Saturday, February 16, 2008

See You Next Tuesday


Jane Fonda is again effectively stirring up trouble, this time for women's rights and the free use of language. Cracks me up. Here's an excerpt about the latest "incident" from the British Times Online:

NBC, the American television network, has been forced to apologise to viewers after the veteran actress and political activist Jane Fonda used the C-word on a live show.

Fonda made what the network called "a slip" when she appeared on the Today Show with the playwright Eve Ensler to discuss her ground-breaking play The Vagina Monologues, in which women talk about their sexuality using frank language about their bodies and references to genitalia.

The play has spawned a movement called V-Day that campaign[s] to stop violence against women and is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Fonda, 70, is one of the leading lights in that movement.
On yesterday's show, Fonda explained how she first heard of The Vagina Monologues.

“I was asked to do a monologue called ’C***’, and I said, ’I don’t think so. I’ve got enough problems,” she said. “Then I came to New York to see Eve and it changed my life” . . . . .

US broadcast standards and practices bar the use of the C-word and NBC, which is owned by General Electric, was quick to disassociate itself from Fonda's use of it, despite an appeals court ruling tossing out an indecency finding for "fleeting obscenities".

(Source: Times Online, "NBC says sorry for Jane Fonda C-word 'slip,'" 2/15/2008)


Ms. Fonda is no stranger to controversy. Here she is in North Vietnam during the Year of the Rat, 1972. Detractors quickly labeled her "Hanoi Jane."


Fonda has two Academy Awards to her name -- one for Klute (1971) and one for Coming Home (1978).


Fonda (b. 12/21/1937) has written a memoir -- My Life So Far (2005).


The dynamic trio from Nine to Five (1980).

Glad to know individual words still have magical power. Haha.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oscar Winner said: She was great in "Klute," but she shouldn't have slept with Ho Chi Minh.

Sidney said...

I got reminded when I heard all the flap that the "C" word was one of George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say on TV." Some have fallen off the list, but that still seems to be there.

Charles Gramlich said...

Not quite as scandolous as some of her earlier behavior. I thought it was hilarious.

JR's Thumbprints said...

Hey Erik,
Don't forget Jane Fonda's real contribution to society: A Workout Video!

Anonymous said...

Isn't it strange that cetain words have so much power. Humans have assigned the words to be either good or bad. One can say vagina but not the euphenisms. One can say penise and include the euphenisms. One can say all the words for excrement but not shit. A rose by any other name is still a rose. We humans are an odd lot. Jane gets dumped on but none of the men who got us into or kept us in the Vietnam War. She apologized for her mistake in judgement. How many of the military and the political ever did?!

Johnny Yen said...

I had two thoughts-- first, she was talking about using the word-- she wasn't calling someone that word. Secondly, isn't the show taped? If it was so offensive, couldn't they have just edited it out?

Lana Gramlich said...

I have to laugh at the modern media that makes such a big deal of such things, then turns around & promotes divisiveness, sexualization of children, violence, inconsideration, fear, disinformation & more.