The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000)

Directors:

Fenton Bailey
Randy Barbato

Genre:

Documentary | Biography

Tagline:

She'll make a believer out of you

Plot:

A documentary look, mostly through the eyes of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner, at her rise and fall as a popular televangelist with husband Jim Bakker...

Plot Keywords:

Christianity | Televangelist | Religion | Independent Film

Awards:

3 wins & 5 nominations

Cast

RuPaul	...	Himself (Narrator) (voice)
Tammy Faye Bakker	...	Herself
Virginia Fairchild	...	Herself - aunt
Johnny Grover	...	Himself - brother
Jim Bakker	...	Himself
Lori Graham Bakker	...	Herself
Mel White	...	Himself
Tammy Sue Bakker-Chapman	...	Herself
Jamie Bakker	...	Himself
Roe Messner	...	Himself
Charles E. Shepard	...	Himself
Marvin Brooks	...	Himself - doctor (as Dr. Marvin Brooks)
James Albert	...	Himself
Pat Boone	...	Himself
Jim J. Bullock	...	Himself

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content.

Runtime:

79 min

Country:

UK | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:PG-13

Company:

Cinemax

Quotes:

Jim Bakker: With your donation of $500, I will send you this beautiful rice patty baby!

Movie Connections:

References "Cops" (1989)

"Puppets started it all."

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.