The Eyes of Tammy Faye

Directed by Michael Showalter (The Big Sick), The Eyes of Tammy Faye is a dramatization of the larger-than-life televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. The trailer has a two-part structure, mirroring to some extent Tammy Faye’s life trajectory from initial success to more complicated times.

The first song used is Tammy Faye’s “Jesus Keeps Takin’ Me Higher & Higher”—however, in this case, it’s a faith-ful cover version (pardon the pun). This version has much higher fidelity as compared to the original, with Jessica Chastain rendering a convincing edition of Faye’s vocalizations. Indeed, taking on the cover songs is just one point of proof for just how seriously Chastain is taking the role. The track serves as a largely instrumental underpinning for the relatively raucous earlier years for Tammy Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker. Throughout the first minute, we see how they founded and gained notoriety for the PTL Club program (that’s “praise the lord”, for those wondering) in the 1970s to the ‘80s.

Things take a turn at exactly the minute mark, however, as the trailer turns to focus on the period around 1985 to 1992. “We’re not doing anything wrong, though,” Faye muses, rubbing her hand anxiously—a sound that’s given all the more attention with silence in the backdrop. The Guess Who’s “These Eyes” is the song of choice for this second part (perhaps a bit on the nose for a film with “eyes” in the title, but fair nonetheless). There’s a level of unapologetic fun that Tammy Faye clearly exhibited to the end—or, as Chastain noted, “she never really did anything halfway.”

The trailer gives a preview of a memorable interview Tammy Faye had with Steven Pieters, a gay Christian minister who had AIDS. It marked one of many moments wherein Tammy Faye would define herself in fairly stark contrast to her fundamentalist, Christian evangelical upbringing. It was for this and similar interviews that Tammy Faye became perhaps most noteworthy.

This isn’t the first biopic of Tammy Faye, either—a documentary film of the same name) came out in 2000, with narration by RuPaul Charles. What differs in this go-around is clearly the effort to dramatize and to some extent celebrate Tammy Faye’s idiosyncrasies, whether in makeup or singing. Moreover, there is clearly a newfound interest in revisiting her life’s work in historical context. Whatever one’s political views, she certainly challenged some preconceptions of what a televangelist is, can, or should be—perhaps especially in the 1980s.

This, then, might be what the musical and titular insistence on “these eyes” may be about. Understanding the appreciation for Tammy Faye may be as much about celebrating unique makeup and style as it is about perceptiveness and willingness to see outside one’s worldview, however strongly formed through upbringing.

— Curtis Perry