[.ca] The Eyes of Tammy Faye

From Amazon.com:
Tammy Faye Bakker, she of the layers of makeup that made her face into a living Halloween mask, will forever remain a camp icon of '80s culture for many of us. Directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato aren't above needling Bakker for her more excessive accouterments, but The Eyes of Tammy Faye is ultimately a loving, sympathetic portrait of "the first lady of televangelism." The film charts her life from traveling evangelist to the mother of three religious cable networks, and her fall from grace when husband Jim Bakker was forced out of the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry after a scandalous affair. Always entertaining (sock puppets introduce each section) and at times surprising (did you know that Jim and Tammy were the first television ministers to reach out to the gay community and people with AIDS?), it rarely strays from Tammy Faye's version of events. Jerry Falwell becomes the story's sole scapegoat, but even the film's best arguments don't quite make Jim Bakker an innocent victim. But then it's not his film, it's Tammy Faye's, and Bailey and Barbato seem to have fallen in love with their charismatic subject. If nothing else, they reveal the woman behind the cultural joke and celebrate a spiritual survival story. RuPaul Charles narrates, and clips from the 1990 TV movie Fall from Grace feature a young Kevin Spacey as the adulterous preacher. --Sean Axmaker

The Devil Done Did It (or, Elevator Music for the Soul):
Jerry Fallwell is the demon in this new testament of the religious right that, despite its pleasantries, is both more entertaining and more substantial than Tammy Faye Bakker_s eyelashes. She comes off as a good egg and when we hear Fallwells unctuous appraisal ("Her elevator doesn_t go to the top floor") after engineering the fall of PTL, one of the several Christian broadcasting networks that the admittedly over-the-top Tammy and her Jessica Hahn-tempted ex-husband started, we have to wonder what floor he_s getting off at, considering that the down button was pressed and we seem to be hovering here in the basement already. The best line was from the co-host of Tammy_s short-lived show with a gay man reflecting back on his relationship with her after his lover had died from AIDS: "She_s a survivor. After the holocaust, there will be roaches, Tammy, and Cher."

Tammy is the all time best:
After watching this documentary, I was left thinking that there should be more people in the world like Tammy Faye. I love her irreverence and contradictory personality. There is just so much more to this woman than the surface nuttiness and the praise the lord shtick. I'd have lunch with her any time.

Tammy Faye rocks and I wish could have liked this more:
I had been waiting to see this documentary on DVD for a very long time as Tammy Faye was such a cult and controversial figure in the 1980s, who has since then shown that behind all that caked on make-up there is a genuine person who walks the talk by embracing everyone, which is more than I can say for most of us, self included at times. Is she flawed? Heck yes. Was she guilty of illegal actions? Possibly, even if only by association. Is she vain? Absolutely. Is she over the top? Without a doubt; notwithstanding this documentary is less a fully researched character analysis, than cursory homage to a lady who obviously touched the hearts of the filmmakers and wound up falling under her hard to resist appeal. Stumbling upon the public Tammy Faye is like trying to look away from an accident, and I don't mean this disrespectfully. It one of those scenarios in which you know that you should probably look away or move on, but you just can't take your eyes of her, whether she's playing with hand puppets on TV, sharing beauty tips, crying her eyes out through her allegedly water-proof mascara, or simply talking to the camera. If there was ever someone who want meant to be on TV, it is Tammy Faye and the documentary makes it clear that she is/was a natural and a hard-worker from the very beginning. We are shown a plethora of Tammy memorabilia and television footage that is at first a hoot to see, but starts to get repetitive, even if the documentary only last 78 minutes. There are many classic Tammy moments, best exemplified in a segment in which she is introducing her then PTL TV audience to male dysfunction paraphernalia. In a nutshell "The Eyes Of Tammy Faye" is a loving look at a woman who does not look very smart in conventional terms, yet has had a life that would seem like fiction is it were not true. Although some critics wanted to see a more balanced view of Tammy Faye, I was not bothered by its obvious partisanship. What was missing was a structure and footage that would elevate this story to a more interesting level than a run of the mill E! star profile. Even the "Surreal Life" on the WB showed more about Tammy Faye than this documentary does. The attempts to address her past show little imagination and are quite shoddy. Any documentary about Tammy must show the air conditioned doggie houses as well as the interest and impact as reflected in an interview with Ted Coppell that was MAJOR water cooler material in its time. Tammy Faye is way more interesting than what this documentary shows and has an undeniable appeal that I can attest to as I had the good fortune to literally walk up to Tammy Faye and her second husband in the streets of New York City only minutes before this documentary had its NYC premiere. Believe it or not, Tammy Faye looked petite and pretty in an almost conventional fashion as she signed autographs for fans on old Tammy Faye LPs that they brought and smiled for the cameras. Every time one goes to New York City one winds up seeing someone in the media, but few have given me as much giddy joy as seeing this little lady doing her thing for the huge crowd of well wishers. I could have watched her for hours, yet this documentary somehow misses the mark as it does not quite get the essence of Tammy nor does it camp it up enough to be seen as satire. It earns 3 stars from me just because of the subject matter and old footage that is great (check out those 1980s duds, hairdos, and the truth behind those lashes) yet quite representative of a particular place and time. Someone PLEASE give this woman another chance to be herself on TV as she is a riot and although she would not let anyone know it, I get the feeling that she understands her appeal and is in on all the jokes.

GREAT DVD:
This is an awesome DVD showing what a truly WONDERFUL woman Tammy Faye is! There is a new site for us Tammy Faye fans! It is located at http://tammyfayefans.tripod.com. There is even a MESSAGE BOARD! it is brand new so head on over and check it out! Send it to all your friends who LOVE Tammy!

An Empathic Look At Tammy Faye:
Since the PTL Club scandal in the 1980s, Tammy Faye Bakker has become one of the all time greats of the eccentric pop-culture icons. The PTL financial scandal and Jim Bakker's affair with Jessica Hahn have faded from front page news stories and into a tiny dot on the historical map. Tammy Faye, however, still pops up in pop media frequently enough to be more recognizable than ex-hubby Jim, not to mention the almost forgotten Hahn. "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" delivers a well documented history of Jim and Tammy Faye's rise to fame on the TV Evangelist circuit, their fall from grace, and where the dice landed for Tammy Faye. If this were a film exclusively about the PTL scandal, this docu would come up short; but the main focus here is on Tammy Faye the individual. In doing so, the film makers did an excellent job of presenting the most important aspects of the scandal in a nutshell, and giving us a three-dimensional view of Tammy Faye. Early on, this documentary shows a genuinely sweet side of Tammy Faye, telling of her unhappy childhood, and how the religion she grew up with was just one big monolithic intimidator, threatening the believers with eternal damnation. Instead of Tammy Faye taking this fear into adulthood, she instead turns it upside down, and preaches Christianity to the TV public with compassion. Particularly moving is a clip from a PTL Club episode where she has an AIDS activist on the show; wherein you would often see TV preachers brag that they will cure AIDS victims of their lifestyle and illness, Tammy Faye brings the activist on the show with compassion. They discuss the battle against AIDS, never bagging on the gay lifestyle. Another reason to check out this documentary is to catch the disturbing info on Jerry Falwell taking command of The PTL Network. Dislike Falwell and his Moral Majority? You will despise both after seeing this account of his betrayal. Much of the film is presented with snipets of old Praise The Lord Television footage, narration by Ru Paul, lots of funky hand puppets (an explanation for that comes early on in the film) and through the lips of Tammy Faye herself. While the documentary is sympathetic to Tammy Faye, she shows through her own words that she is still in denial about the misappropriation of funds husband Jim tolled. Tammy Faye is eccentric, strong, unethical and sweet, all rolled up into one. All in all, I went away with a soft spot for Tammy Faye, something I have never before had for a TV evangelist. Whether you come to a similar conclusion or not, I think you will find this an excellent piece of work.