The Time 'Baywatch' Got Lost Trying to Find a New Pamela Anderson

Baywatch, the movie, has a lot of problems. Problems like the director Seth Gordon trying to take the piss out of a show that never took itself all that seriously to begin with. Or problems like the screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, having more characters than they can juggle. Or how they seem utterly uninterested in the bevy of characters they do throw at us, to say nothing of how the film suffers from a wrong-headed “Surf Dracula” problem.

But the biggest problem was how the filmmakers went on a quixotic hunt for the next Pamela Anderson. For one, Pamela Anderson was a once-in-a-lifetime star. A generational sex-pot, Anderson was more infamous than famous, and in a way that the closest modern comparison would be Kim Kardashian. But in 2016, the culture was only just beginning to morph into the current anti-sex puritanical vapid hellscape that we have now. 

It didn't help that the producers had a shallow interpretation of what they thought the next Pamela Anderson would be. For them, Anderson was merely a “blonde bombshell". In other words, a blonde with big tits and little else. Big, being relative, as when she first exploded onto the screen, she was nowhere near her current bra-busting size.   
 
Even discounting the common overuse and misunderstanding of the word "big", Anderson was so much more. Pamela Anderson was sex-on-fire. For if bust size and hair color were all that made the package than Anna Nicole Smith would have been the bigger star instead of the often mocked, poor man’s version, B-side bimbo that she was often relegated to. (I don't use bimbo as a pejorative. Speaking for myself, I like my bimbos like Smith more than Anderson.) Still, I can’t deny that Anderson helped me through some long, lonely nights of my pubescent years. 

Anderson was more than merely a big-titted blonde. She was sex incarnate. Few women have ever oozed sex like Pamela Anderson. Every interview, every photo shoot, every project, was predicated on Pamela Anderon’s cheerful embrace of her status as “the ultimate fantasy”. Yet, despite this, she rarely crossed the line into objectification, instead practicing a kind of radical sex and body positive ethos that is still grappling to exist without being judged as anti-woman by people who have never intellectually engaged with what feminism really means in an era where gender is fluid.  

I mention all of this to illustrate that looking for a 2016 Pamela Anderson is more than quixotic, it’s damn near Nixonian. An act of obsessive madness, a foolhardy mission driven by an utter misunderstanding of what makes Anderson an enduring icon. For while they searched for the new Pamela Anderson, they neglected to realize they already had Alexandra Daddario right fucking there! 

Daddario is by no means a Pamela Anderson. But she is Alexandra Daddario, a star who has her own infamous pair of assets, sadly, by no means the same size. Daddario, much like Anderson, drips sex and finds a way to turn every interview and photoshoot into a reminder of how stunning she is. Anderson was an icon and to some degree, a star, but Daddario is something more; she’s an actor. 

Much like Brie Larson, Daddario has the mouth-watering tits and talent. To say nothing of a set of eyes so mesmerizing, breathtaking, and hypnotic that if we still made silent films, she would have a niche all her own. Daddario isn’t Pamela Anderson. But in 2016, Daddario was the closest thing the culture had come to producing something remotely similar. 
 
Seriously, no other actress had their first topless scene be so infamous, so galvanizing, as to create subreddits and viral social media accounts dedicated to nothing but these few breathtaking, heart-stopping seconds. The unveiling of Daddario’s Daddarios was a cultural touchstone. That the scene in question is actually a full-frontal nudity scene helps. But it's seeing those perfect, hefty knockers bounce into view that left an entire nation of all genders and sexualities transfixed.

Yet, the producers, blinded by a misguided one-to-one reimagining of the adaptation, ignored Daddario and instead picked the model Kelly Rohrbach as their new Pamela Anderson. On the surface, Rohrbach is perfect. She's a giggly, bubbly blonde with medium-sized tits. (As a lifelong melon felon, I refuse to imply Rohrbach's tits are anything close to "big".) Unfortunately, she’s not that good of a model. She has ZERO personality. Despite the countless misogynistic memes that try to tell us that massive hooters are more important than a personality, reality proves otherwise.  

Personality counts for a lot. In the end, the actual cup size doesn't matter if the "it" factor is absent. Any woman can have juicy melons. But it's the attitude, the woman herself, that makes the jugs really stand out. You have to have, I don't know what you'd call it, Big Tit Energy, I suppose? In other words, the breasts don't make the breasts; it's the woman who makes them luscious. (But having an ample bust certainly never hurts.)

It’s important to understand that boobs can’t save a movie. I wish to God they could. Oh, brother, do I wish they could. But the simple truth is they can't. I know this because there are such things as bad Russ Meyer films. Watch Andy Sidaris’s Guns and you’ll discover that, sadly, jugs alone, no matter how big or perfect, can make a movie watchable.  

Don’t get me wrong, tits don’t hurt! They never hurt. They can often make a movie BETTER. But they can never save a movie. If you wonder what the ratio of how bad a movie can be versus how much boob-related substance you can have before a movie becomes unwatchable, Sydney Sweeney’s Anyone But You is the current golden ratio. 

The script is shoddy, and the direction, when not concerned with framing Sydney Sweeney's spectacular rack, is hackneyed. But both the filmmakers and Sweeney are committed to both the bit and to flaunting those pristine mammaries at every opportunity. So, a decent two-and-a-half-star flick becomes a solid three, three-and-a-half. Cleavage is among the most sublime cinematic aesthetics, but if it's all you have and you don't know how to frame it, it's meaningless.

All that being said, Baywatch isn’t THAT bad. It’s watchable, especially if you have a drink or two, or happen to be nursing a bottle of DayQuill. (I’ve watched Baywatch while drinking both, and I don’t know if it helps; I do know it doesn’t hurt.) But much of what makes the movie drag is the unnecessary Rohrbach of it all. 

It’s impossible not to laugh when you see how the filmmakers are all in for Rohrbach and how little they care about Daddario. Rohrbach has an entire subplot involving the romancing of schlubby computer tech Ronnie (Jon Bass), while Daddario is often relegated to being a third or fifth wheel in every scene. The way Eric Steelberg’s camera lingers on Rohrbach, you’d think there were no other babes or beefcakes in this movie. 

The lack of any kind of coherent gaze in the movie is another issue with the film. Neither Steelberg nor Gordon ever really looks at these characters. There’s nothing to get excited by because no one is excited by anything they are putting onscreen.  
The real irony is that there are moments that make Baywatch close to its television predecessor. These moments, it will come as no surprise to anyone, involve Daddario.

Baywatch has a running gag about Rohrbach’s CJ being so gorgeous that everyone thinks she’s moving in slow motion. The gag requires consistency, but is rarely trotted out despite it being a great way to get some shots of the somewhat bouncy Rohrbach in slow-mo. 

Except when they repeat the gag a few scenes later, it works like gangbusters. Zac Efron’s Brodie sees Daddario’s Summer for the first time and witnesses her bounce by in slow motion. Except, this time, the slow motion is edge-of-your-seat effective. Daddario gives some major bounce and jiggle. While it’s by no means gratuitous like it was with Rohrbach, it is ten times hotter. Daddario isn’t even scantily clad; she’s wearing a wetsuit top, hardly anything revealing, and yet it, save for a scene at the end, is the sexist scene in the entire movie. 

Daddario isn’t just hot, she is stunning. Unlike Rohrbach, Daddario isn’t a model, which also means she understands in film that being sexy is more than just how you pose. There’s an interiority at play, as well as understanding how your body looks and moves on camera. Like modeling, there is also a relationship with the camera. But there's a difference between a movie camera and a regular camera, something that Daddario knows how to work and Rohrbach doesn't.
 
Plus, those eyes. Those “fuck-me raw” Peter O’Toole pale blue eyes. Many women are born with great knockers, but few also come with a set of eyes so transfixing and compelling that you feel yourself forgetting to breathe. Like Anderson, Daddario loves playing with her sex appeal, often embracing it and rarely, if ever, shying away from it, on and off the screen. Even more frustrating is how most of the best T&A from Daddario in Baywatch is minimal. Daddario, flashing a henchman, is criminally left on the cutting room floor. Granted, she’s wearing a bra, but Daddario's cleavage is the kind of cleavage Baywatch was made for.
 
It's astonishing how little she's even in this movie. You’d never know how small her part is if you went by the GIFs people made. The GIFs that everyone knows and loves from Baywatch aren’t of Rohrbach thrusting her tits into Ronnie’s face or even of her running in slow-mo. No, they’re of Daddario jumping up and down, of Daddario lifting her shirt, of Daddario, Daddario, Daddario, and Daddario. Even the marketing focused on Daddario. 

No one gave a wet fart about Rohrbach. Despite the way the studio tried to make her the new Pamela Anderson. She wasn’t Pamela Anderson; she was Kate Upton, devoid of personality and uncomfortable with the gaze of both the audience and the camera. 

Daddario, on the other hand, lived for it. Daddario, before Sydney Sweeney, understood how to use her physicality in a performance, comedic or otherwise. Make no mistake, Daddario can act; one has only to see We Have Always Lived in a Castle to understand how egregiously she’s been underutilized.  

People often say “she’s only famous for her tits” about an actress they don’t like. These people are morons. Someone only famous for their tits would be someone like Upton or Rohrbach. Much like Sweeney, Daddario is more than just a set of stellar gazongas. She has an ineffable quality, but more than that, a wry and cheerful personality.  
 
It’s not enough to merely be racked. If it were, then you’d have influencers leading multimillion-dollar movies. But you don’t. Because you need more. There has to be something else besides a pristine set of cans, something more, a hunger, a drive, a desire, which Anderson, Daddario, Sweeney, and Larson have in spades, but that Rohrbach and Upton lack. It's not the slow-motion that makes a scene hot, it's who's doing the slow-motion.

Sadly, getting rid of Rohrbach doesn’t free Baywatch from its narrative baggage. Gordon ignores his characters for the sake of a plot no one really cares about. There’s a hinted romance between Dwayne Johnson’s Mitch and Ilfenesh Hadera’s Stephanie that’s all but ignored. (Don’t even get me started on how they waste this leggy beauty.)  

Ironically, the end of Baywatch has the horniest moment because it's when Pamela Anderson makes a cameo. Yes, Gordon and Steelberg bring her on in slow motion, sporting cleavage so achingly beautiful it makes you weep with joy. In this instant, this brief appearance on-screen, Anderson has more raw sexuality in a slight jiggle than any stupid dick joke could ever muster. Pamela Anderson comes on the screen and shows Baywatch what sex appeal really is. 

Here lies the REAL problem with Baywatch. Gordon never embraces the sex appeal except in a tongue-in-cheek manner. It’s as if he’s terrified to admit that he finds anyone attractive, much less Daddario, Rohrbach, Efron, Ilfenesh, Johnson, or even Priyanka Chopra. Baywatch should be a fun, titillating, melodramatic comedy starring beautiful people as they struggle with easily overcomable obstacles. Baywatch is little more than a series of attempts to go viral rather than an actual movie.

What the filmmakers fail to grasp, however, is that if the movie itself were sexy, we would do more than make GIFs; we would watch the movie.
 
Do you know how Pamela Anderson’s CJ is introduced in the original Baywatch show? She’s silhouetted against the sunset, on a jetty, playing a saxophone. The television show, derided as being little more than “jiggle TV,” had more respect for its characters, both men and women, than the supposed enlightened modern film does. 

That’s because the showrunners of Baywatch were telling stories, often silly, but always fun. Stories that ranged from riffing on Phantom of the Opera to Cody's lifetime supply of A&W Cream Soda being stolen.

Gordon and Steelberg do more to objectify everyone from Johnson to Daddario simply by making them so paper-thin and giving the actors zero to work with while trying to capture their glistening flesh as they pose on the beach. There's an art to slow motion. Apparently, these schmucks didn't go to Michael Bay's school.

Baywatch is a neutered R-Rated comedy that plays at being raunchy and sexy but never rises above infantile. I’m not saying Daddario could have solved ALL the film's problems. But shrinking Daddario’s sexually potent presence to that of a step or two above a walk-on character? Didn't fucking help!  

Yet, even if they had swapped Daddario and Rohrbach, or trimmed down the cast, or fixed the myriad of problems with the script, they would still be stuck with the thing that sinks Baywatch altogether: the way Gordon uses Steelberg's camera to merely record the action. He doesn't use the camera to look and certainly not to gaze. Worse, the whole movie is lit in a polished, flat lighting that isn't flattering to anyone.

For a movie that depends so much on being horny-on-main, the most the filmmakers of Baywatch can do about sex is joke about it. I'm not arguing for the male gaze, so much as any kind of gaze. Some point of view, some inclination that someone was turned on or thought what they were doing was remotely fun or sexy. Instead, we get this childish, impotent film devoid of desire and energy.

Yes, they fucked up by sidelining Daddario. Who knows what she could have done if given the chance? But even if Daddario had been given a larger role, it would have still been directed by Seth Gordon, and that's the real problem.

Don't even get me started on how they wasted Yahya Abdul-Mateen II!

Images and clips courtesy of Paramount Pictures, HBO, and NBC