In 1996 Pamela Anderson went on The Tonight Show to talk about her debut feature, Barb Wire. Or at least that was her intention - the then-host Jay Leno was entirely more focused on another film altogether: Stolen Honeymoon, the unauthorised sex tape Anderson appeared in with her husband Tommy Lee. In the footage, when Leno brings it up, at first Anderson laughs it off. She flicks one of her curls out of her face and asks in that sugary sweet voice: “What tape Jay?” He doesn’t fall for it; instead he leans uncomfortably close to her and asks: “what does it feel like to have that kind of exposure?”
This scene comes in the first minute of Hulu and Disney+’s new series Pam and Tommy, which stars Lily James and Sebastian Stan as the couple and looks at the leaking of the sex tape and the impact it had on their marriage and on celebrity culture. When I watched it I kept thinking about that word “exposure”. We understand Leno to be referring to two things here - Anderson’s naked body, but also, and more pointedly, how so many people seeing this body would impact her career. The overriding message he’s parroting is that women who are violated in this way do it themselves because they want attention.
