![]() Her Saint Jane bears little relation to the footage of the young, clearly overwhelmed Fonda we see in North Vietnam projected onto the back wall. And Archer plays up to the heavily weighted script, portraying Fonda with a detached serenity that verges on irritating. It also doesn’t help that so many of the veterans are written so one-dimensionally: each feels like an outline of a type rather than flesh-and-blood. In theory, this is a powder-keg situation, but, crucially, Fonda never seems in danger. And when they’re not doing that, they walk to a spotlight in the wings to deliver fairly stilted monologues. In part, this is because of the flat staging – the cast occupy a row of chairs from which they take turns to yell at each other. And even in 2005, a man spat tobacco juice in the 68-year-old actress’s face at a book-signing.īut this production never really sparks into life. After all, at the height of her activism, her photo adorned the portable toilet mats used by the US Armed Forces to piss on. The idea of Fonda confronting a room full of furious former soldiers who believe she betrayed them and her country is ripe with dramatic potential. But the play never strays far from her side, as Jastrow uses documentary footage and a detailed outline of her beliefs to portray her as a preternaturally clear-sighted humanitarian. Beyond a few media interviews, we don’t know really know how the actual meeting panned out, other than that Fonda’s film went ahead. In spite of the title, this isn’t a genuine trial of Fonda’s actions in one of the most controversial periods of American history. Following the burning of her effigy and threats to disrupt the making of her latest film, Stanley & Iris, co-starring Robert de Niro, Fonda held a meeting with angry Vietnam vets. Here, Hollywood writer Terry Jastrow directs his wife, Anne Archer, in his recreation of what happened behind closed doors during a little known event in Waterbury, Connecticut, on 18 June, 1988. It outraged American Vietnam veterans, who dubbed ‘Hanoi Jane’ a traitor to her country and to the memories of those soldiers who had died. I didn’t know what else to do.” She also debunks myths about her trip in the blogpost, saying that “the lies distort the truth of why I went to North Vietnam and they perpetuate the myth that being anti-war means being anti-soldier.The image of actress Jane Fonda sitting, smiling, on an NVA anti-aircraft gun during her 1972 tour of North Vietnam in protest against America’s involvement in the war has dogged her career ever since. Please, you can’t let them be published.’ I was assured it would be taken care of. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down US planes.’ I pleaded with him, ‘You have to be sure those photographs are not published. I got up, and as I started to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what had just happened hit me. ![]() “I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. In a lengthy blog on her own website in 2011, she gives her side of the story. This famous person goes and does something that looks like I’m against the troops, which wasn’t true, but it looked that way, and I’m a convenient target.” and she went to Vietnam to advance her husband’s career.”įonda added that she understood this anger, and that she often met with veterans to discuss it: “I’m a lightning rod. ![]() One protestor told the Frederick News Post, “She got Americans killed. There was outrage at the pictures and Fonda was branded a traitor, but she has frequently regretted them. The series of photos were taken during Fonda’s visit to Hanoi, where she met with North Vietnamese troops, and was pictured sat on an anti-aircraft gun being used to target American planes. Protestors had massed outside the event with copies of the photo and signs reading “Forgive? Maybe. “It hurts me and it will to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers,” she said at a personal speaking engagement in Frederick, Maryland. Jane Fonda has once again expressed regret over the infamous ‘Hanoi Jane’ picture taken of her during the Vietnam war. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |