“A very superficial example”: the unlikely 2005 movie Jane Fonda compared to her ‘Hanoi Jane’ era
Things are pretty bad globally at the moment, thanks to our controversial orange friend over the pond and his one-man mission to tank the world’s economy, and it’s a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same, as Jane Fonda would no doubt tell you.
She was one of the most outspoken opponents of one of the other frequent times the United States decided to unilaterally invade a country halfway around the world that had nothing to do with them, risking her entire career and reputation while making a very public stand against the war in Vietnam at the beginning of the 1970s.
It was taking that stand that earned her the nickname ‘Hanoi Jane’, when she was photographed sitting on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun after travelling to the country to see the effect of the US bombings over the two-decade war, and even to those for whom the war was not justified, that was beyond the pale.
Americans were outraged by the actor’s visit to a country they were at war with, and she had to backpedal quickly, explaining that she had been manipulated into sitting on the military equipment, that she was exhausted and that the moment had been a temporary loss of sanity. Some veterans never got over it, though, as late as 2005, a former soldier was arrested after spitting tobacco in Fonda’s face.
And it was that year that the former Klute and Barbarella star made a rom-com that again she felt flew in the face of what naysayers might think about her and outlined that she did whatever she wanted regardless of opinion.
Asked by the Guardian at the time how she dealt with the fallout from the Hanoi incident, Fonda said: “Oh, well. Because when you know in your heart why you did something, and you feel and you know that in spite of all the controversy that it was right, it doesn’t matter. I’ll give you a very superficial example: this movie that’s playing now with me, Monster-in-Law, with Jennifer Lopez. The critics! I mean, it’s like, ‘What was Jane Fonda thinking?’, ‘What is the matter with her?’”
Fonda continued: “But I know why I did it: I did it to have fun, I did it to see if I could have fun again and I did. And audiences love it, so screw the critics. It doesn’t matter because I’m real clear about why I did it. And I was real clear about why I went to Hanoi, and I made a mistake and I’ve apologised for it, but it wasn’t going to Hanoi that was the mistake.”
Monster-in-law may have been panned by the critics, but actually, Fonda’s performance as a controlling mother trying to stop her doctor son from marrying a dog walker was praised when the film was released. Audiences liked it too, and it made around $155million on a budget of just $43m, fitting neatly into J-Lo’s canon of comedies around that era that also included Maid in Manhattan and The Wedding Planner.
It was also the first film Fonda had made in 15 years since her 1990 film with Robert De Niro, Stanley & Iris. Now, even at 88, she is still acting and has two movies coming up, including a thriller set during the Bill Clinton administration called Ceasefire.
