THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE (Lions Gate) Featuring: Tammy Faye Messner, Roe Messner, Jim Bakker; narrated by RuPaul Charles. Producers: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Directors: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, brief nudity) Running Time: 79 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
As is probably the case for many of my worldly generation, my defining image of Tammy Faye Bakker isn't even really of Tammy Faye Bakker. It's the image of "Saturday Night Live's" Jan Hooks doing Tammy Faye, all squeaky rebuking of demons and freely flowing mascara. Tammy Faye herself was a caricature, easy to mock because of that heart-on-the-sleeve demeanor and that garishly made-up face on that tiny body. Who knew who she really was and, frankly, who cared? She was part of that whole PTL scandal with its juicy melange of God, sex and fraud. And she was so easy to laugh at.
Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey's documentary THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE is clearly an attempt to rehabilitate Tammy Faye now-Messner's image, made with the full cooperation of the First Lady of Televangelism. And it's a frequently fascinating character study that puts a truly human face on the much-maligned woman. After an introduction to Tammy Faye's childhood, much of the film is devoted to the peaks and valleys in Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's multiple attempts to create a Christian-themed satellite television network. Naturally, there's also a heavy focus on the 1987 scandal that toppled the Bakkers' PTL empire, including Jim's confession to a one-night stand with Jessica Hahn and a fraud trial related to fund-raising for the Heritage U.S.A. vacation resort. Along the way there are glimpses at the present-day Tammy, starting over once again with a marriage to former Bakker associate Roe Messner and attempting to put her troubled past behind her.
THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE is full of the sort of eye-opening tidbits that make a documentary more than a parade of facts, places and dates. Barbato and Bailey give the Bakkers their due as pioneers who started The 700 Club, Trinity Broadcasting and PTL before being forced out of each and every one by savvier folks. There are funny archival clips of the Bakkers' mostly-improvised Christian children's show with Tammy Faye performing hand puppets, and surprising glimpses of Tammy Faye reaching out to AIDS patients at a time when many religious leaders were still referring to the disease as punishment for homosexuals. There's humor in the clips of a pre-Oscar Kevin Spacey playing Jim Bakker in a made-for-TV movie, and drama in the machinations of Jerry Fallwell to force the Bakkers out of PTL (Fallwell himself refused to be interviewed for the film). All documentaries should be this entertaining.
It's also not clear until the film is nearly over that it has spent most of its running time avoiding its most intriguing subject: the present-day Tammy Faye. Once the whole sordid PTL mess had been laid out, Barbato and Bailey shift gears to show Tammy Faye trying to revive her career as an entertainer. She appears on the now-defunct "Roseanne" talk show; she meets with a photographer for new head shots (and throws the makeup artist for a loop with her permanently lined lips, eyes and eyebrows). She even pitches ideas for television projects -- including "Tammy's Terrific Teens" and a show about medical advances -- to an incredulous USA Networks executive. Tammy Faye emerges as a wonderful contradiction: a born performer whose 30 years in the public eye have done nothing to erase her essential naivete. The goofy genuineness that emerges in scenes like her reaction to being in a grounded airplane during an electrical storm make for a much more human story than the story of the Bakkers' pre-scandal careers.
None of that makes THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE any less worth watching; in fact, it's almost like two provocative short films effectively fused together. It's also playful (the BABE-esque chorus of sock puppets reading the chapter titles), informative and even a little bit inspirational. Comic Jim J. Bullock, Tammy Faye's former daytime chat-show co-host, claims that after the world ends, all that will remain is "roaches, Tammy Faye and Cher." It's a treat getting to know that plucky survivor, and learning that there's something more than someone else's caricature behind that trademark mascara.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 lash waltzes: 8.
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