She came, she saw, she conquered. Jane Fonda (some may remember her as a traitor during the Vietnam War, others will recall her as raucous good fun in that pre-Working Girl classic 9 to 5 — take a wild guess at which group we belong to?) came to Washington today. And while President Bush spent the day waxing poetic with the likes of China’s leader, Hu Jintao, we settled in to listen to Jane chat about books, activism, vaginas, boobs, acting, and a little something about war. Here’s a recap (with a little commentary, just for kicks):
Regarding Jonathan Yardley’s WaPo review of her bestseller My Life So Far, in which he called her “a beautiful bundle of contradictions,” Jane said, “He’s got problems,” to booming laughter and applause from a largely adoring Avalon Theatre audience. “Of course I’ve got contradictions…every single person in here has got contradictions. That’s what makes us human.”
In writing her autobiography, she said she looked at over 22,000 pages of FBI files that the government had gathered on her during her activist years. “Pathetic–how much of our tax money was spent?” she asked. (Hopefully more of hers than ours!)
When it came time to poke fun at her vagina (excuse us), she said she spent her youth wondering whether she shouldn’t have one. At one point after the vagina talk, while talking about her daughter, she forgot twice what she was trying to say. We didn’t really know what she was talking about. We just thought she looked damn good for 68. (But, really, enough about the fake hip, Jane. We hate when old people talk about fake hips.)
On the movie news front, she said she’d like to remake Barbarella as a feminist tome (say what?) by bringing “intimacy to the Planet of Evil.” She also said that Faye Dunaway would have made a much better prostitute in Klute. “I write about acting in my book better than anyone I’ve ever read,” she gloated. (We feel the same way about our blogging, Jane.)
She also talked about getting her boob implants taken them out, and wanting to bronze them. “It was considered biohazard, so I couldn’t,” she reflected. (We can’t relate to this aspect of her talk at all.)
When we finally got to pose a question to Jane, we forgot all about war, we forgot about boobs, we even forgot about vaginas. “Will there be a 9 to 5 sequel?” we asked.
“Oh, I hope so!” she shouted. “FOX owns the rights…and we’re waiting to see what they’re going to do with it. Yeah, thanks for asking.”
And then we left the chameleon for some other time, some other place.
