The Eyes of Tammy Faye

This documentary made me sad...sad in a supportive way. I am neither a religious person nor a heathen so I am commenting on this from an entirely neutral position. Tammy is darling...naive, perhaps, I tend to think so. Her sincerity reeks from every eyelash...this gal has no holds barred. From puppets to the pulpit I truly believe she was the epitome of sincerity. Seems I keep using the word SINCERITY.

This documentary was made in 1999 and the small batting-eyelash-gal was alive. Before I previewed this great documentary I had seen her on TV reckoning with her cancer treatments....she even threw-up on camera...quite a feat for a vain woman.

Ya know, I bet if this gal were touting GOD on her own show whether with or without puppets, her message would have been delivered and received completely with, here's that word again, sincerity.

This "Eyes of Tammy Faye" bio-documentary (from 1999) actually turned out to be a whole lot better than I had initially thought it would be.

The one thing that impressed me the most about this presentation was that is producers/directors, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato did not shy away from clearly exposing all of the eye-opening "behind-the-scenes" fraudulence, corruption, and vicious back-stabbing that existed back then in the "holier-than-thou" realm of TV Evangelism.

Anyway - This documentary's star interviewee, Tammy Faye Messner died of cancer (in 2007) at the age of sixty-five.

In a year where its easier to form a ten worst list than a ten best list, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale landscape of formulaic, uninteresting, and generally BAD productions made by the Hollywood machine.

But, "Eyes" is more than simply the recent Biography of Tammy Faye on the big screen. No no no! "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" tells a solid story about a family's reversal of fortune, and one woman's really hard struggle through a life which is far from being complete. And the best (or worst, depending on who you are) part is, its a true story. There aren't any plots to "buy in to" or any storylines that make you go "huh?".

For the most part, the story is very first-person, although Drag Queen Ru Paul Charles helps us along in times when the story needs that next advance.

Its a documentary which reads more like a movie... and, as one IMDB reviewer has already said, you laugh, you cry, you NEED the waterproof mascara.

The filmmakers, whilst it appears at time are getting their kicks out of putting Tammy Faye on the big screen, are (for the most part) sincere in their telling of the tale. They treat Tammy Faye with dignity, but also acknowledge a certain "kitsch" there is to the whole PTL saga.

Whether you love her, hate her, or are totally uninterested in her, "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" will bring you closer to Tammy Faye, and provide golden nuggets of insight in to who she really is as a person. In the end, you leave feeling ashamed... she's no different than anyone else, trying to carve out their mark in the world. And if you feel that, if you can immerse yourself in split-seconds of guilt throughout the film, the filmmakers have accomplished their goal. She is no longer an enigma... she is human. She is, Tammy Faye.

10/10

I expected this movie to be either a sensational, supermarket-tabloid, scandal-spewing freak show; or a cruel, cynical put-down - like an extended Saturday Night Live skit with her as the guest host, an unwitting stooge playing herself for ridicule. It's neither.

I'm surprised and delighted to find that - far from being either sentimental or campy, or sensational, OR abusive - this movie treats Tammy Faye with the seriousness and respect she deserves. It approaches her as a person worth getting to know, and it proceeds to let us get to know her.

It's a fascinating movie about a fascinating, one-of-a-kind human being. Underneath the (tattooed-on) makeup and behind the notoriety, she was - all along - a sweet, gentle, loving, extravagantly generous woman, eager to share God's love and (even more important) her OWN love with the whole wide messed-up world.

She embraced gays - with AIDS – when AIDS was still new and terrifying, when all her "Christian" peers were preaching that we deserved what we got. She was never afraid of looking like a fool or of confronting her own and other people's flaws; and she never wallowed in resentment or self-pity - after her whole world imploded she got up and she got out and she DID.

I thank the producers of this movie for showing her exactly as she was. The Christians who despise gays are no more hypocritical and evil than the secular people who despise Tammy Faye because she's different.

She fits no stereotype, any more than I fit any stereotype of what a gay man should be. Even at the height of her success she was an outsider at heart, a misfit, an oddball. Just like me. But unlike me she was an open-hearted, inclusive, insanely compassionate and loving person. I admire her greatly, and I love her a lot.

First, I'm not religious and I always thought Jim and Tammy Faye were pathetic scam artists.

I knew, of course, about the scandals involving them and their ministry. What I did not know, and what this film chronicles, is how the Bakkers invented televangelism with not one but three different networks, each of which was stolen from them by other televangelists. Jerry Falwell comes across exactly as the kind of person I have always suspected him to be: a schemer, a traitor, and a con man.

Jim Bakker may not fare much better in the film's view (though Tammy still defends him). It is Tammy Faye herself who is the revelation, though. I did not know of her true compassion for groups that Christian ministries still vilify today (AIDS victims, gays, the poor, etc.).

I never expected to find myself actually sympathizing with, and even liking, the fun-loving, vulnerable Tammy Faye. This is not some propaganda film, but a warts and all profile by respected filmmakers. The narrator is famed drag queen RuPaul Charles, which underscores just how surprising this film is.

I'm not saying I'd like to hear Tammy Faye sing, but after watching this engaging film, I wouldn't mind living next door to her.