Last Sunday, on the news program 60 Minutes, Jane Fonda exorcised some of her demons in a book promotion conversation with Leslie Stahl.
The interview provided some titillating and interesting bits of information: For example, Jane’s revelations about the most promiscuous of her 3 marriages (that had her cruising for women to engage in regular ménage a trios with her svengali hubby, Roger Vadim); and Jane’s half-assed confessions about her antics during the Vietnam war (she regrets allowing the enemy to use her to thrust a phallic symbol of defiance at the United States – by having her photographed straddling the long barrel of a Viet Cong anti-aircraft gun).
Nevertheless, since I had already read advance excerpts of her autobiography, Jane Fonda: My Life So Far, I was disappointed by one glaring omission from that show: Ms Stahl’s failure to challenge Jane on her most socially relevant confession; namely, that she was habitually bulimic (upchucking 9 times a-day) for over 30 years of her adult life.
I understand the media hype, but I really could not care any less about how her female “disease to please” compelled her to become a slave to the perverted, iconoclastic and chauvinistic peccadilloes of the men in her life (who, apparently, all had a thing for bad breath). (Incidentally, so much for her feminist bona fides.)
Instead, as a fitness enthusiast, I am disappointed that Ms Stahl gave Jane access to over 25 million Americans to flack her book but did not ask her to explain the profound hypocrisy inherent in the confession about her eating disorder.
Does anyone remember Jane Fonda – the Martha Stewart of the 1980s fitness craze?
Jane sold millions of fitness tapes touting aerobics as the only means to looking fit and thin like her. And, she got millions of women as hooked on aerobics as (we now know) she was on bulimia.
Jane’s real exercise routine: And a 1,2,3 barf! 1,2,3 barf! 1,2,3 barf (9 puking times people!)
Therefore, surely these women deserve a very public apology and explanation for Jane’s rank hypocrisy and fraudulent profiteering at their expense. Moreover, shouldn’t she be required to return some of those ill-gotten gains? After all, the season is ripe for exacting restitution from people who use socially unacceptable means to shape their bodies for profit. (Witness the clamoring to strip baseball records from the likes of Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds for using steroids.)
Hey you phony, skinny bitch…I want a refund!
News and Politics
Georgiana says
I find your analysis of Jane Fonda and her disease heartless and ignorant. Your blame of Jane Fonda and your particularly crass mocking of her work-out “1,2,3 barf!” is trivializing the disease. Bulimia is not a disorder that anyone wants or that Fonda would have desired. Although your writing suggests that she “tricked” American women into believing they could achieve a better body because she was a bulimic is unfair and simplistic. “Hey you phony, skinny bitch, I want a refund” is insinuating that she has tricked people or committed some kind of crime…this is a woman suffering from a disease…not a con artist. You seem to have a lot of opinions on women and their struggles with body image, however I do not believe that your criticisms of anyone struggling with disordered eating are valid until you yourself have suffered from it. These celebrities I am sure are not wanting to be anorexic or bulimic…it is nothing anyone would wish upon anyone, even their worst enemy, so to behave as though they are merely starving themselves and destroying their bodies on a whim is a clear indication that you have little understanding of what is truly going on. I am sure that you are writing this to help women who may fall into the mental trap of trying to shrink themselves down to the “perfect weight” and I was happy to read your article regarding JK Rowling, but I think that EVERY person suffering from eating disorders deserves nothing but compassion, encouragement, resources, and help. I hope that in the future if you choose to write about eating disorders or someone suffering from them, you will deal with your description with a little more compassion.