Author: Jane

Deep Culture Dive

Today was a deep culture dive. In the morning the “Soul of a Nation” exhibit of African American artists at the Broad Museum. Moving, powerful, beautifully curated. Tonight at the Hollywood Bowl, Gustavo Dudamel conducted the LA Philharmonic: first Dvorak’s cello concerto in B Minor with a genius young cellist, Pablo Fernandez. Then Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet with Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project performing on stage, back stage, in the parking lot and across the aisles. It was fresh, daring choreography by Millepied who, in case you don’t know and among other major things about him, was the choreographer on the film “Black Swan” where he met his wife, Natalie Portman. An inspiring evening where I shared a box with my pal Brie Larson.

FAME

I just got home from a short speaking tour. 4 events. I realized that’s about my limit because it requires me to be awake, rested and present. When Dona (a long-time blog follower) told me her daughter thought I was very “present” at the event in Madison it made me truly happy. Present is what to strive for. It sort of stunned me that 4 events was my new limit. I remember in the 70s and 80s I would go out for 3 months at a time and give speeches all day. On one of those nationwide tours I was pregnant and on the next I was nursing…my son Troy. But I was only in my 40s then. I forgive myself for not being up to the same routine and glad that there was a time when I actually did that. Here’s something I noticed during those 4 recent events that bothers me: People are much more excited to see me these days; they pay more attention; they think I’m really cool. But here’s the thing: This has happened because of “Grace & Frankie.” I’m in a hit series so I’m more famous, more current, taken more seriously. But guess what? I have done nothing special to deserve this added attention so it makes me feel a wee uncomfortable. Before “Grace & Frankie” I was saying the same things, I had gathered just as much wisdom, had just as much to offer the audience. I’m no smarter now than pre-Netflix. I suppose there’s nothing to be done about this. Fame is what it is. It’s just a shame that so much emphasis is put on it. And I want to simply say to my blog community not to put too much stock in fame. There are people smarter and wiser who aren’t famous. Don’t give too much of yourselves over to famous people. Distance and skepticism is healthy when it comes to fame. That said, I had a really good time, learned quite a bit from the audiences questions about what was on their minds, and got to chat–albeit briefly–with folks backstage where people told me moving and interesting things. For instance, there was the young Pakistani man who whispered in my ear that the chapter in my memoir called “Leaving My Father’s House” had given him the courage to leave his own father’s house. It was clear from the way he said it that this was life-saving. I also get a close sense of our country on these tours– the flyover parts. When I was little, I spent a lot of time in Omaha, Neb. cause that’s where my father’s family came from and my brother and I would visit them and some cousins. That’s where I learned what a sock hop in someone’s basement with a victrola was like and what it was like to cruise down main street with the top down and go to a drive-in for milk shakes. I love those old brick towns and how they end abruptly and then the fields and woods. Still true in many places. It disturbs me though how the downtowns of places like St Paul, Minn and Kansas City, Mo seemed to be food deserts. Enough! I’m still jet lagged. P.S. I filmed the audiences at my events and I’d put that here but they didn’t come out well enough.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY

I’m glad I don’t live in DC where’d I’d have to hear the rumbling of tanks down the hot Washington pavement and fighter planes overhead and narcissistic ramblings from the Lincoln Memorial. Imagine what Lincoln would think! What I mind most about what the president is doing is that our day of national independence is being politicized and weaponized. 4th of July isn’t about weapons and war. Most of us, including many folks who voted for D.T. don’t want any more war. We’re right. In today’s world, war is truly not the answer. That said, I hope that wherever you are, you have enough to eat, have loving family and/or friends, a roof over your heads and that you take a moment to be grateful for the day this country was no longer a colony but free and independent to pursue it’s dream of Democracy and freedom. We should also ask ourselves if we are doing all we can to make that dream a reality today because we aren’t there yet. But we can be. We must be. The stakes are too high now. Here’s what I believe is the best way forward: Regardless of where we come from and what our color is or how we worship, every family wants the best for themselves and their children. But today, certain politicians and their greedy lobbyists are putting all our families at risk. They rig the rules to enrich themselves and avoid paying their fair share of taxes, while they defund our schools and threaten seniors with cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Then they turn around and point the finger for our hard times at people of color and new immigrants . . . even tearing families apart and losing children. When we reject their scapegoating and come together across racial differences we can make this a nation we’re proud to leave all of our children . . . Whether we are Democrat or Republican, white, black or brown from down the street or across the globe. We need to recognize our linked fate across race and class in order to sweep away the politicians’ dog-whistling on behalf of rule and for the rich. The best response to ‘divide and conquer’ is ‘unite and build’. I think I’ll make a bumper sticker of that!

MORE THINGS—ALL SPECIAL TO ME

My last blog had #1 Why I haven’t been blogging and #2 was about laughter. This blog starts with #3: ACTIVISM. It’s been awhile since I wrote about what I’m focusing on in these rough times. But in addition to what’s below, I am a board member of the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential which I founded 24 years ago. It is a state-wide non-profit which focuses on adolescent reproductive health, comprehensive sexuality education, teen pregnancy prevention and health and fitness. I am very proud of the work we do in Georgia and I continue to be involved though from afar. Our big annual fundraiser this year will be Nov 14th in Atlanta and will feature Sheryl Crow performing and Sara Blakely, Founder of SPANX, interviewing me. Fun!!! I am also co-founder with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan of The Women’s Media Center whose mission is to amplify women’s voices in the media. I encourage you to go onto our remarkable website to learn more. 
Because of the times we are in, I’m spending more time on the ground with these organizations: 3. My Activism. I’m on the board of the Working America Education Fund board. WA is the biggest canvassing operation organizing in working class communities year-round since 2003 when it was founded by Karen Nussbaum. FYI, back in the ‘70s, Karen was the founder of 9to5: The National Association of Women Office Workers who inspired me to make the film “9 to 5.” The fact that WA is ‘year-round’ is key. It’s one reason why, according to independent analysts, Working America is 2 to 3 times more effective than the standard canvass in winning votes. Their trained canvassers don’t just show up during the election cycle and push a particular candidate. They become ‘trusted messengers.’ The people they talk to become WA members and get information they don’t get from Fox News, which is their primary source of information otherwise. Membership makes a difference.  In 2018, 8% of Trump voters switched and voted for Democrats.  But 38% of Working America members who voted for Trump voted for Democrats. Working America will be focusing on 10 states.  Kentucky and Virginia are bell-weather 2019 elections — and campaigning in Kentucky allows us to hold Mitch McConnell accountable and challenge his re-election in 2020.  Another 8 states are presidential battlegrounds, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. This year, after Grace & Frankie’s 6th season is done shooting and I’ve recovered from my 2nd knee replacement surgery in July, I will be canvassing with Working America. Here I am with a group of ROC canvassers in front of the Michigan capital in Lansing, MI, last November, fighting for One Fair Wage. I’m also on the board of ROC Action (Restaurant Opportunities Centers Action) which is fighting for One Fair Wage so that all tipped workers (the majority of whom are women) earn at least the minimum wage PLUS their tips. Right now, due to lobbying by the restaurant industry—ironically the NRA, the National Restaurant Assoc–the federally mandated salary for restaurant workers has been frozen at $2.13 for 28 years!!!!! which means that besides often having to work multiple jobs just to support themselves and their families, the nation’s 13 million plus restaurant workers have to put up with patrons who may grope them, pinch them, insult them because they are TOTALLY dependent on the tips for their survival. In the 7 states (CA, WA, OR, NEV, MINN, WISC and Alaska) that do not have a two-tiered wage, sexual harassment and poverty have been cut by 50%! And in those states the restaurant business is thriving, something the NRA doesn’t want you to know. We spend more time worrying if the chicken we ordered is organic than about the human being who is serving us. Big chains like Applelbee’s, Dennys and The Olive Garden are among the worst offenders. The One Fair Wage campaign is moving in Congress and in New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Illinois; if you live in one of those states write your state representative, and if you don’t, please write your federal representative and demand they support the effort.   Then there’s Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehab and re-entry program on the planet. It was founded 30 years ago by Father Greg Boyle and some 8000 formerly incarcerated women and men come through their doors annually seeking to enroll in one or more of their services which include mental health, legal services, anger management, tattoo removal and, most importantly, to receive unconditional love. For those who are ready to become trainees in their 18-month program, there are jobs with benefits at the renown Homeboy Bakery, Homegirl Café, Homeboy Recycling, etc. Anyone who knows Homeboy Industries comes away knowing viscerally what could happen if we invested in people, rather than incarcerate our way out of things. Lily Tomlin and I co-hosted Homeboy Industries large annual fundraiser, Lo Maximo, this year. It was wildly successful and very moving. So as to get a true sense of the Homeboy vibe, Lily and I worked for a while in their bakery being mentored in the making of croissants by 2 former rival gang members. In the past, these guys would just as soon have shot each other. Now they’re baking bread side-by-side. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda at the Homeboy Bakery I am on the board of Homeboy Industries, the largest reentry and rehabilitation program for formally incarcerated men and women in the world. You can learn more about Homeboy Industries here: https://homeboyindustries.org/donate/donate-online/Lily Tomlin and I recently worked in their famous Homeboy Bakery where 2 former gang members taught us to make croissants.Here’s the video of our bakery experience: Posted by Jane Fonda on Wednesday, April 24, 2019 Here is the video that was made of our bakery experience. #4. Special Things Over the Last Few Months: In my last blog you saw a photo of the V-Day board which was under the subject of laughter—because there’s always so much of that when we’re all together. Above is the same group holding Eve’s new book, “The Apology”. Let me quote the Amazon review: “For anyone delving into this slim but profoundly powerful book, fair warning that it could be triggering. Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) was sexually and physically abused by her father from the ages of 5-10. When he died, he hadn’t taken any accountability for the horrors he visited upon his daughter and the impact it had on her life. The Apology is written by Ensler in the form of a letter from her father to her, outlining his crimes and asking forgiveness–a brutal purging that provides a pathway to Ensler’s healing (and hopefully that of other survivors). With HBO’s Leaving Neverland, the scourge of sexual abuse is very much at the forefront of the cultural conversation right now. The  Apology, out in May, promises to be a potent and extraordinarily compassionate addition to it. “ — Erin Kodicek, Amazon It’s hard for me to imagine what it took for Eve to drill down into her deepest, darkest recesses and channel her father in the way she did. She says, in the end, it was a true catharsis. What it revealed to me is what it would look like for a perpetrator to actually do the self-work that would make a true apology possible. Humility is an essential ingredient because humility softens the dark, hard place which encases entitlement and ego. It softens the soul. You can tell when a soul is softened enough for a true apology to be made. So, let’s always be prepared to forgive but let’s also pay close attention to whether the one asking forgiveness has done the work. Another special thing for me has been the film, “Capernaum” (Chaos). I’ve seen it 4 times which is a first. It was my favorite film this year. It’s a Lebanese movie written and directed by Nadine Labaki which won the Grand Jury Prize last year at the Cannes Film Festival. It lacked the budget to do a real PR campaign which is a shame because everyone I have urged to see it says it should have won an Oscar. You can see it on Netflix. I won’t try to tell you the story because I can’t do it justice because there are so many layers to what this film is saying. Also, on Netflix is the gem of a series, “Our Planet” narrated by the one and only David Attenborough. I see every single nature film I can, and this series has images that are astounding and never before seen. It also makes the case for the interconnectedness of things better than it’s ever been made. I wish our president would watch it. And just to end on a light note, here are some photos of me at a recent L’Oréal shoot basking in a bathtub filled with peonies and rose petals with Helen Mirren teasing me, my team glamming me and Tulea looking on. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power & Potential: https://www.gcapp.org/ The Women’s Media Center: http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ Working America Education Fund: https://www.workingamerica.org/ Restaurant Opportunities Centers Action: https://rocunited.org/resources/for-workers/ One Fair Wage Campaign: http://onefairwage.com/ Homeboy Industries: https://homeboyindustries.org/ V-Day: https://www.vday.org The Apology by Eve Ensler (book): http://smarturl.it/the-apology Capernaum (film): https://sonyclassics.com/capernaum/ Our Planet (Netflix): https://www.netflix.com/title/80049832

A COUPLE OF THINGS

1. Blogging. I feel really badly that I haven’t blogged. Why haven’t I? Well, so many are suffering all over the world including here in this country; climate is wreaking havoc. My heart breaks for the folks in SD, Neb, Kansas, CO, Minn, WY . . . and so soon after the last flood crisis. I know farmers there, friends there. But even if I didn’t. They are all part of us, the human family. Then the families being separated at our border, dying, raped, alone. I could go on. I’m saying this because I can’t bring myself to write about what I’m doing day-to-day when all this is happening. I am so blessed, so privileged. I can’t stand the Instagram shots people exchange about what? —sh—. Emptiness. We are facing a crisis, people. This isn’t a dress rehearsal or fake news. All hands on deck! Dark, selfish forces are working to bring us down. The 1% will go down as well but just a little later. So let’s us all wake up and burst out of our bubbles and start caring about each other no matter our race, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion. No kidding. The future is at stake. And that means caring with our hearts and our actions: making sure that state and federal policies support and protect EVERYONE including the planet. 2. Laughter. There’s always the healing power of laughter and I am so lucky to have it around me so much of the time. No matter what, we have to maintain our sense of humor and keep laughing. Here’s something I bet you didn’t know: Fake laughing or even fake smiling has a real impact on health and well-being because, by changing the muscles in your face, you’re changing the pattern of information going from those muscles to your brain and new neural pathways are developed. Fake it till you make it! We’re on the 8th episode of the 6th season of “Grace & Frankie” and I swear, It’s the funniest season yet. Our hours are long but we all get along so well . . . the actors, the writers, directors, crew members. And it’s a diverse group. Went to work yesterday at 5:30 and came home at midnight. Can’t find the right emoji for that. I’ve also had some raucously funny gatherings at my house on days/nights off. Here’s an all-girls party which ended up on my vibrating bed. Tulea doesn’t know what to make of it. I should have taken a picture of the day Chelsea Handler, Connie Britton and Mary McCormack came to visit me after my hip replacement surgery last November but I was too high on pain meds. Chelsea gave me a gold necklace with MUELLER on it. I’m reading her latest book, “Life Will Be the Death of Me” and so I now realize it wasn’t so much about his investigation –well, maybe a little—it’s more that she thinks Robert Mueller is the hottest man on earth. And since this section is about laughter, I can tell you that I have never in my life laughed out loud at a book as much as I am with Chelsea’s but, at the same time, her raw honesty and depth is blowing me away. Revelatory and hilarious is a rare combo indeed. A MUST read. Another gathering at my house that was laughter-filled was the board meeting of V-Day: Until The Violence Stops. Created by Eve Ensler when her iconic play “The Vagina Monologues” began to be performed globally raising well over $100 million for local efforts around the world to stop violence against women and girls. And, speaking of laughter, here’s a picture of us pals from “Book Club.” It makes me so happy that we have become real friends and get together whenever the 4 of us are in town. I’m going to post another blog within days, but this is a start.

END OF YEAR BLOG

It’s been a long year and it’s gone by in a flash…If you feel what I mean. Endless yet fleeting. Is it just me? I don’t think so. I am at home with my 2 grandchildren, one 18 and studying to be an architect. One 15 and still exploring. Both extraordinary people: Smart, curious, kind. Totally different in personality. I got my pal Jonathan Hanousek to cut my grandson’s hair. Almost fainted when I saw how handsome he is now that I can see his face. He wanted to, I didn’t force. We will spend a quiet, meditative evening. I like rituals to mark the passing of things. I write what I want to rid my life of on a piece of paper, fold up the paper, put it in the fire and watch it go up in smoke…gone. Done. Then I write down something I want to achieve in the new year, fold the paper and watch it go up in smoke…up into the ether, the realm of wishes. I will be with loved ones. It’s the best way to usher in the new. No parties. No pressure to have a scene. Ir rarely works out. It warms my heart that so many of you have responded to my HBO documentary, “Jane Fonda In 5 Acts.” When women tell their truth it is universal and it is revolutionary. We’re not supposed to tell our truths. I am trying to figure out why I rarely blog any more. When I started, 10 years ago at age 71, I blogged every day. But my life was simpler then. I was in a Broadway play which absorbed every nook and cranny of my psyche and I blogged about what it was like to go back to Broadway after 40+ years. My life feels more complicated now. Heck, the world is more complicated. I cannot bare to write about trivia when we are facing an existential crisis and I cannot find words to describe or clarify the crisis because everyone all around are trying to do that and most are doing pretty well. The best thing is not to read people’s blogs or instagrams or tweets but to read good books and magazines and articles that help us understand what’s at stake…or things that give us hope and inspire us to be our best selves. If I can do that just a little I will have done my part. I feel a new book brewing. Each chapter will address something different that I want to write about. Not all serious. Anyway, short though this is, I wanted to touch base with my online friends and wish you all a New Year that moves you forward and upward as a human being…against all odds…you can do it. 💕💕

Election 2018

Hello All, I just read my “Blog Comments.” I so love hearing from y’all. And thanks so much to many of you for letting me know you were touched by my HBO doc. Okay, so it’s over–for now. I’m talking about the elections. Thanks to all of you who voted and went the extra mile which created an historic turn out. We did pretty good and I am very grateful that the Dems took the House, so many and diverse women elected and many governorships, many great state-wide propositions. Most of the candidates and issues I put my time, energy and money into won, so that feels good. The 2nd to last weekend before elections I brought Patrisse Cullors (co-founder of Black Lives Matter) and Taraji P. Henson (“Cookie” in EMPIRE etc) to travel Michigan with me with the goal to get out the Black vote as well as the “unlikely” voters and it appears our work paid off. Patrisse and Taraji were rock stars. Folks were Soooo excited that they were there. An unprecedented turnout for midterms in Michigan. So we should feel good, and for those who follow me who voted for Trump (and I hope some do)!, you should feel good too because many things that won on Tuesday will help working people across the board, expand health care, including covering medical pre-conditions and, fingers and toes crossed, the Democratic House will fight for an infrastructure bill that will put LOTS of people to work!!! All that said, it was very clear that the road ahead will not be easy so please, spend the next 2 years educating yourselves on the issues that are of concern to you; try to get outside whatever bubble you’re in; if you only watch FOX, check out CNN and/or MSNBC time to time and vice versa. It’s important to know what people who don’t agree with you are thinking and saying. And then double check about which is correct. Facts are facts. And please, let’s all make a real effort to be kind to each other. When you go out to eat to a restaurant with servers, don’t just worry about whether your chicken is organic, look your servers in the eyes, treat them like the hard workers (and under paid) that they are and the same goes for every working person you cross paths with as well as the homeless. Take time to look a homeless person in the eyes and smile. Just being acknowledged as a person makes a huge difference. Don’t engage in road rage. Try to breathe deeply, relax and just let it go. You’ll live long and everyone’s stress will go down. One more thing (well, actually I could go on and on but I have to pack): If you feel depressed, anxious, hostile, out-of-control sometimes or all the time, please seek help. Such a large segment of our population suffer from depression and other mental health issues and don’t ask for help. But I know from deep personal experience that these things– as well as all addictions– are NOT reflections on your worth as a person. They don’t mean you are a bad person. There are places to go for help and it means you are strong and brave if you ask for help. Thanks for listening.

The Wall Street Journal: Encountering Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda talks about her life in this colorfully detailed biography. By Dorothy Rabinowitz ‘I grew up in the shadow of a national monument,” the star of the extraordinary HBO documentary “Jane Fonda in Five Acts” announces early on. Her reference is of course to her father, Henry Fonda, who portrayed heroes representative of all that was brave and principled in films like “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Ox-Bow Incident” and “12 Angry Men.” These movies, with their social-justice themes, spoke for her father’s values, she says—though he never could have verbalized them himself. It’s a high tribute. One also meticulously phrased in ways that suggest something not quite right about this talented and principled parent—it doesn’t help that he’s called a national monument. It’s an apt introduction to this story of an emotionally impoverished family life as the young Jane saw it and lived it—an experience she reports on in searing detail. She’s the historian and sole narrator of this saga (save for walk-ons by Robert Redford; Lily Tomlin; her closest friend, producer Paula Weinstein; and a few others), and it’s that fact—the unfailing strength of that presence—that‘s the making of this film. The documentary (directed and produced by Susan Lacy)—which takes us through Ms. Fonda’s childhood, an acting career, three marriages, a substantial stint as a political radical that won her unforgettable billing as Hanoi Jane, and wildly successful best-sellerdom (“Jane Fonda’s Workout Book”), all the way to a glamorous age 80—runs to two hours and 15 minutes. It feels longer, though not for the usual reason films feel long, i.e. tiresomeness. It does so here because the candor and the complexity, the unexpected raw memory mingled with touches of savage humor, exert an unrelenting power. In an early scene we’re shown a photograph of a family picnic, set up for some publicity purpose of her father’s. In it 11-year-old Jane and her brother, Peter, sit alongside their mother, who smiles for the camera. A picture, her daughter notes, that always makes her sad because of the anxiety evident in her mother’s eyes. But as a child she had, Ms. Fonda recalls, an aversion to her mother. “My team was the winning team,” she says. She means the male sitting on that picnic blanket with his head turned away—her father, a man preoccupied with his career and his affair with a young woman. A father even less capable of making a child feel loved than her mother, of whom it could be said, at least, that she suffered from an illness her daughter did not, at the time, understand. Her mother sat at dinner with tears streaming into her food while nobody at the table said a word, and that, too, her daughter did not understand. But she would remember for the usual reason certain childhood memories are forever stored—-they had their impact. There were the glimpses she caught sometimes during her lone walks as a child of people sitting happily at a dinner table, laughing and talking—a sight that always created a sense of longing in her, as the adult Jane Fonda describes it. The longing for her father’s approval was far deeper. Such men, she says, referring to Henry Fonda as a great actor devoted to his craft, “aren’t always great fathers”—one of her few politely evasive comments on her father’s treatment of her, a subject on which Ms. Fonda has otherwise held forth with scalding clarity. His disparaging comments about his daughter’s physical appearance in her youth had devastated her for much of her life. Still, her brother had it much harder, Ms. Fonda asserts. Nevertheless, an entirely intact-looking Peter Fonda makes a brief appearance and delivers a brutally succinct commentary on his father. It isn’t that Henry Fonda wasn’t a loving person, he explains. It’s just that he had no character with a script that said “Henry Fonda: I love you, son.” If he had, he would have been able to handle it. Without a script he could find nothing to say. For all its rootedness in family drama, the documentary goes rollicking on to the rest of Jane Fonda’s life, and nowhere is it more intriguing in its detail than in the chapter that sees her transformed from a political ingénue dabbling in protest marches into a hardcore activist. It had begun during her marriage to French director Roger Vadim. In Paris, with the Vietnam War raging, she met antiwar luminaries, among them the great Simone Signoret, who encouraged her. It wasn’t long before she left her not terribly political husband to concentrate on a new life as a militant—one that would find her, in 1972, being photographed sitting on the seat of a Viet Cong antiaircraft gun looking utterly absurd. It was, she says, as she has many times before, an event she will go to her grave regretting. But for her life as a political activist, antiwar activities included, she’s prepared to make no apologies. The most colorful aspect of her activist life, if a domesticated one, appears in the chapter the film devotes to her marriage to New Left political star Tom Hayden. It’s a compelling tale of like-minded rebels seriously in love, filled with plans for a transformed society hatched in a run-down house Jane’s father described as a shack—a chapter not to be missed if only for the hilarious description of life there delivered by Troy Garity, the son born to Hayden and Jane. The marriage did not last. Tom left for someone else—his wife had perhaps become too successful a revolutionary for him, what with that exercise book on a best-seller list for two years raking in millions. She would survive this loss and then some. It’s hard to overstate the pleasures of this film or, more precisely, this encounter with its subject. Write to Dorothy Rabinowitz at [email protected] Appeared in the September 21, 2018, print edition. article: https://www.wsj.com/articles/encountering-jane-fonda-1537479248