The End Of Cinema As We Know It: American Film in the Nineties

28. Pamela Anderson on the Slippery Slope

28 Pamela Anderson on the Slippery Slope Chuck Kleinhans IN NOVEMBER 1997 a Seattle-based business, Internet Entertainment Group (IEG), placed on its “Club Love” Web site a home video depicting genital sexual acts involving actress and model Pamela Anderson and her then husband, Tommy Lee, drummer for the rock group Mötley Crüe.1 After a brief legal battle, IEG continued to distribute the images online and through sales as a fifty-four-minute tape. The images were widely used on other pornography Web sites, making the tape one of the most successful porn videos of all time, and the footage the most widely seen home movie since the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. The surrounding events help mark a significant change in three interrelated areas that govern celebrity and star image in the 1990s: the effects of technological change in media circulation, the law governing privacy and publication rights, and shifting social boundaries of acceptable sexual behavior. PAMELA Pamela Anderson (b. 1967, British Columbia, Canada) first attained fame as a busty spokesmodel for Labatt’s beer in 1989. An appearance as a Playboy Playmate followed, and then Playmate of the Year, and TV sitcom appearances in bimbo roles (Married . . . with Children and Home Improvement). In 1992 she joined the regular cast of the lifeguard drama series Baywatch and remained on the show for five years. Anderson then 287 had the title role in the Hollywood film based on an adventure comic book, Barb Wire (1996). An action film set in a post-nuclear-war future, it failed at the box office, but Anderson gave a credible performance in a plot lifted from Casablanca, with herself in the Rick role. In 1998 she produced and starred in VIP, a slightly campy television syndication series , based on three sexy women who operate a bodyguard/detective agency. Repeat appearances in Playboy and Playboy videos in the 1990s and a steady role on Baywatch gave her very strong public recognition. Although generally disparaged by critics, Baywatch was the most successful TV series internationally in the 1990s, even playing well in countries with very socially conservative media policies. The show featured simple action-based good-versus-evil plots, lots of conventionally attractive , athletic people exhibiting their bodies in swimsuits but very little sex or even romance, or character psychology or development. Anderson fit in, wearing a standard costume of a bright red swimsuit exposing lots of thigh and cleavage (enhanced by breast augmentation). Baywatch episodes often showed lifeguards involved in charitable acts: the pretty people doing good for the less pretty ones. Anderson’s star image evolved in two different but complementary registers. While looking like a blonde bimbo, as a Baywatch lifeguard she showed she was a team player, could take action, catch the bad guys, and help the innocent and unprotected. At the same time, with repeat Playboy appearances, she presented a sexy and alluring body, including discreet depiction of her external genital area, somewhat obscured by immaculately groomed pubic hair. (Playboy’s pictorials provided a “good taste” contrast to the notorious Hustler photos of women exhibiting anus and open labia, with Penthouse occupying an in-between position on explicit display.) Her press personality has been friendly and straightforward. Recent interviews present the persona of a smart businesswoman, cool and self-possessed about protecting her person and children, unabashed about posing nude, and willing to be frank about sex (e.g., in a recent Playboy interview she discusses anal sex). Her star image ranges widely enough that people who know her image from TV and mainstream publicity (e.g., People magazine) can be aware of her posing nude without having seen any of the nude photographs. (It is quite easy in countries with liberal media policies, for those who are interested to access these pictures.) 288 CHUCK KLEINHANS CELEBRITY AND SEXUAL REPRESENTATION Modern pinups begin with nineteenth-century photo images of female performers on stage and in circuses presented as collector’s cards in cigarette packages. Body display was “justified” by profession, although “respectable” society equated female performers with prostitutes. The Hollywood studio era produced a massive expansion in pinup imagery as part of its publicity machine while trying to control any scandal. An endless process of exploitation and control of star image is an inherent part of image circulation in the era of mass reproduction. Celebrity intersects with various gatekeepers in the public...