MsRepresented: Pamela Anderson | The Stolen Sex Symbol's Daring New Look & Comeback

You know the story of Galatea, right? No? She was created as the image of the perfect woman by a sculptor named Pygmalion, and given life by Aphrodite as a gift to the artist. Even if you dont know the names, though, you can probably connect the myth to its real world parallels. Culture, which has traditionally operated through a male lens, creates the ideal of a woman, and deems her lovable when she embodies those ideals. But what about the woman who sculpts herself? Who has a mind and spirit that cant be contained within such limited parameters? Well thats where things usually get messy. For the woman, that is. We just dont know what to make of someone who refuses to stay in the mold weve created for them. Especially if her looks personify the mold. Pamela Anderson knows this struggle better than most. Since her first brush with fame in 1989, people have tried to put her in one category or another. But her consistent refusal to stay put has inspired no small amount of backlash. She has been ridiculed. She has been condemned. And today were looking at how Pamela Anderson has been Misrepresented.

The cultural gaze does, of course, play some part in Andersons success. In fact, when she was just a pretty local girl wearing a Labatts beer t-shirt at a BC Lions football game, that gaze was magnetically pulled to her, and she found herself featured on the jumbotron. The brief exposure led to spokesmodel work with Labatts, appearing on posters and billboards, and in a TV commercial for the brand. And that got someone elses attention. So in 1989 at just 22, Pamela Anderson made her way from Vancouver, Canada to Los Angeles, and the infamous Playboy Mansion.

Already, this is a point that would raise eyebrows for some. The magazines salacious content makes the women who appear on its pages easy targets for moral speculation, especially following a conservative cultural shift during the USs Reagan era. To a puritanical mindset, a woman who poses nude either suffers from a deficient character, or from an unspeakable tragedy that forces her to sell herself in desperation. Unfortunately, Pamela Anderson was not a stranger to tragedy, having endured sexual assault on more than one occasion. But the way she tells it, her decision to appear in Playboy was not a symptom of her trauma, but a reaction against it. Flipping the script on the victim narrative, Anderson found freedom in modeling. And for the first time in many years, felt agency over her body.

In the spirit of taking back her self ownership, Anderson began to mold herself, quite literally. While the powers that be at Playboy were more than content with her physical attributes, Pamela herself marvelled at the bodies of her fellow models. Her decision to augment her bust size was not a revolutionary one. However, her open admission of it seemed to completely baffle people. As unique as she was in her candor, the topic probably would have exhausted itself if shed remained just a centerfold. The eras hypocritical disapproval of plastic surgery was not far removed from its opinions regarding nude modeling. Critical outsiders could have resolved her choices into what they considered a reprehensible but logical consistency. Anderson wasnt content to remain down the rabbit hole, though. Between her appearances in Playboy and her charismatic personality, opportunity was starting to knock, and she already envisioned bigger things for herself.

After a few one off appearances, Anderson scored a small recurring role as Lisa the Tool Time Girl on the sitcom Home Improvement. But it didnt give her very much to play with. So when she was offered the part of lifeguard C.J. Parker on the series Baywatch, she dove right in. With her limited acting experience, Pamela Anderson would be the first to admit her performance wasnt destined to win any awards. Similarly, Baywatch, wasnt a show anyone took very seriously. The series still became a massive hit, not just in the US, but around the world. And Anderson, with her undeniable star quality, was its most popular cast member.

After becoming one of the most recognizable women on the planet, Pamela Anderson also became one of its busiest. Not only was she acting and modeling, but she started to get into business ventures, like a partial ownership in the LA nightlife spot Sanctuary. It was there that she crossed paths with Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee for the first time. Lee doggedly pursued Anderson, eventually wearing her down after he followed her to a photoshoot in Mexico in February, 1995. The attraction between them proved to be too powerful to ignore. They had known each other for four days when they tied the knot. To say they shocked the public when they returned home would be an understatement. For those who already had a certain image of Pamela Anderson in their minds, her impulsive marriage to a rockstar famed for his wild antics was just more proof of the archetype theyd ascribed to her: Somebody flighty, and unserious, whose only substance was in her physical enhancements.

For anyone in the position to know the couple better, the story was very different. Despite an unconventional courtship, Anderson and Lee settled into a very sweet married life together. They began to plan for a family, capturing their domestic world in an endless series of home videos.

Their happiness was shattered early in 1996 when they realized one of those tapes had been stolen during a home burglary the previous year. This one in particular was filmed during a romantic getaway at Lake Mead, and featured Anderson and Lee in situations typical of newlyweds in love. Now their private moments together were being sold as a sex tape available to anyone and everyone. Though the violation left her reeling, Anderson resolved to fight back. She and Lee launched a historic lawsuit against Internet Entertainment Group, the company that distributed the footage online.

It should have been an open and shut matter. Distributing stolen property without consent? Especially material of a sensitive nature? That seems criminal in any sense of the word. But of course, thats not the sane, sensible world we live in. Incredibly, Anderson found herself on trial, as lawyers shredded apart her private life and reframed it in the context of her public persona. Meanwhile, the court of public opinion was reacting with vicious schadenfreude. Everyone whod ever looked down on Anderson for her appearance or her career suddenly felt they had free reign to be as nasty as they wanted. Leading the charge were some of the most popular celebrity voices of the day, like Jay Leno, who referenced the situation so frequently on The Tonight Show that it seemed like he must be earning commission.

Anderson broke the rules, you see. She broke conservative rules of moral decency by being free with her body and open about her sexuality. And then she broke the rules again when she attempted to assert boundaries around the ownership of her image. The culture at the time saw no distinction between pictures shed taken consentingly, and film footage shed intended to be private. Instead, it reveled in her public humiliation, insisting that she was somehow less human, and less deserving of privacy and compassion because of her career. That she would insist otherwise was treated as more outrageous than anything shed ever put on the pages of Playboy. Suddenly, the means by which she had originally reclaimed her body became a weapon used to traumatize her all over again.

In the end, Anderson and Lee backed down. Not because they were in the wrong, but because the trial and surrounding media circus were so brutal. Anderson, who was pregnant with her second child at the time, had already had one miscarriage in the past, and feared that the continued distress could induce another. She walked away for the good of her family and her health, but the damage was done, and the fallout would continue for years to come.

As Anderson tried to put her professional life back together, things crumbled at home. Lee unraveled, becoming increasingly volatile and jealous. The added stress of a second baby helped send him over the edge. Anderson had Lee arrested for domestic abuse, and though he tried to make amends during his ensuing six months in jail, they divorced in 1998. Despite still being deeply in love with him, Anderson refused to remain in a situation that could be dangerous to her or her children.

Anderson would go on to have other highly publicized relationships and marriages. For her haters, her romantic ups and downs would become one more thing to sneer about. Her many tribulations notwithstanding, though, she remained remarkably unjaded, always tuning out the noise of other peoples opinions and following her own heart. Anderson will gamely admit this doesnt always work out ideally, but she also has a rare ability to recognize a negative situation, and remove herself from it without internal shame. Many people who would consider themselves superior to the actress struggle with the kind of decisive clarity that requires.

These qualities are part of an inherent optimism that Pamela Anderson carries at her core. However many times she gets knocked down, she always gets back up again. Following the release of her stolen video, she found herself unable to progress her acting career as she had hoped. So instead she used the spotlight to fuel her activism. Anderson has been vocal about a number of issues, but her most passionate work is on behalf of environmental causes and animal rights. She has cleverly leveraged her public image to raise awareness, and substantial amounts of money. For instance, she only allowed Comedy Central to roast her in exchange for a hefty donation to PETA.

Watching the way Anderson repurposes pain into positivity is impressive. Not only does it illustrate her strength of conviction and the endearing sense of humor she has about herself, but it also shows us her considerable intelligence, and a canny mind for media strategy. Looking closer at her life in the public eye, these attributes have been present the whole time. But people were so caught up in an image, and a certainty that they understood what it meant, that they completely overlooked the rest.

There is no denying that popular culture has been ruthlessly unfair to Pamela Anderson, as it has been to so many women before her who didnt fit in boxes. However, by virtue of living in the modern age, she does have an advantage that many of those women never did: She has a platform of her own. Just as she once asserted control over her body, Anderson has steadily worked to take back control of her narrative, subtly at first, but more and more directly as time passed. And in recent years, her efforts have really started to pay off.

As wider conversations about patriarchy, and misogyny have gained prominence, it became clear that Pamela Anderson was long overdue for a reevaluation. For her part, Anderson was ready to meet the moment. In fact, she had been ready. In the 2023 documentary, Pamela: A Love Story," on Netflix she went in depth about her past and present, her honest vulnerability striking a chord with viewers. However, it was her other projects that seemed to take everyone by surprise. Her stint as Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway seemed like a stunt casting, but was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews. Who knew Pamela Anderson had so much razzle dazzle? In addition to publishing her memoir, Love, Pamela, she put out I Love You: Recipes From the Heart, a vegan cookbook that included personal stories alongside her recipes, and got kudos from the likes of Martha Stewart. Who would have guessed that Pamela Anderson is a talented writer? Or that shes so domestic? Well, in fact, anyone who had really paid attention to Pamela Anderson in the past wouldnt have been so amazed. From the beginning, shes been as open about these facets of herself as she has her body, it just took a few decades before we were ready to accept her as a complex individual. Unfortunately, its hard not to notice that this cultural embrace is coming at a time when shes not just older, but actively creating separation from her hypersexualized past persona.

If those implications bother Anderson, she doesnt show it. A hallmark of her career is her constant evolution, and the way she subverts expectations just by doing her own thing. Her decision to go without makeup at Paris Fashion Week in 2023 was a choice she made for herself, but it still turned heads and headlines all over the world. Once upon a time, the decision to appear visibly older than 30 in public would have gotten Anderson mocked and belittled. However, her natural look has been largely celebrated. Not that it would make a difference to her if it wasnt.

In the midst of all this, Pamela Anderson also finally got the opportunity she dreamed of back at the start of her life in Los Angeles. The chance to test the waters as an actress in a serious project. In 2024 she starred in The Last Showgirl, to widespread acclaim. Not only was the film deemed a success, but Anderson earned Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards for her work. At the time of writing, she has several film projects upcoming, two of which are serious dramatic pieces. But her role in the reboot of The Naked Gun, proves she hasnt lost her taste for comedy either.

For more than thirty years, people have been trying to boil Pamela Anderson down into something that is easily definable. It feels like so much of the negativity lobbed her way came because it was something that couldnt be done. Or rather, that she wouldnt let anyone do. She was a bombshell brimming with ambition. A sharp wit without any guile. A savvy romantic. A sweet soul with a warriors heart. With so many shades of nuance, it would be impossible to give Pamela Anderson any one label, but if we had to try, it would be Resilient. Shes spent years fearlessly forging her own path, without care or concern for what anyone else thinks about her winding route. Its had highs and lows, wrong turns, and dead ends, but it has been hers completely, and we can finally appreciate the beauty in that.

The 90s were rough on a lot of talented women. Which other icon of the era deserves a revival? Share your opinions in the comments.