Pamela Anderson is the hero, not the victim, of Netflix documentary on her life

In a new documentary, the Pamela Anderson of today is shown driving a riding lawnmower while wearing a flowing white sundress and knee-high boots with chunky high heels.

The woman who was a defining sex symbol of the 1990s isn't your typical resident of Ladysmith, British Columbia, population 8,990. At 55, Anderson has returned to her tiny Canadian hometown for a quieter life, but she is far from forgotten.

Instead, she is experiencing a bit of a Pamassaince, if you will.

She has a book coming out Tuesday, "Love, Pamela," a memoir that already has made headlines for Variety's report of an excerpt that claims Tim Allen flashed her on the set of "Home Improvement." Allen denied the alleged incident, while Anderson, who played Lisa, the "Tool Time" girl on the hit sitcom, texted Variety that she "was sure he had no bad intentions."

Anderson also is the star and subject of "Pamela, A Love Story," a film that arrives Tuesday on Netflix. In it, she stresses that her life isn’t “a woe-is-me story." That in itself is a fairly remarkable accomplishment for someone who has endured being at the epicenter of an internationally notorious sex tape scandal.

The entertainment industry is strewn with examples of icons who’ve been exploited for their beauty. Just last week, Ana de Armas received an Oscar nomination for best actress for her role as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde,” a film that relentlessly portrays Monroe as an object of degradation, even though the real screen idol was so much more than that as an actress and a human being.

“Pamela, A Love Story” is the opposite of such tragic depictions. It was directed by Ryan White, who also helmed “Good Night Oppy,” the acclaimed 2022 film about a Mars Exploration Rover. But this is Anderson’s story to tell, and she makes it clear that she is nobody’s victim.

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Anderson is candid about her difficult early years, from her parents' volatile marriage to the trauma of being molested by a woman who was her longtime babysitter and later raped at age 12 by a 25-year-old man. Shy and ashamed of her body as a young adult, she says she overcame those negative feelings after a stint as a Labatt’s “beer girl” led to an invitation to pose nude for Playboy. Becoming a Playboy Playmate was empowering, according to Anderson, and eventually led to her big break as an actress on “Baywatch,” the show that turned slow-motion running into ratings gold.

Watching clips from that era of male TV hosts persistently asking Anderson about her breasts is as creepy as it sounds. So is hearing her vivid recollection of Sylvester Stallone offering her a condo and a Porsche if she would be his “No. 1 girl,” a proposition that prompted her to ask whether there was a No. 2. “That’s the best offer you’re going to get, honey. You’re in Hollywood now," Stallone supposedly replied. Ick.

Still, Anderson has fond memories of launching her career and becoming a star. But the heart of the documentary is her passionate marriage to rocker Tommy Lee, a founding member of metal band Motley Crue. They famously were wed on a beach in Cancun, Mexico, after spending only a few days together. Their union was a real love match and produced two sons, Brandon and Dylan (who are now grown and appear in the film with their mom). But a tabloid frenzy erupted when personal tapes were stolen from the couple’s mansion and condensed into a viral sex tape that was released without their knowledge or permission.

It’s truly awful to see members of the paparazzi surrounding Anderson, a new mom at the time, and screaming “Where is your baby?” when she and Lee go out to a nightclub in the midst of the scandal. (The baby, BTW, was at home with her mother.) And it’s painful to hear Anderson explain how the tape essentially took away her privacy and put her reputation on trial.

Anderson and Lee’s marriage collapsed after a domestic violence incident that resulted in him serving six months in prison and her filing for divorce. A TV interview clip shows Lee discussing the pressures he felt as the father of two small sons. “Tommy comes third now instead of first. I don’t know how to deal with that,” he said. After hearing a comment like that, you could forgive Anderson if she gave up entirely on men and marriage. Instead, she kept believing in romance and went on to marry and part ways with four more husbands.

Her months-long marriage to Kid Rock in 2006 gets very little time in the movie, although Anderson does say he was good with her sons. As she watches a tape of the period “when we moved to Detroit,” she and her sons seem both amazed and amused at such an unexpected plot twist as relocating to the Detroit suburbs. “How long were we there for?” asks Dylan. “Not long,” Anderson answers. “Yeah,” Dylan recalls, “we left pretty quick.”

So where is Anderson’s life at now? She remains close to her sons. She is an activist for animal rights who has used sex symbol status to support her cause, agreeing to be roasted on Comedy Central to raise money for PETA. Last year, she had to face a revival of old gossip when Hulu premiered a limited series about the sex tape scandal, “Pam & Tommy,” starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan.

“Never watched the tape. I’m not going to watch this,” she says adamantly about "Pam & Tommy."

Also in 2022, she took on her biggest professional challenge yet and defied her harshest critics by earning good reviews for her performance as Roxie in a brief revival of “Chicago” on Broadway.

Throughout everything, Anderson has been realistic about her celebrity and clear about the difference between her image and herself. “You could watch that show with the sound off, actually,” she jokes in "Pamela, A Love Story" about her glory days on “Baywatch.” No matter what you think about her choices in life, it is her achievement that the documentary absolutely requires turning up the sound, so you can hear all of the interesting, self-aware things that she has to say.

Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@freepress.com.

'Pamela, A Love Story'

Debuts Tuesday on Netflix

Rated TVMA; contains nudity

2 hours, 2 minutes

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Pamela Anderson says she's no victim in Netflix documentary