Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Bakker) was camp incarnate. With her wildly over-the-top makeup and garish animal-print ensembles, a penchant for singing Christian disco anthems despite her lack of voice training, and a sense of childlike wonder with which she preached her gospel, she made for compelling TV viewing.
Kind of a strange choice for a posthumous icon, I guess?
But I haven't followed.
She was the subject of a documentary titled The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2000), narrated by RuPaul,[8] and a follow-up film titled Tammy Faye: Death Defying (2004).
Despite her background in Christian fundamentalism, Messner became a gay icon after parting from PTL, appearing in Gay Pride marches with figures such as Lady Bunny and Bruce Vilanch. Unlike many American Christian fundamentalists she "had long refused to denounce homosexuals" and also expressed compassion toward, and urged support for Americans with HIV/AIDS when it was still a much feared and unknown disease.[10] In the 1980s she interviewed an AIDS patient on her program, "making an impassioned plea to Christians to love and accept their gay brethren."[25] She was benevolently referred to as "the ultimate drag queen,"[26] and said in her last interview with Larry King that, "When I went — when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that."[27]
I actually have nothing snarky to say about that, that part sounds a bit redemptive to me. That sounds like reciprocated compassion. And I was drunk during that decade. I could use some more compassion in my soul. God rest hers.
