The Redemption of a Televangelist
A memorable scene in the new film The Eyes of Tammy Faye encapsulates the biopic’s modern perspective on its much-maligned subject.
A dashing and boyish TV preacher named Pat Robertson (played by Gabriel Olds) has thrown a swanky poolside soiree at his palatial Virginia mansion. The era is the early 1970s, and fundamentalist Christians are alarmed that progressive cultural movements—for civil rights, gender equality, and sexual liberation—are pushing America into so-called moral decline. Robertson has convened a who’s who of rising evangelical superstars, including the young televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker (Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain) and the Reverend Jerry Falwell (Vincent D’Onofrio), who would later become the veritable leader of the religious right.
The male leaders sit underneath the veranda while their wives have been consigned to a side table. Refusing to be relegated, Tammy Faye drags a chair over to the head table, passes her crying infant to Jim, and inserts herself into the men’s conversation. A tense discussion ensues between Tammy Faye and a paternalistic Falwell, who sardonically calls her a
