Chuck Klosterman - Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

Pam is the embodiment of modern female sexuality, and that embodiment is a Barbie Doll. But that’s not necessarily bad; it’s what intellectual men want (because she can be appreciated lecherously and ironically), and it’s what intellectual women want (because it provides the opportunity to rail against Barbie dolls). She’s an intellectual symbol of what every forward-thinking feminist has warned us about, and she’s a physical symbol of all the things men find alluring (some of which are rudimentary, some of which are complex). Society’s relationship with Pam Anderson is exactly like its former relationship with Monroe. What’s different is how they respond back.

Ultimately, both women serve the same role, and that role is both shallow and profound. People use Monroe and Anderson as a kind of cultural shorthand for understanding the most important sexual mores of entire generations. Marilyn and Pam succeed in that capacity because they’re not complicated; they’re sexual for reasons that are only about sex. Everything else just muddles the equation. I mean, there’s probably never been a sexier woman than Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but that wasn’t just because she looked incredible—that was “acting.” She made herself sexier. Monroe never needed to act. In a sense, Taylor was too complex to be an icon of this magnitude. The same thing happened to former MTV personality Jenny McCarthy, a peer of Anderson’s, who—for roughly seven weeks in the summer of 1995—was everyone’s Woman of the Moment. But her problem was that she became too normal; McCarthy seemed completely aware of who she was and what her breasts could be extrapolated to say about society. That self-awareness killed her career. At this point, Jenny McCarthy is a likable bombshell who’s only slightly more interesting than a bucket of shark chum. She could have been a supernatural pictogram of the new sensuality, but elected to merely become a “person.”

Not Pammy, though. She’s never been a person, and I’m glad. Pam doesn’t just have sex with guys; Pam fucks reality. As I type this, she has divorced Lee and is involved with mook musician Kid Rock. [33] 5. And here’s something you only notice if you’re as obsessive as I am: Kid Rock likes to mention in interviews how he hates Radiohead; in his video for “You Never Met a Motherf**ker Quite Like Me,” he actually wipes his arse with toilet paper that has the word Radiohead embossed on every tissue. On the surface, that might seem like a statement against pretension and elitism, almost as if Rock is saying he’s the anti–Thom Yorke. However, it actually has to do with Mötley Crüe. On page 358 of the Crüe biography The Dirt, Tommy Lee mentions that Pamela threw a massive birthday party for him when he turned thirty-three, and Lee says she “cranked our favorite band, Radiohead, on the sound system.” I have no doubt that Pam has told Kid how she and Tommy used to adore OK Computer, and it drives him crazy. Kid Rock hates Radiohead for the same reason I hate Coldplay (as described on page 4). Here again, Pam has made the perfect romantic decision. Here’s a guy who actually named himself after youth and rock ’n’ roll. Here’s a guy who openly aspires to be the new David Lee Roth. Here’s a guy who operates within the idiom of rap metal, an art form that critics despise and normal people adore. Here’s an underrated antigenius who represents the redneck renaissance and what’s great about music, pot, and popular culture (and, I suppose, America). Kid Rock’s not a person either. I sure hope those crazy kids make it!

My eyes have drifted back to my TV just now, and I spent a few moments looking at Tommy Lee’s penis. I realize this is no brilliant insight, but Tommy Lee’s genitalia is stupidly huge. In the scene I’m watching right now, he appears to be beating his penis against the steering wheel of a boat. It’s oddly reassuring. In fact, it’s making me think about Joe DiMaggio again: DiMaggio used his 36-inch, 36-ounce bat to hit safely in fifty-six straight games, and Tommy used his 10-inch, 13-ounce bat [34] 6. Approximate. to hit Heather Locklear, Bobbi Brown, and the single-most important woman of our times. World-class sex kittens no longer date sports heroes because modern sports heroes have joined heavy metal bands. Tommy Lee is our “Joltin’ Joe.” Most of the guys I know would much rather have sex with three of the world’s most beautiful women than hit .325 career against American League pitching. Now, it’s possible this was always the case (perhaps young men in 1953 felt the same way). But the difference is that admitting that choice in the 1950s meant you were profoundly honest and a little pathetic. In the twenty-first century, it still means you’re pathetic, but that’s considered normal.

That’s the weird irony that makes Pam Anderson so essential to our times: She’s not a real person, but she’s still more real than any sexual icon we’ve ever had. Pam Anderson is a mainstream, nonsubversive porn star who actually does all the dirty things her disciples fantasize about. Marilyn Monroe was the perfect vessel for an age where it was wrong to want wild, easy sex; Pam is the perfect vessel in an age where not wanting wild, easy sex makes you a puritanical, born-again weirdo. It’s not enough just to talk like Mae West. Anybody can do that. We need proof. Pam has the proof. In the short-term, the Tommy-Pamela videotape sullied her already sketchy reputation. But it was probably the greatest thing that could have happened to her long-term legacy—it made her transcendent and organic in the same breath.

Whenever I hear intellectuals talk about sexual icons of the present day, the name mentioned most is Madonna. That seems like a good answer, and it’s the kind of answer Madonna has worked very hard to perpetuate. Earning that title was her only career goal. But Madonna’s not even close to representing contemporary sexuality in any important fashion. She tries way too hard, and it never seems honest. It’s very telling that the two best songs in Madonna’s catalog—“Like a Virgin” and “Like a Prayer”—are titled after similes. Her whole career is a collection of similes: Madonna is like a sexual idol, but that’s just the plot for her self-styled promotional blitz. When she overtly attempted to embody Marilyn Monroe in the video for “Material Girl,” Madonna got the dance steps perfect but completely missed the message: That song suggests that sex is about money, and that sex is about power, and that sex is about getting what you want. Well, fine. That’s how it is with Madonna. But with the original Monroe, sex was about sex . It was completely without guile or intellect. Being a sexual icon is sort of like being the frontman for an Orange County punk band: As soon as you can explain why you’re necessary, you’re over.

Madonna is an unsuccessful sexual icon because she desperately wants to be a sexual icon. Pamela Anderson is the perfect sexual icon because she wants to have sex. You think that makes her dumb? Well, maybe you’re right. But how smart are you while you’re having sex? What part of sex is “intellectual”? Certainly none of the good parts.

There are a lot of interesting moments on my Pam ’n’ Tommy Fuji videotape, several of which are so weird that its authenticity can’t be doubted. Pam and Tommy listen to MC Hammer and Soul Asylum. They try to write a cookbook for dope smokers. Tommy uses the word rad in casual conversation. Pam tells Tommy, “You’re the best fucking husband on the planet,” and they get married with the aid of a spaceman. But if you had a transcript of this film, you’d find that there’s one phrase that appears more often than all others: “Where are we?”