In Retrospect - Episode 3

EPISODE 3 – PAMELA ANDERSON AND THAT ICONIC RED SWIMSUIT

Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

Jessica Bennett:

In the mid 1990s when Pamela Anderson was at the height of her fame, she sat down for an interview with talk show host Regis Philbin. He was the co-host of Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. And Pam was there to promote Baywatch, which was rated number one in the world at that time. Regis was asking her about the sudden and wild popularity of that show where she played CJ Parker, a veteran lifeguard who 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 wanted to talk about.

Regis Philbin:

And I love your red bathing suit.

Pamela Anderson:

Oh, thank you. I don’t think they’re the most flattering.

Regis Philbin:

But there’s something about those one piece suits.

Pamela Anderson:

Yeah. Oh, I like one piece suits better than bikinis.

Regis Philbin:

Excuse me.

Jessica Bennett:

What you can’t see 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. I’m Jessica Bennett.

Susie Banikarim:

And I’m Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett:

This is In Retrospect where each week we revisit a cultural moment from the past that shaped us.

Susie Banikarim:

And that we just can’t stop thinking about.

Jessica Bennett:

This week we’re talking about a swimsuit, a very specific swimsuit worn by Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, that classic and [inaudible 00:01:34] lifeguard drama, but we’re also talking about what that swimsuit represented, which was a particular view of sexuality that defined 1990s America, which happens to be the era we grew up in.

Susie Banikarim:

So Jess, we’re talking about that famous red swimsuit, but like everything else on this show, it’s not just a swimsuit.

Jessica Bennett:

Right. That suit became one of these key artifacts of 90s culture. 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 cozies and beach towels. I was going down the rabbit hole on eBay. There’s calling cards. Remember calling cards when you would’ve to go a payphone and dialed?

Susie Banikarim:

Oh yeah.

Jessica Bennett:

So that swimsuit with Pam in it was on calling cards.

Susie Banikarim:

That’s weird.

Jessica Bennett:

It was on pinup calendars, 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.

Susie Banikarim:

Because she didn’t have any rights to her own image. The image was all owned by Baywatch.

Jessica Bennett:

Correct.

Susie Banikarim:

That’s wild too. So what made you think about that suit now?

Jessica Bennett:

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. So late last year, I traveled to Canada and basically got snowed in at Pamela Anderson’s house.

Susie Banikarim:

That sounds amazing.

Jessica Bennett:

In Ladysmith, Canada, where she grew up, which is where she now lives in order to write a 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, and it’s fascinating. It’s full of old magazines, interviews she’s done, all of her Playboy covers. She’s very into scrapbooking, so it’s like scrapbooks she made for her kids who are now grown, old report cards. There was a wedding scrapbook album she had made for Tommy Lee, her ex-husband at one point.

Susie Banikarim:

He’s married to someone else now, right?

Jessica Bennett:

But who’s the father of her children. They co-parent. And I also uncovered an old Baywatch Barbie. Do you remember there was a Baywatch Barbie?

Susie Banikarim:

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.

Jessica Bennett:

So it’s not specifically branded as the Pamela Anderson Baywatch Barbie, but of course she looks like Barbie and Barbie looks like her.

Susie Banikarim:

I mean, she is the quintessential Barbie.

Jessica Bennett:

Exactly. So the Barbie’s wearing the red suit, the Barbie has the lifeguard buoy. There’s a little dolphin, which is very Pam also.

Susie Banikarim:

That’s adorable.

Jessica Bennett:

She’s an animal rights activist. And to show the impact of this suit, but also the show, this is one of the top selling Barbies of all time.

Susie Banikarim:

Really?

Jessica Bennett:

It’s another little data point that tells you about the impact of that swimsuit and that suit on that show.

Susie Banikarim:

Interesting.

Jessica Bennett:

So we’re talking about the swimsuit, but for those who need a little refresher, Baywatch, what was Baywatch? Susie, do you have a recollection of Baywatch?

Susie Banikarim:

I mean, I knew that Baywatch was a lifeguard show. It felt like it was on TV all the time in the 90s.

Jessica Bennett:

It was. It ran from 1989 to 1999. And the show was about a group of lifeguards who patrolled the beaches of LA County. The action usually revolved around dramatic water rescues, so lifeguards diving into waves or even jumping from helicopters into the open ocean. But there were also, as you can imagine, really dramatic things such as shark attacks, earthquakes, like hot affairs and even murder. So your usual beach day drama.

Susie Banikarim:

Okay. And I remember it as really being a show that starred Pam Anderson, although I also remember that David Hasselhoff was a big character on the show, right?

Jessica Bennett:

A big buff character.

Susie Banikarim:

Character on the show. He was like the captain of the team or something.

Jessica Bennett:

Something like that.

Susie Banikarim:

Is it a lifeguard team? I don’t know.

Jessica Bennett:

That is all true. But while Pam, universal sex icon of the 90s, and some could argue still today was indeed a big part of it, she didn’t actually join until the third season.

Susie Banikarim:

Really?

Jessica Bennett:

Yep.

Susie Banikarim:

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.

Jessica Bennett:

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 back to Pam and I asked her what it was like to act in that suit.

Pamela Anderson:

I guess that’s a difficult question to ask. I was just doing what I was told, wearing the costume, and I would’ve 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 the black swimsuit where we did all of our workouts in, 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.

Susie Banikarim:

I love hearing her voice, but unfortunately I do eat the bagel. Is that bad? But yeah, it really is amazing that you can immediately conjure up what that swimsuit looks like.

Jessica Bennett:

I was trying to remember if there was one image of that suit that 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 buoy and running towards the water. We see Pam in the suit bent over, sexily lotioning up with sunscreen.

Susie Banikarim:

As one does.

Jessica Bennett:

We see Pam and her swimsuit on the jet ski. We see Pam going to save a drowning man. But turns out the guy isn’t really drowning, he just wants Pam and the red swimsuit to save him.

Susie Banikarim:

I mean, that must’ve been a lot of the case.

Pamela Anderson:

Prompting a false rescue is a crime.

Clip:

You can’t bust me for that. I love you.

Jessica Bennett:

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 really what I remember. The Baywatch theme song, I’m Always Here, sung by the 80s, hair metal band, Cobra.

Susie Banikarim:

I loved hair metal bands in the 80s.

Jessica Bennett:

Plays in the background. And so as the opening credits play on, you see these scenes of sunny California beach sand, babes in bikinis, sun, umbrellas, kids laughing. And then you meet CJ Parker. She’s got her hands on her hips. The camera slowly pans from her very perfect and very tan 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 basically side boob is in full effect.

Susie Banikarim:

So obviously a very functional lifeguard suit.

Jessica Bennett:

Totally functional suit.

Susie Banikarim:

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.

Jessica Bennett:

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 all sorts of beach scenes. It’s giving us a glimpse into Southern California beach life. But what do we remember? We remember Pam.

Susie Banikarim:

Pam. What do we actually know about the swimsuit? I mean, it really does not seem like a functional lifeguard swimsuit.

Jessica Bennett:

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 LA County lifeguard patch, like the real kind. And the creators of the show, one of them had actually started out as a lifeguard in California. So they were quoted at the time talking about how they wanted these suits to be “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.

Susie Banikarim:

Wait, so the original swimsuits were standard issue like lifeguard swimsuits?

Jessica Bennett:

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. 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 a swimsuit if they’re desperate enough. They’re drowning. So they couldn’t have two piece swimsuits. It was too risky. These needed to be legit swimsuits.

Susie Banikarim:

I think this is taking things a little literally for a TV show. No? I mean…

Jessica Bennett:

Okay, here’s the thing. This was a show that began as something that was meant to be a serious lifeguard show. This was at a time, early 90s. This was the era of LA Law, Law and Order, NYPD Blue, ER, all of these shows about doctors, cops, whatever.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, I see.

Jessica Bennett:

Where we were going inside behind the scenes and seeing how they really worked.

Susie Banikarim:

The high stake life of lifeguarding.

Jessica Bennett:

Exactly.

Susie Banikarim:

Got it.

Jessica Bennett:

So the original conceit for Baywatch was to be a “serious lifeguard show.” And in fact, the title Baywatch, that’s actually a real name of the rescue boats that patrol Southern California beaches.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, really?

Jessica Bennett:

Did you know that?

Susie Banikarim:

No, I did not know that.

Jessica Bennett:

I had no idea.

Susie Banikarim:

And I grew up in California.

Jessica Bennett:

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. They basically rethought the show. It got a little bit sexier. They took themselves a little bit less seriously.

Susie Banikarim:

That makes sense.

Jessica Bennett:

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 airtime.

Susie Banikarim:

That’s amazing.

Jessica Bennett:

So they were like, let’s just slow it down. So that run actually came from one of the creators of the show. His name’s Greg Bonann. He was the one who was a lifeguard. So he sort of thought he knew everything about lifeguarding.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah. I mean, he might’ve known everything about lifeguarding.

Jessica Bennett:

I mean, possible.

Susie Banikarim:

It also seems beside the point, but okay.

Jessica Bennett:

He also got his start as a TV producer for the Olympics.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, interesting.

Jessica Bennett:

So he would film the athletes in slow motion to show their athleticism.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, interesting.

Jessica Bennett:

And so he brought that idea over to Baywatch to show their athleticism and questionable. And later on, David Hasselhoff, he goes on to become an executive producer of the show, and he’s basically made it seem like the sexiness was kind of an accident.

Susie Banikarim:

Really?

Jessica Bennett:

He told Men’s Health in 2012, 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.

Susie Banikarim:

What?

Jessica Bennett:

We said, well, girls in bathing suits look good running in slow motion. So let’s just shoot that.

Susie Banikarim:

And they just put in huge chunks of that.

Jessica Bennett:

I mean, someone should do a study of this to actually figure out how much of that show percentage wise is just running in slow motion. It’s probably more than dialogue.

Susie Banikarim:

That is a fascinating way to fill time.

Jessica Bennett:

So anyway, then in 1982, in its third season, this is when Pamela Anderson is cast. She actually replaces another actor who quit because she didn’t like the new direction of the show.

Susie Banikarim:

The slow mo or the sexiness?

Jessica Bennett:

I mean, I think they go hand in hand, but Pam takes on the role of CJ Parker, who was supposed to be the most experienced lifeguard on the show.

Susie Banikarim:

Fancy.

Jessica Bennett:

She was a character who was actually partially based on Pam, the real life Pam.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, really?

Jessica Bennett:

She was a dreamer. She was really into new agey stuff and crystals and mindfulness.

Susie Banikarim:

I love the idea that they were like, we should meet with Pam and see what she cares about, write it into character.

Jessica Bennett:

She was into animal rights.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah, because it’s like it’s important for this to feel really authentic. Method acting.

Jessica Bennett:

Exactly. And she was constantly falling in love. So they also redid the bathing suits.

Susie Banikarim:

But the bathing suits got redone for Pam?

Jessica Bennett:

They didn’t just redo the suits for Pam, they redid 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 cross backs. And 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 seasons eight and nine. She once said that her swimsuit was so far up her butt that she started crying.

Susie Banikarim:

Because it was painful?

Jessica Bennett:

Yip. At a certain point, as this rebrand is happening, actually putting on the swimsuit is part of the audition, but I don’t think anyone knows this in advance. So years later, Carmen Electra has a 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.

Susie Banikarim:

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. It’s so objectifying.

Jessica Bennett:

Right. You’re being asked to put on the swimsuit. 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 Traci Bingham, who played the first black Baywatch babe, she came on in ’96. So that gives you an idea of how white the show was. It started in ’89.

Susie Banikarim:

So white, I remember that show as being so white.

Jessica Bennett:

She describes being in her trailer and one of the producers coming in and asking her to put on her suit and then basically touching underneath her breasts to make sure she wasn’t padding them.

Susie Banikarim:

That’s not okay. Does Pam ever talk about that, about sort of those experiences?

Jessica Bennett:

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. She was in her early 20s. She was at a football game, and the Jumbotron camera pans over to her and she’s wearing this crop top with Labatt’s, that beer brand on it. And so of course, Labatt’s is like, who is this woman?

Susie Banikarim:

Amazing, who gets discovered this way?

Jessica Bennett:

Let’s hire her to be our [inaudible 00:16:00] model. And so she goes on to become Playboy’s most photographed cover model of all time.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, wow.

Jessica Bennett:

But that takes a few years. So at this time, she was working as the tool time girl in Home Improvement.

Pamela Anderson:

I don’t think so Al.

Jessica Bennett:

The whole role of the tool time girl was not to speak, but just to look cute in a pair of Daisy Dukes and have a tool belt on and hand over the tools. And so that was the period she was in when she auditioned for Baywatch.

Susie Banikarim:

It’s interesting because I do really think of Playboy and Pam as very intrinsically connected. To me, when I think of the classic Playboy cover model, I do think of Pam.

Jessica Bennett:

And that’s so interesting too, because actually Baywatch and Playboy are intrinsically connected in some way.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, really?

Jessica Bennett:

Playboy became this kind of natural casting choice for Baywatch at the time. Also, a side note, it was often jokingly referred to as Babe Watch.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah, that feels right.

Jessica Bennett:

So in season one, the actress who played Shauni McClain, this was a character who was on the first two seasons. She had previously posed for Playboy, then came Pam as CJ Parker, later on Carmen Electra, who played Lani McKenzie, Kelly Monaco, who made several appearances. Playboy even did a Babes of Baywatch issue in the late 90s.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, interesting.

Jessica Bennett:

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.

Susie Banikarim:

I mean, that makes sense because looking good in a magazine has nothing to do with being able to deliver dialogue, but they sure could run.

Jessica Bennett:

I didn’t realize how big Baywatch was until I was researching this.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, right, yes you mentioned that.

Jessica Bennett:

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 it was on all the time.

Susie Banikarim:

It makes sense. It was on all the time.

Jessica Bennett:

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 in the world.

Susie Banikarim:

Every country?

Jessica Bennett:

Yep.

Susie Banikarim:

How is that even possible?

Jessica Bennett:

I fact check this.

Susie Banikarim:

Okay. I mean, I believe you. It’s just…

Jessica Bennett:

Some of the foreign syndications eventually started including what Pam calls the Pamela Clause, which meant that they wouldn’t buy the episodes unless she appeared in them.

Susie Banikarim:

Om my God.

Jessica Bennett:

She of course didn’t get paid any extra for that.

Susie Banikarim:

Of course, but that’s impressive.

Jessica Bennett:

And then one of the most interesting things I found was that there’s actually an economic theory name for Baywatch having something to do with the export of culture into foreign countries called the Baywatch Effect.

Susie Banikarim:

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 a large part in California, so I always sort of had this image of the quintessential California girl, but that becomes just the American girl in most places.

Jessica Bennett:

Absolutely. Which actually reminds me of Borat.

Borat:

All I could think about was this lovely woman in her red water panties. Who was this CJ?

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, right. Because in that movie, he’s going looking for Pam Anderson. He’s here to marry Pam, and then he tries to kidnap her. It’s such a huge theme.

Jessica Bennett:

Because that’s all that he knows of America.

Susie Banikarim:

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 carefree, sunny lifestyle.

Jessica Bennett:

And of course, I grew up in Seattle, which is the opposite of the sunny, happy lifestyle. It’s the suicide capital of the world.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, interesting. Did not know that.

Jessica Bennett:

Strangely I also grew up watching Pamela Anderson on Baywatch awkwardly with my… God, I distinctly remember this with my two younger brothers who are twins. They’re three years younger, and my dad in our dingy TV room.

Susie Banikarim:

Together as a family?

Jessica Bennett:

As a family. And how did that happen? I do remember my mom always kind making remarks about how this was trash TV.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah. I mean, it’s trashy.

Jessica Bennett:

And I think there was just not a lot else on. We didn’t have cable. There weren’t that many options. And this was on NBC, so it was supposedly a family friendly show. Okay. Pam joined that show in 1992. I was in middle school. I was insecure, hated my body. I had just taken part in a protest called Skirt Fest at my middle school.

Susie Banikarim:

What did that protest?

Jessica Bennett:

My seventh grade boyfriend had been kicked out of class for wearing my skirt. This was the era… Do you remember those long flowy skirts that everyone was wearing kind of hippie, grungy kids?

Susie Banikarim:

It was the original Boho chic.

Jessica Bennett:

Yes, exactly. But not chic at all. Anyhow, he got in trouble for wearing a skirt to class and got kicked out of class. And so we staged a walkout and we picketed in front of Washington Middle School.

Susie Banikarim:

I love that for you.

Jessica Bennett:

And we got the high schoolers to come, and they supported us, and we made the local newspaper. But how does this relate to Pam? I mean, we were never wearing swimsuits because it’s dark and dreary in Seattle all the time. So the idea of us in a red swimsuit would never happen. Also, bright colors, we don’t do that in Seattle.

Susie Banikarim:

Interesting.

Jessica Bennett:

It’s gray only, and it rained 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.

Susie Banikarim:

Of course. Yeah, I think it would’ve been impossible to be a preteen or teen girl in this era and not compare yourself to what was so obviously the ideal. 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 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’ve felt that way.

Jessica Bennett:

I mean, even in my grungy skirt in rainy, dark, depressing Seattle, that red swimsuit became synonymous with sex and the ideal. And in many ways, it was a straight male fantasy of the ideal.

Susie Banikarim:

The distillation of that fantasy.

Jessica Bennett:

It’s like, what is the impact of a swimsuit? It’s such a tiny thing. You can really dig into this and say, okay, what did that teach us about bodies? To wear a swimsuit like this one had to have absolutely bionic unmovable breasts.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah. I mean, one thing I have thought of is that when you’re watching that slow mo run, if you were…

Jessica Bennett:

A normal…

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah, with natural breasts, your breasts would just be bouncing like crazy.

Jessica Bennett:

And Pam Anderson has talked at length about 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 a swimsuit that a person with natural breasts can wear.

Susie Banikarim:

Or run in at least.

Jessica Bennett:

Or run in. The high cut… You have to be completely waxed to wear a swimsuit that high cut.

Susie Banikarim:

And that’s interesting. 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 in the 90s, that was not super common.

Jessica Bennett:

It’s so funny because we were all getting those in high school.

Susie Banikarim:

You were?

Jessica Bennett:

Yes.

Susie Banikarim:

Wow, much more advanced than I was.

Jessica Bennett:

But actually we can’t talk about all this in a vacuum. You have to understand what was happening culturally at the time. So this is mid 90s. It’s kind of like the height of [inaudible 00:23:54] feminism. We’ve come so far toward equality that now we can objectify ourselves and it’s totally fine.

Susie Banikarim:

This is like the girls gone wild era.

Jessica Bennett:

Yes, girl’s gone wild. It’s like spring break. This is also when the breastaurant Hooters becomes a thing.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, well, certainly I think one of the most popular sort of moments for breastaurants, as they call them, the Hooters of the world, were very much part of the mainstream cultural conversation.

Jessica Bennett:

And also shows the man show, which has male comics, and then a sideshow of women in bikinis jumping on trampolines.

Clip:

Now girls jumping on trampolines.

Jessica Bennett:

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 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.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, that’s interesting because it feels like it’s kind of a backlash to the 80s image of the Wall Street working girl with her business suit and her nude pantyhose.

Jessica Bennett:

White sneakers.

Susie Banikarim:

White sneakers with her pumps in her bag.

Jessica Bennett:

Exactly. And so in a way, this objectification is almost like a reaction to feminism and to too many or allegedly too many gains.

Susie Banikarim:

Yes because we’re always getting too ahead of ourselves.

Jessica Bennett:

And so this is what she calls, what she charms, enlightened sexism, which is essentially this idea of like, hey, full equality has been achieved. We have that Wall Street woman who is breaking the glass ceiling. So sexual objectification of women like Pamela Anderson can’t really hurt us anymore, right?

Susie Banikarim:

No, it’s progress.

Jessica Bennett:

We can be feminist and sexy. Anyway, here’s Susan, who will describe it much better than I can.

Susan Douglas:

I think it’s easy to forget what a swirl the 90s was of feminist revolt, girl power, third wave on the one hand, and the increasing objectification of women, and also the discovery of teenage girls as a really, really 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 Faludi’s 1991 book Backlash a smash bestseller. And you were also getting the increased sexualization of women and girls, which started back when in the 80s with Brooke Shields 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 everything is allegedly equal when of course it wasn’t.

Susie Banikarim:

It’s so interesting because I feel like this is a 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 this backlash that’s like, no, it’s too far. It’s gone too far.

Jessica Bennett:

Another thing I wanted to mention, and 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 on display in its museum. She said no.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah, good for her.

Jessica Bennett:

But cosmetic surgeons over the years have talked about how she truly ushered in this era of plastic surgery that made them rich. Like her body…

Susie Banikarim:

Another economic impact.

Jessica Bennett:

Exactly. Her body became the reference point. And specifically, people would come into plastic surgery offices with photos of her in that red swimsuit and say, I want that body.

Susie Banikarim:

That body specifically. So liposuction, whatever it would take to make your body look like that.

Jessica Bennett:

Lifted, sculpted, liposuction to perfection.

Clip:

Do you have any pictures of about the size that you might want to be?

Clip:

I have a picture of Pamela Anderson with me.

Jessica Bennett:

So that’s a clip from this MTV show. You might remember it. It’s from the early 2000s 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 the plastic surgery that she wants.

Susie Banikarim:

I mean, it kind of makes sense. Pam is beautiful. If you’re trying to get plastic surgery, it’s like a smart reference point, I guess.

Jessica Bennett:

And so of course, that show is extreme, but I actually found some pretty stunning data about plastic surgery from that time. So Pam joined Baywatch in 1992, and with the data shows is that in the next 10 years, so from 1992 to 2002, breast augmentations in America went up by 500%.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh my God. I mean, people won’t be able to see my face, but I did a comically shocked face just now.

Jessica Bennett:

It’s a huge number. And in one article I was reading about those stats, there’s this plastic surgeon quoted, who basically says, we were blessed with Baywatch.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh my God.

Jessica Bennett:

It was like an hour long plastic surgery commercial.

Susie Banikarim:

They should have given her a kickback.

Jessica Bennett:

And the funny thing is, based on my conversations with her and things she’s said over the years, as all of that is happening, she herself does not feel good about her own body.

Susie Banikarim:

That is really the true female experience. It’s like no matter how much other people admire your body, you can still find the flaws.

Jessica Bennett:

And interestingly, in Pam’s case, that’s even more complicated because so many people have literally seen her naked.

Susie Banikarim:

I mean, we haven’t even really gone into the sex tape yet.

Jessica Bennett:

Okay, so we do need to talk about the sex tape. Pam is on Baywatch. She starts dating the rockstar 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 tender moments of them getting together and then them on their honeymoon. And yes, there are a few minutes in this very long tape of them having sex, that sex tape gets stolen from their home, from a safe in their home and distributed. And basically, Pam now talks about this as the great humiliation of her life.

Susie Banikarim:

Right. Totally without their consent. I mean, I think the popular culture now sort of assumes most sex tapes are leaked 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 it.

Jessica Bennett:

And this, of course, there have been podcasts done just on this tape. But yes, this is 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 taken off the air. They thought this was going to be too controversial for the show. But interestingly, and maybe not that surprisingly, it actually helps Baywatch.

Susie Banikarim:

Well, now it’s not surprising because we know that Kim Kardashian’s entire career was kicked off by a sex tape. But back then, I can see how executives might’ve thought that there may be some sort of backlash against it.

Jessica Bennett:

And why are we talking about this? 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 bombshell on Baywatch that is spread across beach towels and 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 pornography.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah, it’s pornography. And there’s this real sense that her body belongs to the public.

Jessica Bennett:

Right. One of the oddest things to me 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 anecdote after anecdote, that she almost becomes a public commodity in some way. People feel entitled to her in almost a physical sense.

Susie Banikarim:

Physical way.

Jessica Bennett:

There are a few clips where you can really hear it. 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.

Howard Stern:

No, you’re not going to be [inaudible 00:32:45]. Let me just look at you. Oh, perfect. Let me soak you in for a second. Come on, don’t sit down so quick.

Jessica Bennett:

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.

Matt Lauer:

May we talk briefly about your breasts?

Susie Banikarim:

Oh my God. I mean, that’s so crazy because Matt Lauer was a serious journalist, like that would’ve been in a news interview.

Jessica Bennett:

Yeah, that’s a really good point. There’s another example. At one point, she takes part in a roast on Comedy Central. And so she’s agreed to do this, so in some way 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.

Tommy Lee:

This is actually a special time for Pam to be here because she just turned 38 and her tits just turned 14.

Jessica Bennett:

And it’s almost like this becomes weirdly physical in a sense. People or fans feel like they’re entitled to her physical space.

Susie Banikarim:

They claw at her at events. They’re trying to get to her a lot of the time.

Jessica Bennett:

And so 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’s since denied that, of course, but it’s in her book. There’s another scenario 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 shouting for her, and then suddenly they’re clawing at her, and her bodyguard has to literally throw her over his shoulder and get out of there. And by the time she gets back to the truck or the SUV or whatever, her clothes have been physically torn off of her.

Susie Banikarim:

That sounds terrifying.

Jessica Bennett:

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 swimsuit.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh my God.

Jessica Bennett:

And they basically have no idea how long she’s been there.

Susie Banikarim:

God, there’s so much invasion of her autonomy.

Jessica Bennett:

Personal space. For what it’s worth, the suit is now in a safe in her son’s home.

Susie Banikarim:

It should really be in the Smithsonian.

Jessica Bennett:

It really should actually.

Susie Banikarim:

Yeah. I mean, seriously.

Jessica Bennett:

Even as late as 2003, you remember that book, the Chuck Closterman book? Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.

Susie Banikarim:

Of course.

Jessica Bennett:

He 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.

Susie Banikarim:

That really is the thing, right? So intrinsically tied up with the idea of America for so many people, she becomes almost like a symbol rather than a person.

Jessica Bennett:

Right. She’s like a souvenir that everybody wants to own a piece of. And I mean, look, 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… There’s Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe to a large degree, even I think Lil Kim in the 90s to 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 beginning, she didn’t have anything to fall back on. She was established as a sex object.

Susie Banikarim:

Like a one dimensional pinup. So people didn’t really see her as human in many ways. 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 written this book, she’s doing all this.

Jessica Bennett:

She’s inserting some of the complexity back in. I don’t know how much time you’re spending on TikTok these days.

Susie Banikarim:

Well, I do spend a lot of time on TikTok. An embarrassing amount.

Jessica Bennett:

There’s this whole hashtag pam core. It is a full aesthetic. It is back.

Susie Banikarim:

I haven’t seen that.

Jessica Bennett:

People are doing the thin penciled eyebrows, the lip liner, the tousled bun on the top of the head, the bangs.

Susie Banikarim:

Is this part of the bimbo core thing?

Jessica Bennett:

It’s a little bit bimbo core. It’s a little bit Barbie core. 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.

Susie Banikarim:

Oh, that sounds nice. It’s like a celebrity Hallmark movie.

Jessica Bennett:

Totally. And actually, she’s an amazing cook. 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 90s Pam onto your 2023 human not Pam face. And so Pam is not on social media, so she’d never seen this. And she literally screamed.

Pamela Anderson:

Oh, that’s so funny. What the fuck? That’s insane. You got to do this one. What the hell? I mean, my kids know about this. This is insane. This is the extent of my… That’s hysterical.

Susie Banikarim:

That’s such a sweet and funny moment. 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.

Jessica Bennett:

Yeah, I mean, I was actually thinking about that. It kind of wraps up the idea for this episode perfectly. There are certainly parts of Pamela Anderson’s life in retrospect, that she wants to stay in the past. She doesn’t want to be that cartoonish, 90s version of herself, and she has said that, but at least now she’s getting to decide what she wants to embrace and what she wants to leave behind. And in some ways, the suit actually is a happy memory for her. Here’s what she said when I asked her about it recently.

Pamela Anderson:

It just represents a 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 red swimsuit just a couple of months after I gave birth. I still had to get back in the suit. I don’t know. It makes me feel happy to think about it. It was really a beautiful time in my life.

Susie Banikarim:

That really does feel like a perfect place to end it.

Jessica Bennett:

Yeah, it really does. So I guess that’s our show for this week. See you next week.

Susie Banikarim:

This is In Retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there a cultural moment you can’t stop thinking about and want us to explore in a future episode? Email us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram @inretropod.

Jessica Bennett:

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.

Susie Banikarim:

You can also find us on Instagram @jessicabennett and @susiebnyc. Also check out Jessica’s books, Feminist Fight Club and This is 18.

Jessica Bennett:

In Retrospect is a production of iHeart podcast and The Meteor. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer. Derrick Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attia is our researcher and associate producer.

Susie Banikarim:

Our executive producer from The Meteor is Cindy Leive. Our executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stumpf and Katrina Norvell. Our artwork is from Pentagram. Additional editing help from Mary Dooe and Mike Coscarelli. Sound correction and mastering by Amanda Rose Smith. We are your hosts, Susie Banikarim.

Jessica Bennett:

And Jessica Bennett. We’re also executive producers. For even more, check out inretropod.com. See you next week.