Taylor Schilling, who played real-life porn star Erica Taylor in Pam & Tommy, reflects on the scandal's impact on today's celebrity culture.
With the finale of Pam & Tommy hitting Hulu recently, cast member Taylor Schilling reminisced on her character and themes of the show. She played the role of Erica Boyer, a real-life porn star and estranged wife of Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen), the man who stole the infamous sex tape between Pamela Anderson (Lily James) and Tommy Lee (Sebastian Stan). Schilling discussed that her character's inclusion on the show helped further the conversation on celebrity culture, exploitation, and privacy in connection to the story of Pam and Tommy.
The eight-episode miniseries, based on a Rolling Stone article about the scandal, has become a hit for Hulu. Some of the biggest talking points are the performances of James and Sebastian and the extensive makeup work done on James which gave her an eerily identical resemblance to the real Pamela Anderson. The subplot between Rogen's Rand and his relationship with Schilling's Erica, while not nearly as discussed as much, deserves a chance for reflection as well.
When Schilling spoke to The A.V. Club about Erica, she explained that there was a "counterbalance" between her and Pamela Anderson, about how the latter was exploited in the scandal. Unlike Erica, who is a sex worker and porn star, Anderson was not in charge of her own narrative. Schilling also spoke on Pam & Tommy serving as a cautionary tale and its influence on celebrity culture. Read her comments, below:
"I think it’s interesting to see how this scandal, but it’s really a crime, has had a direct impact on the celeb culture we deal with today, it set a sort of weird precedent. Regardless of being in the public eye, the potential exists for all of us to be violated. Nothing is off-limits."
In the series, Rand has not divorced Erica due to lack of funds. Despite Erica initially being supportive of Rand's new "business venture", she becomes infuriated upon learning he was the one who stole and sold copies of the sex tape, further enhancing the importance of the topic of consent that Schilling found so fascinating about the show. Since Pam & Tommy is about a sex tape that went viral before being viral was a thing, and even with Anderson's disapproval of the series, this further demonstrates that counterbalance and how Erica sympathizes with Pamela in the story.
Even though Pamela Anderson refused involvement with the miniseries, Pam & Tommy did shed light on how the media portrays women in sex scandals and the scrutiny they get when compared to men in the same situations. Schilling knew this and felt drawn to the subjects covered, especially about the criminality and how celebrity culture is portrayed today. Since the internet and social media have made it even harder to be private in 2022 compared to the mid-90s, the era of the Lee/Anderson sex tape is an interesting but advisory one in terms of exploitation and consent.
Source: The A.V. Club
