In 2016, if you're still wearing fur and eating meat, you're not in the game anymore. At least, Pamela Anderson said so. We met the eternal object of desire at the debut of her collection of vegan shoes, created with Amélie Pichard.Who is Pamela Anderson? A red swimming suit? A Playboy cover? A PETA poster?Regarding Greta Garbo, Roland Barthes wrote in his book Mythologies that the darling of the silver screen illustrated the beginning of the fetishization of a face in cinema, transformed into an "admirable face-object," unalterable and somehow outside of reality.", unalterable Anderson is the totem of the 90s. Like Garbo, Anderson has a face that cannot age, as it doesn't really seem to exist. But Anderson is not a movie star. Not even a TV one. How many of us have watched "Baywatch"? What people recall are mostly freeze-frame shots, video loops stuck on "replay" mode in the collective imagination. Anderson is a face-object in GIF format. First GIF: She runs on the beach. Second: She gives us a torrid wink. Third: Her pixelated figure wiggles on a pre-YouPorn sex tape.
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GIFS never get old. But in general, we get bored of them. They're a format adapted to ultra-brief consumption; we take a quick look and switch to the next one. Except maybe for an Anderson GIF. If, during the 2000s, we somehow left her to her wanderings, lost between a "Scooby-Doo" remake and a stint on American "Dancing with the Stars," she has, over the past few years, started a fairly gracious and unexpected comeback.There was her appearance in the 2010 spring/summer campaign of Vivienne Westwood by Juergen Teller: totally offbeat, full of humor, shot in an empty lot in Miami between a trailer and a laundromat. Last September, she appeared in Out of Order magazine, with an almost unrecognizable minimalist sobriety, dressed by the brand Y/Project. And then, the most recent episode: her collaboration with Pichard on a vegan shoe line. Is this a general comeback of the 90s, or a real change of image from the most eminent representative of the uses and misuses of the brown lip pencil?On the occasion of the launch, amid great fanfare on January 21, the former "Baywatch" naiad was in Paris. But it was her coming to the French parliament in support of a bill against the force-feeding of gooses and ducks made headlines. (Special mention goes to the title of an article in of the French magazine Obs: "A Journalist Hits His Colleagues to See Pamela Anderson.") We met her to talk about the media, self-reinvention, and sexism in France.
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VICE: You have a gift for reinventing yourself and using the image the media created to benefit the causes you support. I am especially thinking of the PETA campaigns for which you posed naked in order to encourage people not to wear fur .
Pamela Anderson: Thank you for the compliment, but I wouldn't say I reinvented myself! In fact, people don't know me that well. They know I was on "Baywatch," they read the pseudo-dirty scandals published by the tabloids, and they followed my adventures with different rock stars, whereas I'm just a normal girl who grew up in a small American town and always cared about animals. It is true that I let myself get sucked into the infernal Hollywood machine for a while. But now, I am 48. As time goes by, I have learned new things, lived new experiences. It is people who start sending a different image of me, just because they notice that they don't know me that well, or only know certain aspects of me. Me, I just evolved with age, as everybody does.For an industry obsessed with youth, the collaboration with Amélie Pichard has had an extremely enthusiastic response, even before its launch. What's the reason for that?
It's because I've sincere and have accepted to age. I have never tried to run after youth, like people do in Hollywood. I have gotten out of the system because of this deadlock: We are all going to age, so we might as well accept it. I am not at all suffering from it, and I think we have entered a very positive new era, as we are finally realizing that what really matters is saving the planet. No matter how old you are, you must take part in it. Fashion can be a way to contribute.
Pamela Anderson: Thank you for the compliment, but I wouldn't say I reinvented myself! In fact, people don't know me that well. They know I was on "Baywatch," they read the pseudo-dirty scandals published by the tabloids, and they followed my adventures with different rock stars, whereas I'm just a normal girl who grew up in a small American town and always cared about animals. It is true that I let myself get sucked into the infernal Hollywood machine for a while. But now, I am 48. As time goes by, I have learned new things, lived new experiences. It is people who start sending a different image of me, just because they notice that they don't know me that well, or only know certain aspects of me. Me, I just evolved with age, as everybody does.For an industry obsessed with youth, the collaboration with Amélie Pichard has had an extremely enthusiastic response, even before its launch. What's the reason for that?
It's because I've sincere and have accepted to age. I have never tried to run after youth, like people do in Hollywood. I have gotten out of the system because of this deadlock: We are all going to age, so we might as well accept it. I am not at all suffering from it, and I think we have entered a very positive new era, as we are finally realizing that what really matters is saving the planet. No matter how old you are, you must take part in it. Fashion can be a way to contribute.
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It's only recently that your ecological commitments — whether with PETA, Greenpeace, or your own foundation, created in 2014 — have really started to catch the attention of the media.
I've been doing this work for 20 years. When I got my first role on "Baywatch," I wanted to take advantage of all the media excitement to draw attention to a cause dear to me. I tried to find out about the ecological problems particular to each country: deforestation, ocean contamination, battery farming.The TV show was on in more than 150 countries across the world, so I traveled a lot to take part in promotional events. In each country, I got in touch with the local branches of PETA, the association that defends animals. Speaking in front of French parliament this Tuesday [January 19] in order to support a bill against goose and duck force-feeding is something I have done in many other countries. I write letters to governments or go there directly. It's become a second nature for me.Creating a vegan shoe collection is just as important: giving an alternative to people so they can wear clothes that don't come from animals' suffering. Vegan fashion is not "cheap." It can be very luxurious. Our collection is produced entirely in France, and it is well known that everything made in France is synonymous with luxury.When you spoke in front of parliament, which consists mostly of men, it did not take long for the sexist reactions to start. Do some not take your message seriously?
I've been in activism for a very long time, and I've talked to many governments that have taken me very seriously. Except maybe in France! France has always had an insolent attitude toward me. At the time of "Baywatch," the French already enjoyed making fun of me. It will most certainly not prevent me from defending the matters I believe in. And it was Brigitte Bardot, who I really admire, who invited me several times to come to France, and asked me to speak in front of parliament. I also did it for her.Is there a message you would like to send to young people?
Make your own choices, based on compassion. Today there are so many options that there is always a way to make environmentally friendly choices. Compassion is sexy; it's trendy! In 2016, if you are still wearing fur and eating meat, it means you're not in the game anymore.This article was paid for by Copenhagen Fashion Summit and was created independently from VICE's editorial staff.
I've been doing this work for 20 years. When I got my first role on "Baywatch," I wanted to take advantage of all the media excitement to draw attention to a cause dear to me. I tried to find out about the ecological problems particular to each country: deforestation, ocean contamination, battery farming.The TV show was on in more than 150 countries across the world, so I traveled a lot to take part in promotional events. In each country, I got in touch with the local branches of PETA, the association that defends animals. Speaking in front of French parliament this Tuesday [January 19] in order to support a bill against goose and duck force-feeding is something I have done in many other countries. I write letters to governments or go there directly. It's become a second nature for me.Creating a vegan shoe collection is just as important: giving an alternative to people so they can wear clothes that don't come from animals' suffering. Vegan fashion is not "cheap." It can be very luxurious. Our collection is produced entirely in France, and it is well known that everything made in France is synonymous with luxury.When you spoke in front of parliament, which consists mostly of men, it did not take long for the sexist reactions to start. Do some not take your message seriously?
I've been in activism for a very long time, and I've talked to many governments that have taken me very seriously. Except maybe in France! France has always had an insolent attitude toward me. At the time of "Baywatch," the French already enjoyed making fun of me. It will most certainly not prevent me from defending the matters I believe in. And it was Brigitte Bardot, who I really admire, who invited me several times to come to France, and asked me to speak in front of parliament. I also did it for her.Is there a message you would like to send to young people?
Make your own choices, based on compassion. Today there are so many options that there is always a way to make environmentally friendly choices. Compassion is sexy; it's trendy! In 2016, if you are still wearing fur and eating meat, it means you're not in the game anymore.This article was paid for by Copenhagen Fashion Summit and was created independently from VICE's editorial staff.