Culture icon Pamela Anderson says she wants to take control of her own narrative — and she’s getting the chance with a splashy new special on Netflix: Pamela, a love story. Anderson wants to own her own story — who doesn’t? Everyone from movie stars to grocery clerks has the same wish.
But unlike most people, Anderson has to wrestle her story away from decades worth of public opinion baggage, not always well-informed.
From the revelation of a purloined sex tape to the unremitting objectification of her image on screens large and small, Anderson knows what she’s up against. And some of it, hey, she herself willed into being.
Anderson gives the impression that sometimes she wishes things had gone differently, but not that differently.
Yet as the trailer above asserts, Anderson became such a cultural phenomenon that she’s been considered almost “public property.” It’s the celebrity’s dilemma — sacrifice of self for fame. And in Anderson’s case it was multiplied by her iconic looks.
So Anderson and Netflix are out to fashion the narrative she wants.
Will it work? The trailer gets her off to a promising empathy-soaked start, with the savvy choice of “Lovefool” by The Cardigans playing in the background. The lyrics hit on Anderson’s challenge from the start:
Dear I fear we’re facing a problem / You love me no longer I know and / Maybe there is nothing that I can do / To make you do.
The Cardigans, 1996
And then the refrain, “love me love me say that you love me,” is what Anderson (like the grocery clerk and all of us) seems to really want to hear. Indeed, the subtitle of the Netflix special says a lot: Pamela, a love story. And it sure has been, a love story that is, even if the public didn’t always love Pamela Anderson well.
The love theme is obviously close to her heart. Consider her book title: Love, Pamela. (Is that a fond sign-off or a command?)
Anderson admits “I put myself in crazy situations” but “I survived,” she says, wearing little makeup and looking radiant as she says it. She’s both taking responsibility for the life she wanted and boasting about her persevering spirit.
“I put myself in crazy situations” is also a pretty good thing to say in a trailer that’s supposed to make people watch your show. Viewers like nothing more than seeing beautiful people putting themselves in crazy situations, especially with other beautiful people.
“You have to be brave,” Anderson says. “And you have to use what you got.” That narrative — using what you got — shouldn’t be too hard for Anderson to put across.
.jpg){kind=link}