Jane Fonda Personal Choice

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INDIAN MUSIC PLAYS

INTERVIEWER: Jane Fonda,

you've been taking your public by surprise recently.

Instead of being pictured on the beaches of St Tropez,

you've been pictured invading army camps and getting yourself arrested.

And even on the screen,

instead of the Jane Fonda of Cat Ballou and Barbarella,

it's been the ravaged lady who appears in Don't Shoot Horses.

Now, from where I am, it looks like a different Jane Fonda.

From where you are, how does it look?

Oh, I think you're right, I think I am different.

Er...

changes don't happen overnight. It's, er...

I've...over a period of years,

particularly the last two years, been, um...

..been...turning my eyes outward

and becoming more aware of what is happening around me. Er...

Partly because of myself

and partly because of what is happening around me.

I grew up in the '50s, I was a student in the '50s,

when it was, er...pretty easy for a white, middle-class girl,

privileged girl, as I was, and am, to think that...

that things were all right, that America was working,

that we lived in a viable, democratic system.

So anyway, what I'm saying is that I became...

..particularly over the last year and a half, I've become aware of...of...

..of people who are less fortunate than I,

of what the system is doing to us, here in America.

All over the world, but particularly in America.

Sitting there in France, in St Tropez,

sunning yourself on the beach,

why were you so strongly aware of what was happening in America?

And you're living in a kind of escapist world there, presumably.

Not really, no.

It was, um...well, just reading and talking to people,

French people who had just come back from America,

my friends who came over to see me.

It was also in 1968, there was the, um...

"les evenements" in France,

the revolution, if you can call it that, of '68, which...

..which many of my friends were involved in

and which made me think about what the situation is here, in fact, um...

Did you come back to actually think

that you could help to change things, when you came back?

I came back to find out, you know, er...

I was ignorant, um...

I still am.

But I felt that I had to find out and I came back to...

to...to...to look at things at the source...

- How did you look at things? - ..and spent three months...

Well, I travelled across the country.

I spent about three months going from one end of the country to the other.

When I first came back...

..well, I guess it was because I'd been in India

and I had gone over there

on a sort of escapist, metaphysical kind of trip. I wanted to be alone.

I usually find that when I go through changes in my life,

they are, er...precipitated...by...

they are...hastened when I put myself

in a position of complete solitude and isolation.

That doesn't mean without people,

but it means in a new kind of context,

where I'm truly confronted by myself.

And, er...I learn a lot of things that way.

So I went to India

because it was about as remote from anything I'd ever known

and I found a lot of people -

American kids and French kids - who were living there...

with the starving...

..Indian people and saying,

"They're not unhappy, they have their religion and their drugs and, er...

"you mustn't judge them

"with the middle-class bias that you bring with you.

"You must understand that that, for them, is something else."

And I found that appalling.

When you see a child carrying a dead baby in its arms, begging,

when you see people, as you do in Calcutta,

er...dying in the streets all around

you, you can't say, "Well, this is just..."

You know, they are not... aware of this or unhappy

because they have their... their religion and their culture.

It's not true.

And I realised that that sort of escapism is appalling and selfish

and...and I thought...

..that I had been on the road to that sort of thing

and I came back here. Having India on my mind, I arrived in America

at the time that the Indians were invading Alcatraz.

- It was the first militant Indian... - Let's make this clear,

- the American Indians. - The American Indians.

It was the first militant Indian move that I'd heard about

and I was very interested to, er...

to find out...why and what it was all about,

and so I started meeting with Indians,

the militant Indians, and, er...

..they directed me to various places in the country,

sort of crisis areas, where I could meet and talk with people.

At the same time, I was terribly curious to know why,

of all the militant black groups, the Black Panthers were...

were getting ripped off by the government,

rather than some of the other cultural nationalist groups who...

who spout truly racist rhetoric and violent rhetoric.

These other groups, of course,

not being touched really by the government.

And so I met with some Panthers and I was extremely impressed

and began to understand... what was happening.

And...

..as I was...when I was planning my trip across the country,

I met a man called Fred Gardner,

who...who was the, er...

the originator of the GI Coffeehouse Movement.

These are coffeehouses

around military installations in the country,

where GIs can go, usually supported by civilians,

they are run by civilians and GIs, where GIs can go and...

and talk about the war and how they feel about it,

talk about the conditions within the military, er...

..and become politicised that way.

And I was telling Fred about my trip and he said,

"Why don't you go to the coffeehouses?"

I at that time didn't know what a coffeehouse was.

I didn't even know what the GI Movement was.

I'd been working with deserters in France,

but as far as I was concerned, a GI Movement meant desertion.

So I said, "Well, that sounds interesting,

"but I have to find out, you know,

"what role I could play and what I could do to be of help."

Tell me this. Do you think that this new interest of yours in civil rights

is going to damage your career as an actress?

No, I don't think so. This isn't the McCarthy period.

It may damage my life.

In the McCarthy period, people just lost their jobs.

Today, people are, you know....

are being put in jail and killed and shot

and all kinds of things that are much more serious.

I don't think that my career is going to be hurt.

We may all end up in jail one day the way things are going.

Has the FBI shown any interest in your activities, personally?

Yes, of course... Yeah, the FBI has been to see

my husband and my brother and my father, and, um...

You know...that's to be expected.

You say this, er...these activities of yours,

you don't think that they endanger your professional career,

and yet, let's put it like this. If it came to a decision between...

..your career and your civil rights work, which would come first?

I know that's a very hard question

because it would depend on the circumstances,

but let's put it like this.

If there was a question of doing something you felt you should do,

which might mean going to jail, and going to jail might mean

you wouldn't do the picture you're assigned to do,

would you go to jail?

I'm not doing anything for which I can, er...

actually go to jail for.

Today, in America, anyone who is doing anything, um...

involving root changes in this country

- can go to jail. - Right.

And...and so...I am...

I cannot stop doing what I'm doing.

I am...I am involved in things because I... because I know that...

without that involvement on the part of everyone, er...

there will be no world any more.

- Nowhere, and so... - Let me put it like this.

..so, um, to be safe today in America,

it means you have to be Bob Hope,

if you're an actor,

or that you have to do... or nothing at all.

And, um...I don't think that that's a viable way of living.

I don't think that anyone can live that way...

today, when things are so crucial.

Um, so it may mean that I go to jail.

I will certainly be in good company if that happens.

The first time I got arrested - and I would really wish this on everyone,

there is nothing like an unjust arrest to radicalise someone -

I was in Washington, in the State of Washington, er...

and I went on to a base, an army base, Fort Lewis,

it's an open base. Unlike in England, anyone can go on.

And I went on with a group of, um... of GIs and civilians

that run a coffeehouse up there called the Shelter Half

to talk with soldiers, to invite them to the coffeehouse that night,

er...for a talk and some coffee, um...

They knew I was coming

and consequently it was very hard to find any soldiers,

they'd all been called for riot control duty

or put on restrictions, barrack restrictions.

So it was really hard to find anyone,

but we did find a few guys leaning out of their windows

and walking down the street and, you know, I would just talk to them

and ask them if they'd been there, to 'Nam and, er...

and what did they think

and would they like to come to the coffeehouse?

I was there about 20 minutes when a whole squad of MPs

and lieutenants and colonels came down and arrested us all

and held us for about four hours.

I was never able to find out why. I kept saying, "What have we done?"

No-one seemed to be able to answer me.

Er...we were treated, er... not very well.

We were not allowed our rights to, for example...

I knew I had a right to make a phone call to my lawyer,

and when I asked the colonel in charge if I could use the phone,

he said, with a lot of obscenity, "Get your...back into that room,

"you're just a civilian here, you have no rights."

So I lay down on the floor of his office,

my first act of civil disobedience,

and I felt very good, I didn't realise I had such a...

flair for that. I really like it.

When I know I'm right, I really... It gives one a lot of...

courage. Not that I risked all that much.

Not like the soldiers that were with me. Um...

I was then given an expulsion order.

This is what happens to civilians

when they go on an army base and are arrested.

It's just a piece of paper -

they give out so many that they're Mimeographed -

which says, "You have broken Army regulations

"and you are forbidden to come back to this base,

"and several other bases, and if one goes back,

"you are subject to 500 fine and six months in jail."

And I said to him, "What did I do? What Army regulations did I break?"

And he said, "I don't know."

As a result of that,

I am suing him and Melvin Laird, the Secretary of Defense,

and Stanley Resor, the Secretary of the Army.

And, er...that was the first time that I became aware

of the incredible discrimination, er...

and...against people who are taking any other kind of, er...

..position than the one that the military wants you to take.

And the kind of isolation that the GIs are subject to.

Nobody can go on or get anywhere near them...

except the people that are going to be spouting military rhetoric.

About six weeks before Bob Hope had been on,

and had been given the red carpet treatment,

er...the base was leafleted by soldiers

with leaflets saying, "4,000 jokes, 4,000 dead."

And that night, at the coffeehouse, it was jammed

with guys who came to me and said,

"I didn't even know about the Movement.

"I didn't even know about the coffeehouse.

"But when we heard that you'd been arrested,

"when Bob Hope had been given that kind of treatment,

"we thought we'd better come and find out what it's all about."

These guys stayed, I saw them change over the course of two or three days,

er...it usually would start off with them listening to their brothers

talking about, er, why they weren't getting minimum wage,

what saluting means,

the kind of dehumanising, er...

..tasks that they're asked...to do.

You know, just ridiculous things just to make them into robots.

And going from that to the war,

to a better understanding of why the war exists

and what it's all about.

And watching these guys -

these are often guys from working-class families -

become free by learning, by becoming political

and going out different human beings, that is very exciting to see.

Still within the military,

but free because they were free in their own heads

and they were fighting the good fight.

What you're doing is to attack certain inegalities,

certain abuses in society.

But shouldn't you really be attacking the root cause,

that is, attacking society itself, the system?

Well, if changing the system from the ground up is revolutionary,

er, then I'm revolutionary.

Although I'm not in fact revolutionary because...

I think a revolutionary

is someone who lives the revolution 24 hours a day.

Er...I am still a movie actress.

I, er...I still lead a certain kind of life.

I am a radical, but I am not a revolutionary,

although I am for the revolution.

How it's going to happen in America,

who is going to be at the forefront of it,

I don't know, I really don't know.

Um...but there are many, many things happening.

I mean, the Women's Liberation Movement is extremely important.

I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to ask you about it.

Um...do you agree with the...

Are you in sympathy with

the objectives of the Women's Liberation Movement?

Er...yes, oh, absolutely.

But then I see them as a... You know, there are many different...

As in any movement, there are many factions, there are many...

There are separatists in the Women's Liberation Movement.

There are those who are primarily concerned with working

within the system to get equal pay and jobs and things like that.

I see it as something else, um...

For example, I would not want to say to a man, in America -

or most countries in the world,

but we're just talking about America today -

"I want to be your equal." Because men are not free today.

I don't want to be the equal of a man standing in an unemployment line.

I don't want to be the equal of a man

who gets sent to Vietnam when he doesn't want to.

As far as I'm concerned, women's liberation is in fact...

liberation for everyone, and it can only come about

through an entire change of our society, from the ground up.

Economic, social, er...

family structure, the way people relate to each other.

Er...what it's all about, as far as I'm concerned,

is humanising everyone,

making it possible by creating a new kind of system,

making it possible for people

to relate as human beings - men and women.

One of the, er...objectives of the Women's Liberation Movement

is to attack the position of women as what they call "sex objects".

Now, that's exactly what you have been

in many of your films - Barbarella, for example.

Does your new attitude mean that you will no longer appear

in motion pictures of that kind?

Yeah. Yeah, I will not be making films like that any more.

Um...I had never...

I wasn't really aware of...

..of male chauvinism and of myself as being, er...

Tell me this - aren't you married to a male chauvinist?

- I would have thought Vadim... - I think that...

all men are male chauvinists and I...

Poor dears! Not because they mean to be,

but because that's the way we've all been educated.

Er, and women have always allowed themselves to be, um...

put into a subordinate position.

That's just... I mean, for centuries,

that's the way...we have been educated and raised.

- My husband... - But surely Vadim is

- the male chauvinist par excellence? - Oh, no, no, no. Oh, no.

Not really. He, er...

It would seem that way, but in fact it's not.

I would say that he is no more guilty of male chauvinism

than most men that I know.

My God, he made Bardot into a sex symbol.

He made you into a sex symbol.

Yeah, well, I'm talking about the way one relates on a personal level

on a day-to-day...on a day-to-day...life.

He is, er...

..much more...

..understanding of women and... and, er...

..sensitive to certain kinds of problems that women have...

..despite the other, commercial, public image that he has, you know,

that he has maintained, and God knows he has maintained

a great deal of male chauvinism through his films. Er...

I wouldn't say that he is any more guilty of it than anyone else.

You once said that marriage is obsolete.

You said that a long time ago.

- A long time ago. - Yes. Now, er...

- do you still believe marriage... - Absolutely. I firmly believe it.

I didn't understand at the time. This was 12 years ago when I said it,

and I've felt it for many years before I said that publicly,

that the political ramifications of it...

But of course, I think it's, er...

it's, um...

I am sure that 100 years from now, people will look back

over these centuries of...of, er...

marriage and wonder what we were doing.

Er...I think it is...I think it is...

natural to couple, for people to be drawn to someone

who have similar tastes and desires and beliefs and things like that.

Er...and I think there is nothing more important and more beautiful

than loving someone.

And I think...

as long as a relationship between two people exists

in a changing, growing way, where people are growing together

and learning from each other, it is fantastic.

That usually doesn't last for ever.

And...

..the trouble with marriage is that it makes people,

out of fear of...of not having it work,

a fear of being accused of being a failure, or of being alone,

deny change in themselves, and I think change is what it's all about.

I think that's the most important thing. Er...

If a relationship comes to a point

where people no longer have anything to truly give and to share,

then they must part.

It doesn't have to be, um...

angry or...or negative,

but just simply must realise

that they now must go in different directions to grow and change.

And I think that marriage makes this extremely difficult.

You know, why sign a piece of paper for reasons other than

economic and social

and society saying this is what one must do, and moral.

There are no reasons why one must sign a piece of paper

and put oneself in a position of

feeling these kind of pressures and guilt.

- Why did you marry? - I don't know.

Yes, I do. Er...

..because my husband has children by another marriage

and they were living with us in California -

one of them was living with us in California -

I was driving her to school during the day

and people were talking, her teachers were looking at her and me strangely,

and it was making it difficult for her.

And, er, in hotels and things like that.

So we decided to get married to make it easier.

Just for those social reasons. Um...

I, in a way, betrayed myself because I always said

that I would never get married

until someone could explain to me why people get married.

No-one, of course has, and nobody ever will be able to.

How far has your attitude to marriage

been conditioned by your own childhood?

I mean, your father was married many times, wasn't he?

I'm sure a great deal.

Er...one is always conditioned by one's upbringing.

But I don't think that, um...

I have not... I have come out pretty well, considering.

And my father has always been a remarkably good father.

And I don't think that...

I mean, I know that I would have been much worse off

had he tried to continue a marriage that wasn't working for him

than doing what he did, which was... which was, er...

It would have been better had he never been married.

And rather than put ourselves into a position

of continuing something that doesn't work,

we should try to change the things

that make people feel they have to get married, which I think is wrong.

Do you think your views are having any influence on your father?

I've always thought that probably Henry Fonda

was a conservative kind of man.

D'you know, one of the problems about being the member of a family

who is famous is that one is not only responsible for one's self,

but is responsible for all the members of the family.

It is just terrible. Everywhere I go, if I go to a rally some place,

all these kids come after me afterwards and say,

"Where's your brother, why isn't he here? And what's your father doing?"

It's hard enough to answer for myself. Er...

My father and I differ considerably.

I respect him, I respect his views,

I don't agree with him at all, er...

And that's, you know...

It's not unusual, it happens all the time.

As a family, you're quite famous for your disagreements.

Do you disagree still very strongly about most things?

About some very important things, er...

..we aren't really that, er...

in any more disagreement than, you know,

than most families I know.

It's just that because, at a certain time of our growing up,

my brother and... In my growing up we had access to the press

and we verbalised certain things,

which was unfortunate and we don't do that any more

cos it's unnecessary, it's our business, um...

But, um...

..you know, I wish that I had more chance to sit down with...my father

and to talk to him about what I'm doing and why.

The chance doesn't come up enough.

But, you know, that doesn't matter.

One doesn't do things to please one's parents.

Have you always been a rebellious person?

Always. Always.

I was brought up that way.

- Um... - Were you a rebellious child?

Sure!

Sure, and I'm really grateful.

- What kind of rebel...? - My father taught us

to question everything. My father taught us to not look down on anyone,

to, er...to respect everyone,

to always go towards the forces

that would enable everyone to have what they needed.

Um...

My father still believes - he hasn't changed, but he still believes -

that the system here in America, the democratic system,

is a viable, functioning one.

Er...I don't.

And I don't not just because, um... off the top of my head.

I don't because I've been across the country and I have seen,

time and time and time again,

that it just isn't for the majority of people.

I often wonder, um, how far people

who get involved in radical movements,

as you've done, really think through

to what kind of society they want to see at the end of it.

Is there any society in existence anywhere in the world

which approximates to the kind of America you'd like to see?

I've never been in one, myself.

Er...I've had friends that have been in certain countries,

er, China and Cuba, for example,

who have told me things that sound... very encouraging.

Now, I don't think that their solutions can be America's solutions

because I think our... for obvious reasons.

We're going to have to find our own.

But there was a delegation that just came back from, um...from a trip,

they went to North Korea and Hanoi and to Peking and came back here

and I spoke to them, and they told me, er...

that in China, they kept looking for faults,

they kept looking for where it was breaking down, you know,

because they couldn't believe

that it was working the way it seemed to be working.

Everyone has something to eat, everyone has something to wear.

Now, the clothes, that's very interesting -

everyone wears the same thing.

That sounds appalling, I guess, to most people in the Western world.

Er, I don't think so. I think the idea

that Mao and the peasants wear exactly the same clothes.

The clothes are not made for anyone to get rich off of,

they last 50 years.

They're just very simple clothes that'll last for ever.

- Do you care about what you wear? - No, I just wear as, er...

functional and...attractive clothes as I can,

but I don't think too much about it.

Everyone has something to wear, everyone has a place to live...

everyone is...

They said there was the most extraordinary feeling of involvement.

Everyone involved with... making it work,

working together in their communities and their collectives

and a total lack of coercion. This is what they said.

Look, I'm really interested that you mentioned those particular societies

because whatever they may have achieved in the social field,

and it's obviously a considerable amount,

er...in none of those societies have they been able to allow

free artistic expression in the sense that we know it in the West.

I think...I think, yeah.

Now, do you not feel that, as an actress...

..you would be extremely limited in that kind of society?

Perhaps, if I wanted to do things that...that, er...

You see, well...when you're carrying on a revolution -

and their revolution is an ongoing thing,

I mean, it's not... they haven't reached an end.

They haven't gotten there yet.

I don't think anywhere in the world.

So, during the process of...of...

change and educating people, er...

..removing people from the state of being in which they want to exploit

and become rich and get ahead over someone else and, er...

and things like that,

which is something deeply engrained in all of us.

During that change-over, very stringent rules have to be laid down.

Er...

..until such a time that the level of the economy is such

that everyone is comfortable,

that everyone has as much as they could possibly want. Up until...

How long does this go on, for God's sake?

In Soviet Russia, there is more oppression...

When you consider how far Russia came, er...

in a very short period of time,

I mean, you know, it was really remarkable.

But I mean, well, Russia is something else again.

Er...you know...

One begins to wonder if maybe Russia

should not have had much stricter rules, that it did become, I mean,

it seems to sort of be taking on a lot of, er...

capitalist...things, and one wonders

what that's going to do to their revolution.

You talk about oppression in the United States.

Yeah.

There's considerable oppression

in all the societies you've been talking about.

You would certainly not have been able to go round army camps...

In Cuba... In Cuba, for example, there is...

there is no, er... there are no jails.

There are jails for people who are trying to...overthrow the government,

who are reactionary forces within Cuba.

That's what you're trying to do here.

What... Oh, well, it depends on what you're for.

I mean, I am...I am... trying to get away from

the need ever to have police.

And they are doing that in Cuba.

Are you not, do you think, a rather naive kind of idealist?

Er...

..perhaps. I mean, that's probably the worst criticism

that one could say, is that it's naive utopian socialism.

Er...

but I believe, to the bottom of my heart, with everything in my being,

that it is possible and that it will exist

if we don't destroy ourselves before.

INDIAN MUSIC PLAYS