The one movie that embarrassed Jane Fonda: “For a long time I couldn’t look at it”
As an actor and activist who’s never had any issues standing up for what they believe in and staying true to their convictions, Jane Fonda shouldn’t strike anyone as the type of person who’d be easily embarrassed.
After all, she was happy to make enemies at the highest levels of government when her opposition to the Vietnam War overshadowed her on-camera career, but never at any stage did she consider backing down from her stance despite the very real danger that she’d end up being blackballed from mainstream Hollywood.
Fonda has never showcased a shred of regret for ruffling feathers so high up the chain, so in comparison, something as innocuous as a motion picture shouldn’t be much cause for embarrassment. However, for years, the two-time Academy Award winner couldn’t stomach the thought of revisiting one of her most popular hits, and there’s a shred of irony to be found after it was eventually reappraised from a kitschy genre flick into an ironclad cult classic.
It may be over the top, cheesy, and decidedly B-tier, but Barbarella continues to win over new converts with each passing generation. Many contemporary reactions decried it as sexist in nature, but through the power of osmosis, the way it became an indelible part of Fonda’s iconography and mythology ultimately saw many point to the title character as an empowering feminist icon.
Not that the lead could have imagined it at the time, admitting to CBS that her initial feelings were that of red-faced shame. “No, no, for a long time, I couldn’t look at it,” Fonda said when asked if she remained embarrassed by Barbarella. “I thought that it was politically incorrect, you know. She was a sex symbol. She was a pin-up symbol. You can’t get away from it.”
Time has a way of healing those wounds, with Fonda admitting that when she looks at the movie through a modern lens, “I can look at it now and laugh at it and find it very charming.” The actor had no intention of being typecast or pigeonholed as the scantily-clad protagonist, and the easiest way to avoid that happening was by becoming known as one of her generation’s top talents.
That’s exactly what happened in the years that followed, too, after Fonda earned the first Oscar nomination of her career for Sydney Pollack’s psychological drama They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, which was the first film she made after Barbarella. She went one better after that when Klute rewarded her with the ‘Best Actress’ prize, telling Hollywood in no uncertain terms that she would never be reduced to little more than a pretty face.
Barbarella was undoubtedly a product of its time, but despite Fonda’s initial embarrassment, it remains one of her career’s defining roles.
