Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
Hollywood is exploiting Pamela all over again
THE #MeToo movement is conspicuously meek in its support of Pamela Anderson. The movement professed itself to be a clarion call for all women. But the #MeTooers, who usually can be found protesting a tad too much, are not complaining nearly enough in the case of Baywatch babe, Pamela.
Perhaps Pamela, the pneumatic blonde and a perennial Playboy pinup, doesn’t quite fit their feminist mould. In case you’ve been wallowing on a desert island, Pamela,
through absolutely no fault of her own, has found herself literally front and centre of the entire world thanks to the release of the new Disney Plus/Hulu series, Pam & Tommy. The show is a retelling of the 1995 Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape scandal.
The eight-episode series stars Lily James and Sebastian Stan and centres on the brutal fallout from the stolen tape. While it made Mötley Crüe rocker Lee into a hero, for
Pamela the release was devastating. Given consent goes to the heart of Pam & Tommy, it is somewhat ironic that Pamela declined consent for it to be made and views the entire series as a ‘reviolation’.
But who cares what some big-boobed blonde has to say? Certainly not the director Craig Gillespie, who said in an interview with Radio Times, ‘I absolutely respect any personal decision that she makes on that, and understand where she’s coming from’.
He continued: ‘The thing that gave me comfort was I felt like we really had an opportunity to change the narrative of this story.’
Except he didn’t quite respect her decision at all. He simply appropriated her story to suit his narrative.
Pamela’s objection has elicited a modicum of sympathy and a trickle of tut-tuts on Twitter. But nothing like we have come to expect.
Does the mantra ‘my body, my choice’ not extend to Pamela Anderson? The relative silence screams victim blaming; that some cannot fathom defending a woman who readily stripped for payment and herself chose to make her body hot property.
Indeed at the time of the tape release, men’s magazine Penthouse – the first established publication to admit to having a copy – argued in court that because Anderson had posed nude several times and by virtue of the couple’s propensity to publicly discuss their sex life, they effectively forfeited their privacy rights. In short, Pamela’s sex life was deemed newsworthy.
And despite the passage of time, and despite the hypocritical #MeToo movement, the harsh reality is it is as newsworthy now as it was then. And Hollywood is a town where money always has, and always will, trump morality.
Best to take a stand against all violence
EMBATTLED football club Manchester United is mired in a nasty situation this week over rape allegations against one of is players.
Mason Greenwood has been suspended by United following his arrest and questioning by police. And the club issued a statement intended to placate an irate public.
‘Manchester United reiterates its strong condemnation of violence of any kind,’ the club said.
While a noble sentiment, their anti-violence stance is somewhat of an own goal given a bronze statue of George Best looms large outside the turnstiles at Old Trafford.
Belfast man Best was undoubtedly a world-class footballer. But his drunken bouts of wife-beating were also well documented. On one occasion he broke his ex-wife Alex’s arm while drunk.
We have seen footballers take the knee in support of the Black Lives Matter campaign and berate others
who dared to question if the sports field was an appropriate place to make political points.
But it speaks volumes that not one footballer took a stance against glorifying violence and that this homage to Best still remains on his proud pedestal outside Man
United’s grounds.
Oh deer! Hunter is sent to prison
THE eight-year jail sentence for a deer hunter who went on a shooting rampage in Donegal is poetic justice. Stephen Dowling, from Carlow, was in Glenties, Co. Donegal, to shoot down defenceless deer for fun but found his little trip was extended much to the delight of many – yours truly included. Dowling was celebrating a successful day shooting, with a few beers and a bag of cocaine. But deciding that he hadn’t had enough gun-toting craic, the 25-year-old went berserk firing bullets round the town. Oh deer!
Minnie is an icon without makeover
SO, Minnie Mouse, the rascal in a red polka-dot dress, has been given a makover by British fashion designer Stella McCartney.
Minnie’s iconic red and white dress has been replaced by a gaudy blue pantsuit.
Now, call me cynical, but Minnie’s new pantsuit is nothing but a cheesy marketing ploy by marketing geniuses at Brand Disney to garner headlines and appear relevant. Don’t they know that Minnie Mouse doesn’t need a makeover to be cool?
Powerful tools are what women desire
SIZE matters! Men don’t want to hear it and women really don’t like to say it. Men have mulled over the mystery of what women want for eternity. But what we desire is something sizeable and powerful.
I am of course talking about hair-dryers. I recently had occasion to stay in a fine five-star hotel complete with big bed, humongous television, fluffy robes, and all the frills and fancies one expects.
But I completely forgot about the minuscule hair-dryers that hotels today deem acceptable.
The hotel in question was designed by a man (I checked) so of course being man-made it’s all big and bombastic when it comes to tellies and tech but, alas, women’s needs are somewhat of an afterthought.
I felt rage only a woman experiencing beauty burnout can feel when I cast my eyes on the hairdryer. It would struggle to style my eyebrows, never mind my tresses. So listen up lads, and hoteliers, we’re not overly demanding or complicated – we just need our tools sizeable and powerful.