The moment Jane Fonda flashed a bear: “It was the growl”
Jane Fonda is a trendsetter, a fearless activist, an Oscar winner, and a businessperson. She’s broken barriers for women in all professions, protested the Vietnam War before it was trendy, and gotten arrested multiple times for climate change advocacy in her eighties. She is the definition of a badass, a woman to whom we should all bow down and pay tribute.
It turns out that Fonda has even more impressive accomplishments on her CV than even her most ardent fans could imagine. She has lived a remarkably eventful life, from her early childhood as the daughter of one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars, to becoming a top movie star on her own merits, to spearheading spandex-clad workout videos, to decades upon decades of dogged advocacy. But life is made up of small moments, and in that respect, her backstory is almost more impressive.
Take, for example, a run-in that she had with a bear one time. Speaking to Conan O’Brien in 2014, the 9 to 5 star revealed that once, when she was at her cabin on her ranch in New Mexico, she was aghast to find a bear standing in the bedroom next to her baby grandson’s crib. In the split second that she realised what was happening, she thought to herself, “What do I do? I don’t know where my gun is. I don’t have time to look for it.”
So, she did the next best thing: she ripped open her dressing gown and bellowed in the animal’s direction. It worked, apparently. According to Fonda, the bear was so terrified that it peed on the rug and sat down in the doorway. She then shoved him (or her) all the way over the stoop and slammed the glass door behind him. He then slumped against the window, dazed by what had just happened. In response to O’Brien’s astonishment at her creativity in the moment, Fonda responded. “It wasn’t the tits; it was the growl.”
Now, if you are a person who possesses an inquiring mind or even an averagely logical one, this story might not come across as watertight. A bear was in her bedroom. It peed on the rug. It ‘sat down’ in the doorway before collapsing, exhausted, in the most anthropomorphised way, against the glass. All of this sounds suspiciously fantastical.
But let’s take a step back for a moment. This is Jane Fonda we’re talking about. Who are we to challenge the biographical particulars of a woman who has indisputably lived a life of unparalleled adventure and courage? If there was a bear within a hundred miles of her cabin, it’s reasonable to assume that it, like the rest of us, would want to stop by and meet the Oscar winner, even if the reception wasn’t particularly welcoming.
And speaking of that unwelcoming reception, the least surprising thing about this whole anecdote is how she decided to deal with it. Only a true feminist would recognise that the naked female body can be its own kind of weapon. In that split second, she knew that the most threatening thing she could do, short of pulling the trigger of a gun, was to flash the beast like a modern-day Artemis going in for the kill. Yet again, Fonda proves that she is the role model we can only hope to deserve.
