their other crimes, for me the Bakkersâ greatest sin was the part they played in kick-starting the modern trend for turning private moments into public performance. No less than Oprah, Tammy Faye was one of the great TV weepers. She wept with sorrow, she wept with joy, she wept with her mind on something else and her eyes restlessly roaming round the studio.
When she became addicted to prescription drugs, she lived the recovery in the open, for the gratification of her electronic parishioners. When the financial brouhaha broke, Jim and Tammy Faye filmed their last show sitting on the porch of their mansion. âAnd now,â said Jim, âbefore we leave our home, Tammy Faye will sing âThe Sun Will Shine Againâ.â And she did. She did a lot of singing. Next to the finger-puppet, song was Tammy Fayeâs medium.
The show became a kind of winking, nudging celebration of Tammy Fayeâs post-Jim life. A walking trademark by virtue of her Crayola-box make-up and mascara that make her eyes look like two fields of sooty asparagus spears, she rose to cult status when she remarried, then waved her second husband goodbye as he in turn was jailed for embezzlement.
To lose one husband to the fraudstersâ penitentiary is bad luck; to lose two is to become the butt of a nationâs jokes. To become the butt of a nationâs jokes is ultimately to find your way into their heart.
The documentary might have been a serious look at the American cash-for-redemption industry, or it might have been a serious examination of one womanâs relationship with sudden wealth and a weird kind of showbiz, but in the end it was neither of these things. The show was narrated by RuPaul, a famous drag queen famous mainly for being famous. RuPaul was a dead giveaway â the show was not about a ruined televangelistâs wife, it was about a Camp icon. We watched Tammy Faye at 60, having glamour portraits made and trying to pitch a puppet show to ponytailed young network executives. She was the very embodiment of the Camp female.
Exaggerated to the point of sexlessness, the Camp female is celebrated for being unaware precisely how she comes across to the world. Tammy Faye is so fabulously like a Bible-waving Dolly Parton drag act that you imagine she canât possibly not be doing that on purpose. But she isnât. Like Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe, she talks ironically about herself but canât actually see the irony. She is her eyelashes. The celebration of her Camp is the celebration of her inability to grasp precisely why it is that life is always slightly beyond her control.
The problem with Camp is that, by definition, it illuminates nothing beyond itself. Showbiz glamour is skin-deep, but Camp doesnât even get as deep as the skin. It is as deep as the last layer of cosmetics. The documentary was contemporary irony at its most empty. It posed knowingly, but it had nothing to say. Tammy Faye wasnât a woman, she was just a cultural reference. Not even a televangelistâs wife deserves that.
Survivor: Africa
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 9 DECEMBER 2001
A FRICA IS A big place. How big is Africa? Oh, itâs very big. It is bigger than, say, Milwaukee. It is bigger than disco ever was. It is bigger than you and it is bigger than me. It is bigger than both of us put together. People who say foolish things like âItâs a small worldâ need only spend a day with a WeedEater, trying to mow Africa, to realise precisely how foolish a thing that is to say.
I think we can agree that Africa is a big place. Still, as big as it is, 10 minutes of watching Survivor: Africa (SABC3, Tuesdays, 7pm) is enough to suggest that it is not big enough.
Survivor: Africa does what the combined tourist authorities of the African continent cannot do at the moment: it brings a group of Americans to a place in Africa that is not Cape Town. Specifically, it brings them to an especially arid stretch of savannah
When she became addicted to prescription drugs, she lived the recovery in the open, for the gratification of her electronic parishioners. When the financial brouhaha broke, Jim and Tammy Faye filmed their last show sitting on the porch of their mansion. âAnd now,â said Jim, âbefore we leave our home, Tammy Faye will sing âThe Sun Will Shine Againâ.â And she did. She did a lot of singing. Next to the finger-puppet, song was Tammy Fayeâs medium.
The show became a kind of winking, nudging celebration of Tammy Fayeâs post-Jim life. A walking trademark by virtue of her Crayola-box make-up and mascara that make her eyes look like two fields of sooty asparagus spears, she rose to cult status when she remarried, then waved her second husband goodbye as he in turn was jailed for embezzlement.
To lose one husband to the fraudstersâ penitentiary is bad luck; to lose two is to become the butt of a nationâs jokes. To become the butt of a nationâs jokes is ultimately to find your way into their heart.
The documentary might have been a serious look at the American cash-for-redemption industry, or it might have been a serious examination of one womanâs relationship with sudden wealth and a weird kind of showbiz, but in the end it was neither of these things. The show was narrated by RuPaul, a famous drag queen famous mainly for being famous. RuPaul was a dead giveaway â the show was not about a ruined televangelistâs wife, it was about a Camp icon. We watched Tammy Faye at 60, having glamour portraits made and trying to pitch a puppet show to ponytailed young network executives. She was the very embodiment of the Camp female.
Exaggerated to the point of sexlessness, the Camp female is celebrated for being unaware precisely how she comes across to the world. Tammy Faye is so fabulously like a Bible-waving Dolly Parton drag act that you imagine she canât possibly not be doing that on purpose. But she isnât. Like Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe, she talks ironically about herself but canât actually see the irony. She is her eyelashes. The celebration of her Camp is the celebration of her inability to grasp precisely why it is that life is always slightly beyond her control.
The problem with Camp is that, by definition, it illuminates nothing beyond itself. Showbiz glamour is skin-deep, but Camp doesnât even get as deep as the skin. It is as deep as the last layer of cosmetics. The documentary was contemporary irony at its most empty. It posed knowingly, but it had nothing to say. Tammy Faye wasnât a woman, she was just a cultural reference. Not even a televangelistâs wife deserves that.
Survivor: Africa
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 9 DECEMBER 2001
A FRICA IS A big place. How big is Africa? Oh, itâs very big. It is bigger than, say, Milwaukee. It is bigger than disco ever was. It is bigger than you and it is bigger than me. It is bigger than both of us put together. People who say foolish things like âItâs a small worldâ need only spend a day with a WeedEater, trying to mow Africa, to realise precisely how foolish a thing that is to say.
I think we can agree that Africa is a big place. Still, as big as it is, 10 minutes of watching Survivor: Africa (SABC3, Tuesdays, 7pm) is enough to suggest that it is not big enough.
Survivor: Africa does what the combined tourist authorities of the African continent cannot do at the moment: it brings a group of Americans to a place in Africa that is not Cape Town. Specifically, it brings them to an especially arid stretch of savannah
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