Warning: this article contains SPOILERS for Pam & Tommy episode 7.
Pam & Tommy is right about Penthouse winning the lawsuit filed by Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee in episode 7, "Destroyer of Worlds," but there's more revealed in why they won and what the show left out. Set in the mid-'90s around the tabloid fodder that was the infamous Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape scandal, Pam & Tommy takes a more empathetic approach to the unapologetic scrutiny the couple received. Despite the show's producers and creators stating their good intentions, Pamela Anderson's vocal disapproval of a show ironically about consent clouds over Pam & Tommy.
Pam & Tommy's irony runs deeper with its portrayal of the Penthouse lawsuit that went against Anderson's favor. As Pam & Tommy recreates Pamela Anderson's depositions, it depicts Anderson's traumatic ordeal in order to build her character arc in the show. While sympathizing for Pamela Anderson (Lily James) the character, the show still pays little regard to the wishes of Pamela Anderson the person by depicting the scandal and its accompanying lawsuit in the first place.
Nonetheless, Pam's episode 7 monologue about the lawsuit rulings opens conversations about the stigma surrounding sexualized women, particularly in the '90s. Penthouse's right to free speech regardless of Anderson's right to privacy and bodily autonomy helps affirm how her status as a sex symbol nullifies her consent to release revealing depictions of her. However, deeper conversations about female bodily autonomy notwithstanding, there's more to why the lawsuit favored Penthouse.
Pam & Tommy Fact Check: Is The Penthouse Lawsuit Win A True Story?
In March 1996, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sued Penthouse magazine for $10 million in damages and filed a restraining order against the magazine. The Penthouse lawsuit brought the sex tape scandal into further public awareness, as both the fictionalized and real Anderson feared. On the grounds that the sex tape had already entered public consciousness and was therefore newsworthy, the case's presiding Judge Stephen W. Wilson rejected both the civil suit and restraining order and allowed Penthouse to publish images from the sex tape. Substantiating the ruling were Anderson's existing nude photographs with Playboy and the Lees' openness in the media about their sex lives, relinquishing their right to privacy in the judge's eyes. Current California revenge porn laws consider the nonconsensual distribution of sexually explicit media to be a misdemeanor crime, but no such laws existed in the 1990s. Thus, Anderson and Lee had far less protected rights when they filed the lawsuit in 1996.
What Pam & Tommy Leaves Out About The Penthouse Lawsuit
Pam & Tommy notably omits Milton Ingley (Nick Offerman) and Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen) from the lawsuit. Pam & Tommy's Milton was in Amsterdam, which strengthens tensions when Rand struggles to get a hold of him. The show may have removed Milton and Rand from the lawsuit so as to better focus on their own storyline. However, this alteration to the truth becomes more noteworthy when considering that the charges pressed against Gauthier and Ingley in the real lawsuit were ruled in Anderson and Lee's favor. Unlike Penthouse, Gauthier and Ingley were ordered to cease profiting from the tape. According to the Amanda Chicago Lewis Rolling Stone article that Pam & Tommy is based on, Lee and Anderson also included Gauthier's fellow contractor Troy Tompkins and Tompkin's wife Dominique Sardell, both of whom were suspected to have helped Gauthier steal the safe. These creative liberties aside, the Pam & Tommy lawsuit plot clearly seeks to recognize the injustices fraught against the Lees, particularly Pamela Anderson.
The Pam & Tommy limited series finale releases Wednesday, March 9 on Hulu.