The Eyes of Tammy Faye

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.

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.

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.

This film opens with RuPaul Charles asking, `Whatever happened to Tammy Faye?'

Over the next hour and nineteen minutes you find out her past and present but the future is left a blank.

Almost the first words out of her mouth is her reciting some bad poetry – her own.

You also learn she buys her makeup at swap meets!

As she says, `Puppets started it all.' And the theme is carried out through the entire film with puppets introducing each segment.

She married Jim Bakker, appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day. This becomes eerily omniscient as this incredible documentary unfolds.

You will learn a lot about the life and times of Tammy Faye's existence in the `Electric Church' a term she uses herself to describe the televised evangelical preaching of her and her husband and how they were squeezed out of every project they started together; that April Fool's curse again.

I believe this film really tries to give a balanced perspective on her trials and tribulations – but you walk out of the theater with a certain amount of sympathy for all she has gone through and her ability to survive if not exactly flourish.

Her very ‘un-Christian' views about gay people show an amazing amount of personal integrity and strength. While it may seem that she is shallow and lives on the surface it becomes obvious that she has an inner core of faith and belief in what is right that runs deep through the center of her being.

It is obvious towards the end of the film she must have a great deal of personal magnetism that, in spite of her ever-tearful visage, must carry most strongly when you meet her in person.

The interviews with her multi-pierced son and the daughter who ran away from home when the scandals erupted are particularly poignant.

This documentary has Oscar nomination written all over it and it is well worth both your time and money to see it.

..and Tammy Faye through ours. Saw this tonight and it was so deliciously campy and downright funny ! TF is an accidental hoot most of the time as she takes herself so seriously and it is impossible for the audience to do so. I mean anyone who looks at the camera with 2 inches of industrial strength make-up on and says in all seriousness that she likes things real and natural is an unintentional standup comic. Did not like the gimmicky hand-puppets intro to each segment of the Jim and TF sorry saga. Liked how this gutsy, never say fail woman comes across, there's a naivete and sadness to her tackiness coupled with her real devotion to the lord. You just have to like her by movie's end.