Speaker 1: In the mid nineteen nineties, when Pamela Anderson was at
Speaker 1: the height of her fame, she sat down for an
Speaker 1: interview with talk show host Regis Fielden. He was the
Speaker 1: co host of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee, and
Speaker 1: pam was there to promote Baywatch, which was rated number
Speaker 1: one in.
Speaker 2: The world at that time.
Speaker 1: Regis was asking her about the sudden and wild popularity
Speaker 1: of that show, where she played c J. Parker, a
Speaker 1: veteran lifeguard patrols the beaches of southern California in a
Speaker 1: cherry red one piece swimsuit. And that suit, well, that
Speaker 1: suit was what Regis and seemingly all of America really
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about.
Speaker 3: And I love your red bathing suit.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's a bost blattering, but there's.
Speaker 5: Something about those one piece suits.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Oh I like one piece suit.
Speaker 5: That was bikini.
Speaker 2: Excuse me what you can't see?
Speaker 1: And what gets that laugh at the end is the
Speaker 1: face Regis makes after he says that he's biting his
Speaker 1: thumb like a horny teenage boy who just can't contain
Speaker 1: himself thinking about that swimsuit. And you know what, he
Speaker 1: wasn't entirely alone. There was something about that swimsuit.
Speaker 5: I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Susie Banacarum.
Speaker 1: This is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a
Speaker 1: cultural moment from the past that shaped us.
Speaker 5: And that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 1: This week, we're talking about a swimsuit, a very specific
Speaker 1: swimsuit worn by Pamela Anderson on Baywatch, that classic and
Speaker 1: can't be Lifeguard drama. But we're also talking about what
Speaker 1: that swimsuit represented, which was a particular view of sexuality
Speaker 1: that defined nineteen nineties America, which happens to be the
Speaker 1: era we.
Speaker 2: Grew up in.
Speaker 3: So jess we're talking about that famous red swimsuit. But
Speaker 3: like everything else on this show, it's not just a swimsuit, right.
Speaker 1: That suit became one of these key artifacts nineties culture,
Speaker 1: Like we all remember it. It hung on posters in
Speaker 1: bedrooms of teenagers all across America and the world. It
Speaker 1: eventually was like plastered onto beer cooozies and beach towels.
Speaker 1: I was like going down the rabbit hole on eBay.
Speaker 1: There's calling cards. I remember calling cards when you would
Speaker 1: have to like go into a payphone and dial Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's some suit with Pam and it was on
Speaker 1: calling cards.
Speaker 5: That's weird.
Speaker 1: It was on pinup calendars, like basically anywhere you could
Speaker 1: put an image and sell it. There was Pam in
Speaker 1: that suit. And side note, she never made a dime
Speaker 1: from any of those.
Speaker 3: Because she didn't have any rights to her own image.
Speaker 3: The image was around. That's wild too. So what made
Speaker 3: you think about that suit?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you'll remember that she released a memoir recently,
Speaker 1: and she was also the subject of a Netflix documentary
Speaker 1: that was actually produced by her son, all about her life.
Speaker 1: And so late last year I traveled to Canada and
Speaker 1: basically it got snowed into Pamela Anderson's house that sounds
Speaker 1: amazing in Lady Smith, Canada, where she grew up, which
Speaker 1: is where she now lives, in order to write a
Speaker 1: profile of her and at one point, to tie this
Speaker 1: back to the suit, I found myself in Pamela Anderson's
Speaker 1: attic as you do.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's full of old magazines, interviews, She's done, all of
Speaker 1: her Playboy covers. She's very into scrapbooking, so it's like
Speaker 1: scrap books she made for her kids who are now grown.
Speaker 2: Old report cards.
Speaker 1: There was like a wedding scrap book album she had
Speaker 1: made for Tommy Lee. Her ex husband was married to
Speaker 1: someone else now but who's the father of her children?
Speaker 1: They co parent And I also uncovered an old bay
Speaker 1: Watch barbie.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that there was a bay Watch Barbie?
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know that I remember it, but
Speaker 3: I can immediately conjure up the image of it, so
Speaker 3: I must have been aware of it in some way.
Speaker 1: So it's not specifically branded as the Pamela Anderson bay
Speaker 1: Watch Barbie, but of course she looks like Barbie, and
Speaker 1: Barbie looks like her. She is the Quintus Barbie exactly,
Speaker 1: so you know, the Barbie's wearing the red soup. The
Speaker 1: barbie has the lifeguard Booie. There's a little dolphin which
Speaker 1: is very palm. Also shows an animal rights activist. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: to show the impact of this suit, but also the show.
Speaker 1: This is one of the top selling barbies of all time. Really,
Speaker 1: it's another little data point that tells you about the
Speaker 1: impact of that swimsuit and that suit on that show.
Speaker 5: Interesting.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the swimsuit, but for those who
Speaker 1: need a little refresher Baywatch.
Speaker 2: What was Baywatch, Susie? Do you have a recollection of Baywatch?
Speaker 3: I mean, I knew that Baywatch was a lifeguard show.
Speaker 3: It felt like it was on TV all the time
Speaker 3: in the ninety years it was.
Speaker 1: It ran from nineteen eighty nine to nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 1: and the show was about a group of lifeguards who
Speaker 1: patrolled the beaches of La County. The action usually revolved
Speaker 1: around like dramatic water rescues, so lifeguards diving into waves
Speaker 1: or even jumping from helicopters into the open ocean. But
Speaker 1: you know, there were also, as you can imagine, really
Speaker 1: dramatic things such as shark attacks, earthquakes, like hot affairs,
Speaker 1: and even murder, so you know, like your usual beach
Speaker 1: day drama.
Speaker 3: Okay, And I remember it as really being a show
Speaker 3: that starred Pam Anderson, although I also remember that David
Speaker 3: Hasselhoff was like a big character on.
Speaker 5: The show, right, a big character on the show. He
Speaker 5: was like the captain of the team or something, so
Speaker 5: a lifeguard team. I don't know.
Speaker 2: That is all true.
Speaker 1: But while Pam, you know, universal sex icon of the nineties,
Speaker 1: and some could argue still today, was indeed a big
Speaker 1: part of it. She didn't actually join until the third season.
Speaker 3: Really, yep, I had no idea. I mean, I just
Speaker 3: think of that show as so tied to her. I
Speaker 3: can't imagine that show without her.
Speaker 1: And the thing about Pam Anderson in that show is
Speaker 1: that it was really her who took this swimsuit and
Speaker 1: cemented it into the American psyche in this way that
Speaker 1: none of us will ever forget. But of course that
Speaker 1: is how we feel now, and I was really curious
Speaker 1: how Pam felt about it back then. So I went
Speaker 1: back to Pam and I asked her what it was
Speaker 1: like to act in that suit.
Speaker 5: I guess that's a difficult question to ask.
Speaker 4: I was just doing what I was told wearing the costume,
Speaker 4: and I would have been on the beach anyway, So
Speaker 4: it was fun to act in a swimsuit. I was
Speaker 4: getting a tan and doing a job at the same time.
Speaker 4: I know a lot of the girls kind of complained
Speaker 4: about wearing a swimsuit all the time, but I actually
Speaker 4: really enjoyed it. It was either the red swimsuit or
Speaker 4: the black swimsuit. Where we did all of our workouts
Speaker 4: and all of our slow motion montages. People always ask me,
Speaker 4: how did you stay in such good shape on that show?
Speaker 4: And I thought, well, just wear a bathing suit every
Speaker 4: single day and you just don't eat that bagel.
Speaker 3: I love hearing her voice, but unfortunately I do eat
Speaker 3: the bagel.
Speaker 5: Is that bad?
Speaker 3: But yeah, it really is amazing that you can immediately
Speaker 3: conjure up what that swimsuit looks.
Speaker 1: Like, trying to remember if there was one image of
Speaker 1: that suit that like really crystallizes this. And it's almost
Speaker 1: like there's dozens of moments. So if you look back
Speaker 1: at the show itself, you see Pam in the red
Speaker 1: suit grabbing her booie and running towards the water. We
Speaker 1: see Pam in the suit bent over like sexily lotioning
Speaker 1: up with.
Speaker 2: Sunscreen as one does.
Speaker 1: We see Pam and her swimsuit on the jet ski.
Speaker 1: We see Pam going to save a drowning man, but
Speaker 1: like turns out, the guy isn't really drowning, He just
Speaker 1: wants to Pam and h in the red swimsuit save.
Speaker 3: That must have been a lot of the cave prompting
Speaker 3: a false rescue is a crime?
Speaker 4: Can bust me for that?
Speaker 1: I love you? And so much slow motion running like
Speaker 1: slow motion from every angle from back, below, side, top,
Speaker 1: any angle you could possibly do slow motion. But the
Speaker 1: show's opening credits are.
Speaker 2: Really what I remember.
Speaker 1: The watch Sam song I'm Always Here some by the
Speaker 1: eighties hair metal band Cobra. I love the hair metal
Speaker 1: band plays in the background, and so as the opening
Speaker 1: credits play on, you see these scenes of you know,
Speaker 1: sunny California beach sand babes and bikinis like sun umbrellas,
Speaker 1: kids laughing, and then you meet c J.
Speaker 2: Parker. She's got her hands on her hips.
Speaker 1: The camera slowly pans from her very perfect and very
Speaker 1: tam legs up to the top of her cherry red
Speaker 1: swimsuit and then up to her face, and we see
Speaker 1: that that suit is extremely low cut on the top,
Speaker 1: very high cut on the hips, and like basically side
Speaker 1: boob is in full effect.
Speaker 3: So obviously a very functional lifeguard totally functional suit. And
Speaker 3: so wait, you're telling me that there's more to the
Speaker 3: opening than just Pam, because I remember the entire opening
Speaker 3: is just being Pam running down the beach.
Speaker 1: I love that that's the way you remember it, because
Speaker 1: that's what I think most people's takeaway was. But actually
Speaker 1: it introduces all the characters there's also a beach scenes like,
Speaker 1: it's giving us a glimpse into southern California beach life.
Speaker 2: But what do we remember we remember par.
Speaker 5: What do we actually know about the swimsuit?
Speaker 3: I mean, it really does not seem like a functional lifeguard.
Speaker 1: Sh Okay, so funny you should raise that because the
Speaker 1: original suit. So I mentioned that Pamela only joined in
Speaker 1: season three. So the original suit was inspired by real
Speaker 1: California lifeguards. It had like an official Elie County lifeguard
Speaker 1: patch like the real kind. And the creators of this show,
Speaker 1: one of them had actually started out as a lifeguard
Speaker 1: in California. So they were quoted at the time talking
Speaker 1: about how they wanted these suits to be quote practical
Speaker 1: and actually work in the surf. They wanted to have
Speaker 1: good support in the bust, they wanted to have minimal
Speaker 1: creep in the back, and as one of them said,
Speaker 1: it was all about athletics and functionality.
Speaker 3: Wait, so the original swimsuits were standard issue like lifeguard
Speaker 3: swim suit.
Speaker 1: Yes, they were truly based on real lifeguarding. They wanted
Speaker 1: to replicate what actual lifeguards wore. At one point, one
Speaker 1: of the co creators of the show had this whole
Speaker 1: description about how they wanted the suits to work in
Speaker 1: the water in big surf. You know, they were talking
Speaker 1: about how if you're a real lifeguard, you have multiple
Speaker 1: victims that can be grabbing onto your hair, your suit,
Speaker 1: your arms, your legs, and they could easily rip off
Speaker 1: a swimsuit if they're desperate enough, they're you know, they're drowning.
Speaker 1: So they couldn't have two piece swimsuits. It was too risky.
Speaker 1: These needed to be legit swim suits.
Speaker 3: I think this is taking things a little literally for
Speaker 3: a TV show.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, okay, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: This was a show that began as something that was
Speaker 1: meant to be a serious lifeguard show. This was at
Speaker 1: a time early nineties, like this was the era of
Speaker 1: like LA Law, Law and Order, NYPD, Blue Er, like
Speaker 1: all of these shows about like doctors, cops, whatever, where
Speaker 1: we were like going inside behind the scenes, and they
Speaker 1: really like exactly got it. So the original conceit for
Speaker 1: Baywatch was to be a quote serious lifeguard show. And
Speaker 1: in fact the title Baywatch that's actually a real name
Speaker 1: of the rescue boats that patrol.
Speaker 2: So then California pages.
Speaker 5: Did you know, I did not know that I grew
Speaker 5: up in California.
Speaker 1: So what happened was Baywatch was canceled the serious Baywatch
Speaker 1: was canceled after its first season on NBC, and then
Speaker 1: it was basically saved by a syndication deal. In the process,
Speaker 1: the production budget was slashed by a third and a
Speaker 1: lot of the original cast members either quit or were fired.
Speaker 2: They basically rethought the show.
Speaker 1: It got a little bit sexier, they took themselves a
Speaker 1: little bit less. Seriously, that makes sense. They didn't have
Speaker 1: as much money. This is actually how the slow motion
Speaker 1: run gets put into the show, because they were trying
Speaker 1: to save money and take up more airtimes, so they were.
Speaker 2: Like, let's just slow it down.
Speaker 1: So that run actually came from one of the creators
Speaker 1: of the show. His name is Greg Bonan. He was
Speaker 1: the one who was a lifeguard, so he sort of
Speaker 1: thought he knew everything about lifeguarding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, he might have known everything about he
Speaker 3: also seems beside the point, but he.
Speaker 1: Also got his start as a TV producer for the Olympics,
Speaker 1: so he would film the athletes in slow motion to
Speaker 1: show their athleticism. Oh and so he brought that idea
Speaker 1: over to Baywatch, you know, to show their athleticism like questionable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And later on, David Hasselhoff he goes on to become
Speaker 1: an executive producer of the show, and he's basically made
Speaker 1: it seem like the sexiness was kind of an accident,
Speaker 1: so he told Men's Health in twenty twelve, we didn't
Speaker 1: have enough financing to finish the show, so we found
Speaker 1: a way to fill the hour by shooting people running
Speaker 1: in slow motion. We said, Wow, girls in bathing suits
Speaker 1: look good running in slow motion, so let's just shoot.
Speaker 5: That, and they just like put in huge like chunks
Speaker 5: of that.
Speaker 2: I mean it would actually someone should do a study
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 1: To actually figure out how much of that show, percentage wise,
Speaker 1: is just running in slow motion.
Speaker 2: It's probably more than dialogue.
Speaker 5: That is a fascinating way to fill time.
Speaker 1: So anyway, then in nineteen eighty two, in it's third season,
Speaker 1: this is when Pamela Anderson is cast. She actually replaces
Speaker 1: another actor who quit because she didn't like the new.
Speaker 2: Direction of the show.
Speaker 5: The slow mo or the sexiness, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, I think they go hand in hand. But pam
Speaker 1: takes on the role of c. J. Parker, who was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the most experienced lifeguard on the show Fancy.
Speaker 1: She was a character who was actually partially based on Pam,
Speaker 1: the real life Pam.
Speaker 2: She was like a dreamer.
Speaker 1: She was really into like new agy stuff and crystals
Speaker 1: and mindfulness.
Speaker 3: I love the idea that they were like, we should
Speaker 3: meet with Pam and see what she cares about it,
Speaker 3: like write it into character.
Speaker 2: She was into animal rights.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's like, you know, it's important for this
Speaker 3: to feel really authentic, and.
Speaker 1: She exactly and she was constantly falling in love. So
Speaker 1: they also redid the bathing suits.
Speaker 5: Ah, but the bathing suits got redone for Pam.
Speaker 1: They didn't just redo the suits for Pam. They readed
Speaker 1: them for everyone. But this was kind of part of
Speaker 1: this sexier rebrand. So what happens, Well, the new suits
Speaker 1: have a much lower scoop in the front. They have
Speaker 1: high cut legs on the sides to kind of show
Speaker 1: or fake the appearance of height. They often have this
Speaker 1: really low back, though some of them had crossbacks, and
Speaker 1: it actually is funny. There's quotes from different actors over
Speaker 1: the years talking about that swimsuit. Kelly Packard, who didn't
Speaker 1: join until much later, but she played lifeguard April in
Speaker 1: season's eight and nine.
Speaker 2: She once said that her swimsuit was.
Speaker 1: So far up her butt that she started crying because
Speaker 1: it was patonful.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, you know, as this rebrand is happening,
Speaker 1: actually putting on the simsuit is part of the audition.
Speaker 1: But I don't think anyone knows this in advance. So
Speaker 1: like years later, Carmen Electra has this story. She tells
Speaker 1: The New York Times about how she showed up without
Speaker 1: having shaved her legs, and she was like, oh God,
Speaker 1: I hope they don't notice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I feel like that is something you
Speaker 3: should warn someone about. But it really does feel like
Speaker 3: it has the potential to lead to some awkward situations.
Speaker 5: It's so objectifying, right.
Speaker 2: You're being asked to put on this ssuit.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting because a few years ago Esquire brought
Speaker 1: together all of the original actors and did this oral
Speaker 1: history of the show. And Tracy Bingham, who played the
Speaker 1: first black bay Watch Babe, she came on in ninety six,
Speaker 1: So that gives you an idea of how white the
Speaker 1: show was.
Speaker 2: It started in eighty nine, so white.
Speaker 5: I remember that show as being so white.
Speaker 1: She describes being in her trailer and one of the
Speaker 1: producers coming in and asking her to put on her
Speaker 1: suit and then basically like touching underneath her breasts to
Speaker 1: make sure she wasn't patting them.
Speaker 5: That's not okay. Does Pam ever talk about that about
Speaker 5: sort of those experiences.
Speaker 1: Well, so it's interesting because Pam got her start in Playboy,
Speaker 1: So it sort of sets up this tone. She was
Speaker 1: discovered in her small town where she grew up in Canada.
Speaker 2: She was in her early twenties.
Speaker 1: She was at a football game and the JumboTron camera
Speaker 1: pans over to her and she's wearing this crop top
Speaker 1: with the Bats you know, that beer brand on it.
Speaker 1: And so of course Labats is like, who is this woman?
Speaker 1: They hire her to getting discovered this way? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so she goes on to become Playboy's most photographed cover
Speaker 1: model of all time.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, but that takes a few years.
Speaker 1: So at this time she was working as the tooltime
Speaker 1: girl in Home Improvement.
Speaker 6: I don't think so well.
Speaker 2: The whole role.
Speaker 1: Of the tooltime girl was like, not to speak, but
Speaker 1: just to like look cute in a pair of daisy
Speaker 1: dukes and have a tool belt on and like handover
Speaker 1: the tools and so that was the period she was
Speaker 1: in when she auditioned for Baywatch.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I do really think of Playboy and
Speaker 3: Pam as very intrinsically connected. Like to me, when I
Speaker 3: think of the classic Playboy cover model, I do think
Speaker 3: of Pam.
Speaker 1: And that's so interesting too, because actually Baywatch and Playboy
Speaker 1: are intrinsically connected in the same way. Playboy became this
Speaker 1: kind of natural casting choice for Baywatch at the time.
Speaker 1: Also side note, it was often jokingly referred to as
Speaker 1: Babe Watch.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that feels right.
Speaker 1: So in season one, the actress who played Shannie McClain,
Speaker 1: this is a character who was on the first two
Speaker 1: seasons she had previously posed for Playboy, then came Pam
Speaker 1: as c J. Parker, later on Carmen Electra who played
Speaker 1: Lonnie mackenzie Kelly Monico, who made several appearances Playboy even
Speaker 1: did a Babes of Baywatch issue in the late nineties.
Speaker 1: So they were going to Playboy in some ways to
Speaker 1: recruit actors for Baywatch. And in that same oral history
Speaker 1: I mentioned for Esquire, it's funny because one of the
Speaker 1: producers basically says in front of all the other actors
Speaker 1: that they basically hired a bunch of hot women who
Speaker 1: would look good in a swimsuit but couldn't act.
Speaker 3: I mean that makes sense, because looking good in a
Speaker 3: magazine has nothing to do with being able to deliver
Speaker 3: a dialogue.
Speaker 5: But they sure could run.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how big bay Watch was until I
Speaker 1: was researching this. Oh right, Yes, it was one of
Speaker 1: the first TV shows to be syndicated, which meant that
Speaker 1: basically they could run it on multiple channels, which probably
Speaker 1: explains what it seems like.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 1: At its height, it had billions of viewers, literally billions.
Speaker 1: It was the most watched TV show in the world,
Speaker 1: and actually, at a certain point it was literally shown
Speaker 1: in every country.
Speaker 5: Ye how's that even possible? That check this, okay, I mean,
Speaker 5: I believe you.
Speaker 1: It's just some of the foreign syndications eventually started, including
Speaker 1: what Pam calls the Pamela clause, which they wouldn't buy
Speaker 1: the episodes unless she appeared in them. She of course
Speaker 1: didn't get paid any extra for that, but that's impressive.
Speaker 1: And then one of the most interesting things I found
Speaker 1: was it there's actually an economic theory name for Baywatch,
Speaker 1: having something to do with the export of culture into
Speaker 1: foreign countries called the Baywatch effect.
Speaker 3: Oh so that's interesting because it's not really even just
Speaker 3: an economic export, right, It's like the way we think
Speaker 3: about America, the way other people in other countries think
Speaker 3: about us, must be so shaped by this sort of
Speaker 3: quintessential California show. I mean, I grew up in you know,
Speaker 3: large part in California, so I always sort of had
Speaker 3: this image of the quintessential California girl. But that becomes
Speaker 3: just the American in most.
Speaker 1: Places, absolutely, which actually reminds me of Borat. All I
Speaker 1: could think about was this lovely woman in her red
Speaker 1: water panties.
Speaker 5: Who was this cj oh.
Speaker 3: Right, Because in that movie, he's going looking for Pam Anderson.
Speaker 5: He's here to like Mary Pam, and then he tries
Speaker 5: to kidnap her.
Speaker 1: Because it's a huge theme all that he knows of America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it makes sense, and it's interesting because
Speaker 3: I do really think for most of the world, that
Speaker 3: sort of blonde Barbie girl is what America represents to
Speaker 3: them in some ways, this sort of like care free,
Speaker 3: sunny lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And of course I grew up in Seattle, which is
Speaker 1: the opposite of the sunny happy used to the suicide
Speaker 1: capital of the World.
Speaker 5: It's oh interesting, did not know that.
Speaker 1: Strangely, I also grew up watching Pamoy Anderson on Baywatch
Speaker 1: awkwardly with my god. I distinctly remember this with my
Speaker 1: two younger brothers, who are twins are three years younger,
Speaker 1: and my dad in like our dingy TV together like
Speaker 1: a family as a family, and like how did that happen?
Speaker 1: I do remember my mom always kind of like making
Speaker 1: remarks about how.
Speaker 2: This was trash TV.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's and.
Speaker 2: I think there was just not a lot else on.
Speaker 1: We didn't have cable, there weren't that many options, and
Speaker 1: this was like on NBC, so it was supposedly a
Speaker 1: family friendly show. Yeah, so okay. Pam joined that show.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two. I was in middle school. I
Speaker 1: was like insecure, hated my body. I had just taken
Speaker 1: part in a protest called skirt Fest at my middle school.
Speaker 5: What did that protest?
Speaker 1: My seventh grade boyfriend had been kicked out of class
Speaker 1: for wearing my skirt.
Speaker 2: Oh this was the era.
Speaker 1: Do you remember those like long flowy skirts that everyone
Speaker 1: was wearing kind of like hippie grungy.
Speaker 5: Kids was original boho chic.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly, but like not cheek at all.
Speaker 1: Anyhow, he got in trouble for wearing a skircho class
Speaker 1: and got kicked out of class, and so we staged
Speaker 1: a walk out and we picketed in front of Washington
Speaker 1: Middle School, and we got the high schoolers to come
Speaker 1: and they supported us, and we made the local newspaper.
Speaker 1: But how does this relate to pant I mean, A,
Speaker 1: we were never wearing swimsuits because it's dark and treary
Speaker 1: in Seattle all the time, so like the idea of
Speaker 1: us in a red swimsuit would never happen. Also, like
Speaker 1: bright colors, we don't do that in Seattle. It's ray
Speaker 1: only and it every day. And yet we all knew
Speaker 1: who she was, We all knew of the sex goddess
Speaker 1: in the red swimsuit. We all, i think, subconsciously still
Speaker 1: compared our bodies to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it would have been impossible to be
Speaker 3: a preteen or teen girl in this era and not
Speaker 3: compare yourself to what was so obviously the ideal. Right,
Speaker 3: Like you and I are both brunettes, for example, and
Speaker 3: I was obviously conscious of that growing up in California.
Speaker 3: I think it's a very natural thing as a woman
Speaker 3: to see kind of what the idealized female form is
Speaker 3: in culture. And then especially as you're sort of trying
Speaker 3: to understand your relationship with your body, ask yourself in
Speaker 3: what ways you differ from that or what ways you
Speaker 3: aspire to that? And I think most girls would have
Speaker 3: felt that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, even in my like grungy skirt
Speaker 1: in rainy dark depressings. Yeah, that red swimsuit became synonymous
Speaker 1: with sex and the ideal, and in many ways it
Speaker 1: was a straight male fantasy of the ideal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the distillation of that fantasy.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like, what is the impact of a swimsuit?
Speaker 2: It's such a tiny thing.
Speaker 1: You can really dig into this and say, Okay, what
Speaker 1: did that teach us about bodies? To wear a sim
Speaker 1: suit like this, one had to have absolutely bionic, unmovable breath. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, one thing I have thought of is that
Speaker 3: when you're watching that slow mo run, if you were
Speaker 3: a normal like with natural breasts, your rest would just
Speaker 3: be like right and balancing like crazy.
Speaker 1: And param Anderson has talked at length about like regretting
Speaker 1: her breast implants, and she got them at this time,
Speaker 1: and then she got them removed and she got them again.
Speaker 1: So it's not like she would deny this either. But yes,
Speaker 1: that is not some suit that a person with natural
Speaker 1: breast can wear.
Speaker 5: Oh, run in at least or run in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the high cut, like you have to be completely
Speaker 1: waxed to wear some suit that high cut.
Speaker 3: And that's interesting because I feel like now or well
Speaker 3: now there's a backlash. But there was this period where
Speaker 3: Brazilian bikini waxes became very ubiquitous. But when we were
Speaker 3: you know, in the nineties, that was not super common.
Speaker 1: It's so funny because that was like we were all
Speaker 1: getting those in high school.
Speaker 5: You were, yes, wow, much more advanced.
Speaker 1: But actually, we can't talk about all this in a vacuum,
Speaker 1: like you have to understand what was happening culturally at
Speaker 1: the time. So this is like mid nineties, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the height of raunch feminism. You know, we've
Speaker 1: come so far toward equality that now we can like
Speaker 1: OBJECTI virus and it's totally fine.
Speaker 3: This is like the girls gone well, there has gone wild.
Speaker 1: It's like spring break. Is this also like when the
Speaker 1: restaurant Hooters, Well.
Speaker 3: Certainly I think one of the most popular sort of
Speaker 3: moments for restaurants, as they call them, the hooters of
Speaker 3: the world were very much part of the mainstream cultural conversation.
Speaker 1: And also shows like The Man Show, which has male
Speaker 1: comics and then a sideshow of women in bikinis jumping
Speaker 1: on trampolines, girls jumping on trampling. So, as I was
Speaker 1: trying to think through what was happening in the culture
Speaker 1: at the time, I called up Susan Douglas. She's a
Speaker 1: professor of media studies at the University of Michigan and
Speaker 1: the author of a book called Enlightened Sexism. And that
Speaker 1: book is fascinating because it basically makes the argument that
Speaker 1: this kind of raunchy objectification is coming on the heels
Speaker 1: of or at the same time really as serious gains
Speaker 1: in women's rights.
Speaker 3: Oh, that's interesting because it feels it's kind of a
Speaker 3: backlash to the eighties image of like the Wall Street
Speaker 3: working girl with her business suit and her new ten
Speaker 3: waves white sneakers with their pumps in her bags exactly.
Speaker 1: And so in a way, this objectification is almost like
Speaker 1: a reaction to feminism and to too many or allegedly
Speaker 1: too many games, because we're always getting too ahead of
Speaker 1: ourselves and so this is what she calls what she
Speaker 1: charms and latent sexism, which is essentially this idea of like, hey,
Speaker 1: full equality has been achieved, Like we have that Wall
Speaker 1: Street woman who is breaking the glass ceiling. So sexual
Speaker 1: objectification of women like Pamela Anderson can't really hurt us anymore, right, No,
Speaker 1: it's progress.
Speaker 2: We can be feminist and sexy.
Speaker 1: Anyway, here's Susan who will describe it much better than
Speaker 1: I can.
Speaker 7: I think it's easy to forget what a swirl the
Speaker 7: nineties was of feminist revolt, girl power third wave on
Speaker 7: the one hand, and the increasing objectrification of women, and
Speaker 7: also the discovery of teenage girls as a really really
Speaker 7: important niche market. So you do have this kind of
Speaker 7: revival of feminism at the same time that you have
Speaker 7: a backlash against it, and this is what made Susan
Speaker 7: Feluti's nineteen ninety one book Backlash a smash bestseller. And
Speaker 7: you were also getting the increased sexualization of women and girls, you.
Speaker 6: Know, which it started back when in the eighties with
Speaker 6: Brickshields and those Calvin Klein ads, And so you start
Speaker 6: getting this kind of ironic sexism where of course full
Speaker 6: equality has been achieved, so it's really not possible to
Speaker 6: hurt women anymore with sexist depictions in the media because
Speaker 6: everything is allegedly equal, when of course it wasn't.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting because I feel like this is the
Speaker 3: thing we're kind of seeing again now. And I mean,
Speaker 3: obviously history repeats itself, but every time it feels like
Speaker 3: there's some sort of conversation that makes men uncomfortable like
Speaker 3: me too. Then there's like this backlash that's like, no,
Speaker 3: it's too far, it's gone too far.
Speaker 2: Another thing I learned to mention.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give it too much credit, but
Speaker 1: that swimsuit literally spawned a generation of plastic surgery. Pam
Speaker 1: Anderson has talked she famously got implants. She's talked many times,
Speaker 1: and she's very open about it, about regretting it. She
Speaker 1: called it a vicious cycle that she could never break
Speaker 1: out of. Side note Ripley's Believe it or Not. At
Speaker 1: one point offered to put her removed implants.
Speaker 2: On display in its museum.
Speaker 5: She said, no, yeah, good for her.
Speaker 1: But cosmetic surgeons over the years have talked about how
Speaker 1: she truly ushered in this era of plastic surgery that
Speaker 1: made them.
Speaker 5: Rich like her body, atomic impact exactly.
Speaker 1: Her body became the reference point, and typically people would
Speaker 1: come into plastic surgery offices with photos of her in
Speaker 1: that red swimsuit and say, like, I want that body.
Speaker 3: That body specifically, so like liposection, like whatever it would
Speaker 3: take to make your body.
Speaker 2: Look like that, liposection to perfection.
Speaker 6: Do you have any pictures of about the size that
Speaker 6: you might want to make.
Speaker 5: Sure Pamela Anderson, I'd say, so.
Speaker 1: That's a clip from this MTV show you might remember it.
Speaker 1: It's from the early two thousands called I Want a
Speaker 1: Famous Face, and it shows you exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: This young woman is using Pamela Anderson as the literal
Speaker 1: reference point for.
Speaker 2: The plastic surgery that she wants.
Speaker 5: I mean, it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 3: Pam is beautiful if you're trying to get plastic surgery.
Speaker 3: It's like a smart reference point, I guess.
Speaker 1: And so, of course you know that show is extreme,
Speaker 1: but I actually found some pretty stunning data about plastic
Speaker 1: surgery from that time. So pam joining Baywatch in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, and with the data shows is that in
Speaker 1: the next ten years, so from nineteen ninety two to
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, rest augmentations in America went up
Speaker 1: by five hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I mean people won't be able to
Speaker 3: see my face, but I did, like a comically shocked
Speaker 3: face just now.
Speaker 2: It's a huge number.
Speaker 1: And in one article I was reading about those stats,
Speaker 1: there's this plastic surgeon quoted who basically says, like we
Speaker 1: were blessed with they watch. It was like an hour
Speaker 1: long plastic surgery commercial.
Speaker 5: They should have given her a kickback.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is, you know, based on my
Speaker 1: conversations with her and thinks she's said over the years,
Speaker 1: as all of that is happening, she herself does not
Speaker 1: feel good about her own body. God.
Speaker 3: That is really the true female experience, right, It's like,
Speaker 3: no matter how much other people admire your body, and
Speaker 3: can still find the flaws right.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, in Pam's case, that's even more complicated because
Speaker 1: so many people have literally seen her naked.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, we haven't even really gotten into the
Speaker 3: sex tape yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we do need to talk about the sex tape.
Speaker 1: Pam is on Baywatch. She starts dating the rock star
Speaker 1: Tommy Lee, and during their honeymoon, they start filming. It's
Speaker 1: what has been called in the popular culture a sex tape,
Speaker 1: but actually it's like a very long VHS with like
Speaker 1: tender moments of them getting together.
Speaker 2: And then them on their honeymoon, and.
Speaker 1: Yes, there are a few minutes in this very long
Speaker 1: tape of them having sex.
Speaker 2: That sex tape gets stolen from.
Speaker 1: Their home, from a safe in their home and distributed
Speaker 1: and basically Pam now talks about this as the great
Speaker 1: humiliation of her life.
Speaker 3: Right, totally without their consent, right, I mean, I think
Speaker 3: the popular culture now sort of assumes most sex tapes
Speaker 3: are lead by the people in the sex tape, But
Speaker 3: in Pam's case, it genuinely was just this personal memento
Speaker 3: that they had made of their romance, and then somehow
Speaker 3: somebody got their hands on.
Speaker 1: It and this of course, there have been podcasts done
Speaker 1: just on this tape, but yes, this is like the
Speaker 1: start of online pornography. She sues them, they lose in court,
Speaker 1: But this is all happening during Baywatch, and so it
Speaker 1: connects because for a time after the tape went public,
Speaker 1: foreign distributors and the networks began demanding that Pam be
Speaker 1: taken off there like they thought this was going to
Speaker 1: be too controversial for the show. But interestingly, and maybe
Speaker 1: not that surprisingly, it actually helps space.
Speaker 3: We well, now it's not surprising because we know that,
Speaker 3: like Kim Kardashian's entire career was kicked off by a
Speaker 3: sex stage. But back then, I can see how executives
Speaker 3: might have thought that there may be some sort of
Speaker 3: backlash against it.
Speaker 2: And you know, why are we talking about this?
Speaker 1: So the thing is there's this connection between that swimsuit
Speaker 1: and what would happen to her in her later life
Speaker 1: and the way that she was kind of set up
Speaker 1: as this object in many ways. She starts in Playboy
Speaker 1: where she poses nude. She goes on to be this
Speaker 1: bomshell on Baywatch that is spread across beach towels and
Speaker 1: calendars and everything else. And then there's this sex tape
Speaker 1: which is distributed without her consent, and it's not just
Speaker 1: her nude, it's pornograph.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pornography. And there's this real sense that her
Speaker 3: body belongs to the public.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: One of the oddest things to me, you know, in
Speaker 1: spending time with her and researching her and reading every
Speaker 1: interview she's done, watching the documentary, is this sense in
Speaker 1: truly an anecdote after antatyote after anecdote, that she almost
Speaker 1: becomes like a public commodity in some way, like people
Speaker 1: feel entitled to her in almost.
Speaker 5: A physical, physical ways.
Speaker 2: There are a few clips where you can really hear it.
Speaker 1: She goes on Howard Stern ostensibly to talk about her career,
Speaker 1: and he ends up spending the whole time talking about
Speaker 1: how cute her private parts are.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, gonna be slaughtered. Anty. Let me just
Speaker 2: look at you perfectly. Let me show KEI in for
Speaker 2: a second.
Speaker 6: Come on, don't sit down so quick.
Speaker 1: Matt Lauer, who goes on to be fired for sexual misconduct,
Speaker 1: does an interview with her where the first question is
Speaker 1: asking her about her breasts.
Speaker 3: May we talk briefly about your Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: mean that's so crazy, because Matt Lauer was a serious
Speaker 3: journalist like that would have been in a news interview.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good point. There's another example.
Speaker 1: At one point, she takes part in a roast on
Speaker 1: Comedy Central, and so you know she's agreed to do this,
Speaker 1: so in some ways she's in on the joke. But
Speaker 1: again it's her ex husband Tommy Lee who's roasting her,
Speaker 1: and this is the way the monologue begins.
Speaker 5: This is actually a special time for Pam to be
Speaker 5: here because she just turned thirty eight and her kids
Speaker 5: just turned fourteen.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like this becomes weirdly physical in a sense,
Speaker 1: like people or fans feel like they are entitled to
Speaker 1: her physical space. Right.
Speaker 3: They claw at her at events, right, They're trying to
Speaker 3: get to her a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: And so she in her book, she has a couple
Speaker 1: of different stories. One about Tim Allen, who was a
Speaker 1: star of Home Improvement where she was the tool Time girl,
Speaker 1: and on her first day on the set, she walks
Speaker 1: out and he's in a robe and they're outside of
Speaker 1: the dressing rooms and he flashes her and he says,
Speaker 1: now you've seen me naked too. He since denied that,
Speaker 1: of course, but it's in her book. There's another scenario
Speaker 1: that she talks about also in her memoir where she's
Speaker 1: traveling to Uruguay for some sort of fan event and
Speaker 1: she gets out and the car is surrounded by teen boys,
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of teenage boys, and they're like shouting
Speaker 1: for her, and then suddenly they're like clawing at her,
Speaker 1: and her bodyguard has to literally throw her over his
Speaker 1: shoulder and like get out of there, and by the
Speaker 1: time she gets back to the truck or the suv
Speaker 1: or whatever, her clothes have been physically torn.
Speaker 2: Off of her.
Speaker 5: That sounds terrifying.
Speaker 1: There's this other story she told me, which she also
Speaker 1: writes about in her book, but basically, she comes home
Speaker 1: one day to Malibu when she's living there and a
Speaker 1: deranged fan has broken into her home, is in the
Speaker 1: basement and has fallen asleep in the swimsuits, and they
Speaker 1: basically have no idea how long she's been there.
Speaker 5: God, there's so much like invasion of her, like.
Speaker 2: A personal space.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for what it's worth, the suit is now a
Speaker 1: safe in her son's home.
Speaker 5: It should really be in the Smithsonian. It really should actually, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean seriously.
Speaker 1: Even as late as two thousand and three. You remember
Speaker 1: that book with Chuck Cluster in Books Sex, Drugs and
Speaker 1: Cocoa Puffs.
Speaker 5: Of course, he.
Speaker 1: Writes about Pamela Anderson in there, and there's this quote,
Speaker 1: am I physically attracted to Pamela Anderson, of course, But
Speaker 1: the more I see her, the more I realize I'm
Speaker 1: not looking at a person I'd like to sleep with
Speaker 1: I'm looking at America.
Speaker 5: That really is the thing, Right, She's so intrinsically tied
Speaker 5: up with the idea of America for so many people,
Speaker 5: she becomes almost like a symbol rather than a person.
Speaker 1: Right, She's like a souvenir that everybody wants to own
Speaker 1: a piece of. And I mean, look like Pamela Anderson
Speaker 1: is certainly not the first woman in our culture to
Speaker 1: become a sexual commodity or even to own her part
Speaker 1: in that. I mean, I was thinking back to you know,
Speaker 1: there's like Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe to a large degree,
Speaker 1: even I think like Lil Kim in the nineties to
Speaker 1: some degree. But I'm trying to think about what the
Speaker 1: difference is for pam Maybe the difference is those people
Speaker 1: had careers first to fall back on, before it became
Speaker 1: about their bodies, before it became about the physicality or sex.
Speaker 1: And with her, that's what she was from the beginnings.
Speaker 1: She didn't have anything to fall back on. She was
Speaker 1: established as a sex suctor.
Speaker 3: Like a one dimensional pin up, so people didn't really
Speaker 3: see her as human in many ways, like they don't
Speaker 3: see her as a living, breathing human. They just really
Speaker 3: see almost this image of her in their minds that
Speaker 3: they disassociate with her as a person. And now she's
Speaker 3: sort of taking control of her narrative. She's read the Facebook,
Speaker 3: she's doing all.
Speaker 2: This, She's inserting some of the complexity back in.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much time you're spending on TikTok
Speaker 1: these days, but I do spend a.
Speaker 5: Lot of time.
Speaker 3: One day.
Speaker 1: There's a whole embarrassing amount hashtag pamcore, like it is
Speaker 1: a full aesthetic. It is bad people are doing, like
Speaker 1: the thin penciled eyebrows, the lip liner, like the tossled
Speaker 1: bun on the top of the head, the bangs like.
Speaker 5: This part of like the bimbo core thing.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of bimbo core. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit barbiecore. And Pam is back. But I have to
Speaker 1: tell you this other story actually, which is that when
Speaker 1: I was with her at her home in Canada, we
Speaker 1: were sitting in her kitchen. We were baking Christmas cookies.
Speaker 5: And all that sounds nice. It's like a celebrity Hallmark.
Speaker 2: Movie totally, and actually she's an amazing cook.
Speaker 1: But you know, so I'm recording all of this obviously
Speaker 1: because I was doing this profile of her, and so
Speaker 1: we're hanging out in the kitchen. Her assistant Jonathan was
Speaker 1: near us. He's sort of helping out, and I pull
Speaker 1: out my phone to show her this TikTok filter that
Speaker 1: lets you basically put nineties Pam onto your twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three human, not pam face. And so Pam was not
Speaker 1: on social media, so she'd never seen this, and she
Speaker 1: literally screamed, Oh, that's so funny.
Speaker 5: What the fuck that's insane.
Speaker 3: You gotta do this?
Speaker 5: What the hell? I mean, my kids know about this.
Speaker 5: This is insane.
Speaker 6: This is like the extent of mine.
Speaker 5: That's hysterical. That's such a sweet and funny moment.
Speaker 3: Like it's really lovely to hear her finally getting to
Speaker 3: enjoy some of this attention and actually be able to
Speaker 3: laugh at all the absurdity of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I was actually thinking about that. It
Speaker 1: kind of wraps up the idea for this episode perfectly,
Speaker 1: Like there are certainly parts of Pamela Anderson's life in
Speaker 1: retrospect that she wants to stay in the past, Like
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to be that cartoonish nineties version of herself,
Speaker 1: and she has said that, but at least now she's
Speaker 1: getting to decide, you know, what she wants to embrace
Speaker 1: in what she wants to leave behind, And in some
Speaker 1: ways this suit actually is a happy memory for her.
Speaker 1: Here's what she said when I asked her about it recently.
Speaker 4: Just represents the time in my history, one of my
Speaker 4: favorite times, just to be so carefree on the beach
Speaker 4: working when my sons were just born. Putting on that
Speaker 4: redslim suit just a couple months after I gave birth.
Speaker 4: You know, I had to get back in the suit.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: It made me feel makes me feel happy to think
Speaker 4: about it. It was really a beautiful time in my life.
Speaker 5: That really does feel like a perfect place to end it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: I guess that's our show for this week. See you
Speaker 2: next week.
Speaker 5: This is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: Is there a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about
Speaker 3: and want us to explore in a future episode. Email
Speaker 3: us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find us
Speaker 3: on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
Speaker 1: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
Speaker 1: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
Speaker 1: which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 3: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
Speaker 3: and at susib NYC. Also check out Jessica's books Feminist
Speaker 3: Fight Club and This Is eighteen.
Speaker 1: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcast and the Media.
Speaker 1: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our
Speaker 1: engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attiya is our researcher and
Speaker 1: associate producer.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
Speaker 3: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 5: Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 3: Additional editing help from Mary Doo and Mike Coscarelli. Sound
Speaker 3: correction and mastering by Amanda Rose Smith.
Speaker 5: We are your hosts Susie Vannacarum.
Speaker 1: And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers. For even more,
Speaker 1: check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 2: See you next week.