Tammy Faye Messner - 03/07/42 to 07/20/07
Tammy Faye Messner was a living caricature for many years. On Friday, the colorful woman with the trademark mascara tears succumbed to cancer. As I watched her final interview on Larry King, I found myself looking at her to see if her faith was sustaining her or if the fear of death had become overwhelming. I can’t say I came to any conclusion except to say that she remained Tammy Faye to the very end.
Say what you will about Tammy Faye Messner, but the world will be a little less colorful without her here. As a kid, I grew up when television evangelists were just beginning to emerge. On Sunday mornings as I was looking for something to watch on TV, I would often stop for a minute or two and watch Tammy Faye.
As I’ve thought about why, the one thing I remember was her remarkable ability to cry. No doubt crying can be manipulative, but somewhere in the back of my mind I always suspected she was just a soft hearted person who happened to find her way to notoriety.
In many ways, she reminded me of my great aunt Dorothy…from Kansas. Dorothy was also a very colorful person who always had a new hairdo, lots of makeup, and her signature painted on eyebrows. Many people who didn’t know Dorothy probably saw her like Tammy Faye…a strange animated character with a gift for gab.
Like Tammy Faye, she never let it trouble her that her appearance always drew second glances and judgmental whispers. Dorothy was just being herself and those who took the time to actually know her always found a heart of gold. She had a knack for connecting with people in a real way such that anyone who met her knew she saw your heart first and the rest was irrelevant.
I never met Tammy Faye and frankly I don’t know that much about her but my instincts tell me she was a lot like my aunt Dorothy. When the Bakker’s world fell apart, somehow Tammy Faye found that the gay community had a good heart and she never forgot it. Flawed as she may have been, I suspect she recognized a good heart because she also possessed one.
How ever one sets out to judge the worth of others, one would be hard pressed to find that many Dorothy’s and Tammy Faye’s…simple people who simply lived their lives as they knew how…people with an innate kindness who weren’t afraid to share their unedited thoughts and feelings without reservation. When I think about that, I’m certain the world would be a better place if we had a few more of them.
Recommended reading: What is Beauty?, by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, writing at The Moderate Voice.
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Daniel:
Tammy Faye was, most likely, a long way from having a total awareness of what went on in the PTL Club. She was a tragic character. Hubby Jim, otoh, fuck him, forever.
I can’t believe the comments like this that I have seen in the last couple of days.
Tammy Faye Bakker was a confidence artist- a willing and repeated criminal. She made millions preying on the most vulnerable and helpless among us.
Con men exist by being so plausible and seemingly likeable that people fall for their lies. After being caught red-handed in her thousands of criminal acts, she used this skill to convince people that she herself was an innocent victim. You fell for her lies, just like the people that she conned out of their money.
Grow up- this woman was nothing but a criminal.
Carl,
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion but is it possible that your “grow up” comment is more indicative of something you ought to consider? In my posting, I stated that I didn’t know Tammy Faye and I also surmised that she had many flaws. I don’t know the source of your certainty, but I suspect it is also little more than your own peripheral judgment.
Perhaps she was an absolute fraud but she could have also been something else. No doubt the fact that she was never charged in the scandal means something. I never cared for her husband (he didn’t seem sincere) nor did I like the fact that they were using faith to make money.
I think a number of gays found a kinship with her due to an understanding of what it is like to be judged based upon an identifying trait without an appreciation for the entire person. I look at it as being akin to giving someone the benefit of the doubt before drawing any final conclusions.
I do find the affinity somewhat comical (a strange bedfellows scenario?) but perhaps it suggests that we humans would be better served to look for our similarities than to always focus on our differences? Regardless, I think its worth considering that she may have been a sincere person.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Daniel
Daniel,
I am an amateur student of fringe religious movements, and have followed many of them since the days of Katherine Kuhlman, Rev. Carl McIntyre, A. A. Allen, the Moody Bible Institute and others in the sixties.
Virtually without exception, these organizations and persons, following in the footsteps of an earlier generation exemplified by the likes of Aimee Semple McPherson, were eventually revealed to be nothing but greedy frauds. Tammy Faye Bakker and her husband were but two among many, and no different than the rest.
Even Billy Graham was eventually revealed as a petty, antisemitic right winger. Falwell, Robertson, Dawson, Fred Phelps, Haggard….I could continue this list all day. And how many can you find who made it through their lives with their reputation for sincerity intact?
Maybe Gene Scott really believed what he said. If you listen at length to Christian radio, as I have, you may find a couple of preachers who seem sincere. But even there, as the years go by so many of them were revealed to be frauds.
The truth is that the overwhelming majority of these figures are nothing but confidence artists, and Jim and Tammy were clearly in that group.