5/26/2023 0 Comments The spectacle g.o.p.s tent![]() Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the pair had been at the head of the PTL Network, a massively popular TV network that aired, among other programming, the Bakkers’ own daily variety shows. The allegations sent shock waves through not just the conservative Christian community but also the country at large. Allegations of improper financial dealings had dogged the Bakkers for years, but they came to a head in 1987 when allegations that Jim raped a young woman named Jessica Hahn and then used ministry funds to pay for her silence became public. ![]() Fred Hayes/WireImageĪt the documentary’s center is Tammy Faye herself, one-half of an infamous televangelist couple who saw their reputations and empire fall after Faye’s then-husband, Jim Bakker, was convicted of mail and wire fraud. ![]() Tammy Faye Messner with a poster for The Eyes of Tammy Faye at Sundance in 2000. Sock puppets introduce various sections of the story RuPaul narrates. (Technically, the new film is a lightly fictionalized adaptation of the older documentary.) It’s a weird, campy, wonderful little film. In 2000, she was the subject of a documentary, also called The Eyes of Tammy Faye, that aimed to reintroduce audiences to a woman they’d previously encountered as either a scandal or a punchline. In this way, Tammy Faye Messner, formerly Tammy Faye Bakker, was ahead of her time. Podcasts (like Slow Burn and You’re Wrong About), documentaries ( Framing Britney Spears), and based-on-a-true-story TV dramas reframe the stories that sensation-seeking media and late-night comedians pitched to the American public as a clown show, a train wreck, a lady who’s in trouble and worthy only of our gawking. The Eyes of Tammy Faye, starring Jessica Chastain in the title role, is the latest in a burgeoning cultural project: the ongoing attempt to reexamine and reclaim the legacies of women who were wronged in recent history.
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