Weekly Standard Scrapbook: The Sounds of Jane Fonda's Silence
THE SCRAPBOOK never turns down a seat in the front row of history, and last week was no exception. There was a modest antiwar rally on the Mall in Washington--modest by Vietnam-era standards, that is, with about 10,000 people. But around lunchtime, when THE SCRAPBOOK arrived with reporter's pad in hand, the Mall was largely empty.
Of course, the Washington Post found the glass half-full, as it were. "Thousands Protest Bush Policy" screamed a front-page headline the next morning, while the story took delight in "a raucous and colorful multitude of protesters" who, "under a blue sky with a pale midday moon . . . danced, sang, shouted and chanted their opposition," and "came from across the country and across the activist spectrum, with a wide array of grievances."
There was the usual prose poem about winsome senior citizens taking the train down from New York, bearded veterans, "civil rights and community activist" Jesse Jackson, young couples with babies, smiling students, "children in tie-dyed shirts, grandmothers in flowered hats, kids with frizzy hair and muddy jeans," and assorted Hollywood leftists. All rather different in tone, as you might suspect, from coverage of the annual Right-to-Life march on Washington.
Our attention was drawn, however, to the appearance of none other than Jane Fonda on the speaker's platform. The Post was similarly intrigued, but seemed content--and curiously credulous--to view Miss Fonda entirely uncritically. The passive voice got a good workout in the Style section depiction of her. Describing a 1972 photograph of a helmeted Jane Fonda sitting happily atop a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun--aimed at you-know-whose aircraft--the Post explained that this appalling spectacle "was viewed by many as sympathetic to North Vietnam."
Then there was her assertion "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years. Silence is no longer an option." Unlike the Post, which accepted this as gospel, and reported that Miss Fonda had been otherwise engaged in the intervening decades, THE SCRAPBOOK was struck by the precision of her memory. Thirty-four years would take us back to the winter of 1972-73, when she and actor Donald Sutherland, songbird Holly Near, and others were finishing the worldwide tour of their "F.T.A. [F-- the Army] Show"--"a satirical revue . . . [featuring] protest songs, anti-war humor . . . and agit-prop theater designed to increase awareness and spread resistance" (the New York Times)--on college campuses, at coffeehouses, and outside U.S. military bases here and in Japan, the Philippines, and Okinawa.
Indeed, THE SCRAPBOOK is just old enough to remember that, during those locust years when Jane Fonda (in the words of the Post) was "a workout maven, postfeminist arm candy for billionaire media magnate Ted Turner, a vocal Christian and an autobiographer," she was also, with second husband Tom Hayden in their spacious L.A. residence, host to a parade of strongmen from Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, as well as visiting officials of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the Communist guerrilla army seeking to destroy the democratically elected government of El Salvador.
Jane Fonda may not have spoken at rallies during that time, but silence was never an option when she could lend her voice to the enemies of her country.
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Of course, the Washington Post found the glass half-full, as it were. "Thousands Protest Bush Policy" screamed a front-page headline the next morning, while the story took delight in "a raucous and colorful multitude of protesters" who, "under a blue sky with a pale midday moon . . . danced, sang, shouted and chanted their opposition," and "came from across the country and across the activist spectrum, with a wide array of grievances."
There was the usual prose poem about winsome senior citizens taking the train down from New York, bearded veterans, "civil rights and community activist" Jesse Jackson, young couples with babies, smiling students, "children in tie-dyed shirts, grandmothers in flowered hats, kids with frizzy hair and muddy jeans," and assorted Hollywood leftists. All rather different in tone, as you might suspect, from coverage of the annual Right-to-Life march on Washington.
Our attention was drawn, however, to the appearance of none other than Jane Fonda on the speaker's platform. The Post was similarly intrigued, but seemed content--and curiously credulous--to view Miss Fonda entirely uncritically. The passive voice got a good workout in the Style section depiction of her. Describing a 1972 photograph of a helmeted Jane Fonda sitting happily atop a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun--aimed at you-know-whose aircraft--the Post explained that this appalling spectacle "was viewed by many as sympathetic to North Vietnam."
Then there was her assertion "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years. Silence is no longer an option." Unlike the Post, which accepted this as gospel, and reported that Miss Fonda had been otherwise engaged in the intervening decades, THE SCRAPBOOK was struck by the precision of her memory. Thirty-four years would take us back to the winter of 1972-73, when she and actor Donald Sutherland, songbird Holly Near, and others were finishing the worldwide tour of their "F.T.A. [F-- the Army] Show"--"a satirical revue . . . [featuring] protest songs, anti-war humor . . . and agit-prop theater designed to increase awareness and spread resistance" (the New York Times)--on college campuses, at coffeehouses, and outside U.S. military bases here and in Japan, the Philippines, and Okinawa.
Indeed, THE SCRAPBOOK is just old enough to remember that, during those locust years when Jane Fonda (in the words of the Post) was "a workout maven, postfeminist arm candy for billionaire media magnate Ted Turner, a vocal Christian and an autobiographer," she was also, with second husband Tom Hayden in their spacious L.A. residence, host to a parade of strongmen from Nicaragua's Sandinista regime, as well as visiting officials of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, the Communist guerrilla army seeking to destroy the democratically elected government of El Salvador.
Jane Fonda may not have spoken at rallies during that time, but silence was never an option when she could lend her voice to the enemies of her country.