Tears of a Clown

On the whole, it's hard not to feel some sympathy for the woman: She was (and still is) naive, her husband cheated on her, and she got screwed over by her so-called friends. But Jim, in his brief interviews, doesn't seem like an easy dupe; it's hard to believe he was always on the level. And when the Reverend Mel White tries to defend Jim and Tammy's use of funds by saying they were living no more luxuriously than other televangelists, well, that's a bit like saying Ted Bundy murdered no more people than John Wayne Gacy and, therefore, Bundy has the moral high ground. And whatever happened to those moments during his trial when Jim claimed to be hallucinating giant animals attacking him? We're not shown those.

Ah, but regardless of whether you agree with directors Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey on everything, you can't not love a documentary that traces a life so far beyond parody that it's almost impossible to believe. And while the sock puppets that introduce each segment get tiresome after a while, they're perfectly in keeping with the spirit of things. Tammy Faye's legacy is one of those uniquely American pop-culture artifacts -- such as Twinkies or Howdy Doody -- that will continue to irritate some, amuse others, and simply baffle foreigners who wonder what all the fuss is about. This film is as good a way as any to re-live the phenomenon.