Review of The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000) by Sv G — 15 Jun 2011

Ru Paul nicely narriates this documentary about Tammy Faye Baker that covers the period of her life while married to Jim Baker and the fall of PTL Christian Network and the courtroom drama and scandal that followed.

It also covers the years after that for her (up until 1998, she died in 2007) when she went through her first bout with cancer, a short-lived stint on network television with co-host Jim Bullock and her second marriage to Roe Messner who was also jailed for two years in events also related to the PTL scandal.

My opinion of her has not changed. If anything it's been more solidified. I don't see her as an innocent by-stander or victim as she would like to pose herself in any of the PTL scandal, if anything at all she got off easy in that regard.

She is strong, she is quirky and she is charismatic, but she was also deceitful and filled with greed and superficial in those things she wanted and pursued through the majority of her life. As phony as the glued on lashes (she called her trade-mark) tattooed on eyebrows, lip-liner and eyeliner as she vehemently defends during a photograph session we see in this film.

It was not until she was sick and dying did she realize how important her children and family were to her (as she points out herself). If anything from this documentary there are lessons to learn like that, and also to never-ever give money to tel-evangilists like Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, who will instead of feeding the poor and the suffering of the world (or even in their own country) build Disney like theme parks, and live in mansions on the elderlys social security or the gullibles last dime.

For the most part despite the slant to show her in a better light (that some if not many will still fall for) I think for many of us, this film just hammered home even more so just who she really was.