Explosive and dramatic series “Pam and Tommy”

From its first episode, the new Hulu series “Pam and Tommy”, which debuted today on the digital platform, has positioned itself as ambitious and effective entertainment.

The key to the creative triumph of this show is that it doesn’t decide to be one thing. A nostalgic trip to the media scandals of the 90s, a satire of the cult of celebrity or a biography of a true romance destined to fail. The series could have filled in with just one of these elements, but the ingenuity of “Pam and Tommy” lies in how it manages to incorporate them all and give it a truly amazing and deep dramatic impact.

The titular characters of the series are Pamela Anderson, who rose to fame posing for Playboy and extended her stardom as a central figure in “Baywatch,” and Tommy Lee Drummer for the rock band Motley Crue. The series uses the intensity of their romance as one of the central narratives, but the trigger for each episode is the illegal publication of a video of the couple having sex during their honeymoon.

The series divides its time alternating between the point of view of Rand (Seth Rogen), the carpenter who decides to take justice into his hands when Tommy Lee is left to owe thousands of dollars, how the scandal is fueled by the media in mass and how all that affects the titular figures as a couple and individually.

While it’s easy to be impressed with Lily James and Sebastian Stan’s physical transformation to play the titular figures, it’s far more pertinent to mention how he manages to capture the way her celebrity wiped out her emotional maturity and how she’s given the space. to show the vulnerability behind her romantic impossibility and her constant battle with being reduced to a sexual object.

The other thing to celebrate is how the direction of Craig Gillespie, Lake Bell, Gwyneth Horder-Payton and Hannah Fidell manages to walk the tightrope where the particular tone of the series is placed. Most of the scripts are fueled by shrewd black humor, but the series has its best moments when the narrative is dominated by Anderson’s perspective. Sexism in Hollywood is not a new topic, but the series is given the task of pointing out the double standard of how the video affected the careers and lives of its participants. One of the most emotional moments is the episode that contrasts how she started her career in Hollywood and the legal questioning about the content of the video in order to file a lawsuit.

“Pam and Tommy” has a lot of fun showing how different the world was before the internet and social media dominated our daily lives. However, the dramatic impact of the series comes from illustrating how the dehumanization of public figures and the appetite for scandal is something that still dominates popular culture.