Pam & Tommy: Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape gets the streaming treatment

Their excess, their drama and, most explosively, their sex tape captivated a burgeoning, voracious celebrity culture that was ready to devour every little detail, captivated by the metaphorical car crash that seemed to be their lives.

So, it’s only fitting that Pam & Tommy, the Disney+ streaming series which rehashes their story is as theatrical and over-the-top as you expect from two big personalities. And that exaggerated energy is also what you expect from Australian director Craig Gillespie whose most recent work – I, Tonya and Cruella – had similarly propulsive, eye-popping vibes.

And there’s nothing more outlandish and bolder than the scene with Tommy Lee’s penis, seemingly with a mind of its own, and certainly with a voice of its own (comedian Jason Mantzoukas’s pipes) giving him a pep talk as it dances around in full view of the camera.

(Don’t worry if you’re feeling squeamish at the prospect, the member was animatronic and guided by off-screen puppeteers.)

Pam & Tommy charts the pair’s relationship from the moment they meet, the immediate spark soundtracked to the club beats of La Bouche and Crystal Waters, and through the fallout of the sale and distribution of their sex tape.

Pam & Tommy deftly evokes the euphoria of their outsized attraction, and Lily James and Sebastian Stan have off-the-wall chemistry, even if the depth of characterisation isn’t always evident in those early episodes.

The word “unrecognisable” is often bandied about for actors who disappear into their roles, especially ones that require a physical transformation, but it really is hard to tell it’s James under that blonde bouffant and heavy make-up.

But where you can tell it is James is in that freshness and almost naiveties she brings to so many of her performances, and the appeal of those characteristics is particular effective here because audiences would do well to remember that at the time of the events, Anderson was a young woman who had dreams and an inner life.

Like so many other seminal 90s cultural moments, ranging from Britney Spears to Monica Lewinsky, there is now a reinterrogation of how those moments played out in the public consciousness.

Anderson never asked for her most personal moments to be violated and broadcast for public consumption. She never asked for her intimate life to become tabloid fodder, and to be judged for it, to always be remembered for it.

Pam & Tommy is sympathetic to Anderson in the way the discourse was not, but there is the awkward fact that neither Anderson nor Lee consented to the series, so in a way, it’s as if she’s been violated again.

There is an argument to be made that by giving it a dramatised context, by recasting it through a modern lens a quarter of a century later, it forces audiences to confront the dehumanisation of Anderson at the time, of writing her off as little more than a sex object.

Pam & Tommy does do some of those things but it’s not a morality tale. Ultimately, it is a slick, entertaining package that keeps to the right side of salacious.

Pam & Tommy starts streaming on Disney+ today

Originally published as Pam & Tommy: Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee’s sex tape gets the streaming treatment