
That's hysterical. That's such a sweet and funny moment.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Like it's really lovely to hear her finally getting to
enjoy some of this attention and actually be able to
laugh at all the absurdity of it.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Yeah, I mean, I was actually thinking about that. It
kind of wraps up the idea for this episode perfectly,
Like there are certainly parts of Pamela Anderson's life in
retrospect that she wants to stay in the past, Like
she doesn't want to be that cartoonish nineties version of herself,
and she has said that, but at least now she's
(38:29):
getting to decide, you know, what she wants to embrace
in what she wants to leave behind, And in some
ways this suit actually is a happy memory for her.
Here's what she said when I asked her about it recently.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
Just represents the time in my history, one of my
favorite times, just to be so carefree on the beach
working when my sons were just born. Putting on that
redslim suit just a couple months after I gave birth.
You know, I had to get back in the suit.
Speaker 5 (39:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
It made me feel makes me feel happy to think
about it. It was really a beautiful time in my life.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
That really does feel like a perfect place to end it.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
So.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I guess that's our show for this week. See you
next week.
Speaker 5 (39:23):
This is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (39:26):
Is there a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about
and want us to explore in a future episode. Email
us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find us
on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at susib NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist
Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcast and the Media.
Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attiya is our researcher and
associate producer.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 5 (40:17):
Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Additional editing help from Mary Doo and Mike Coscarelli. Sound
correction and mastering by Amanda Rose Smith.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
We are your hosts Susie Vannacarum.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers. For even more,
check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
See you next week.
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