Welcome to Screen Gems, our weekend dive into queer and queer-adjacent titles of the past that deserve a watch or a re-watch.With the new Tammy Faye Bakker biopic The Eyes of Tammy Faye about to debut this weekend at the Toronto Film Festival, what better time to revisit the original documentary that inspired the film, and the real-life rise and fall of the titular gay icon?The Eyes of Tammy Faye, directed by queer cinematic maestros Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, recounts the tumultuous career of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker.
Tammy Faye, along with then-husband Jim Bakker, rocketed to national stardom with their series of Christian-themed programming in the 1970s and 80s, starting with a low-rent puppet show for the kiddies.