Lessons From Jane Fonda

HBD to the woman who gave us more than just leg lifts.

“She is a lightning rod for a generation.”

These are the words of a Washington Post journo, circa 1985.

Jane Fonda’s workout video was just the beginning of the empire the writer, political activist, fashion and fitness legend would go on to build. Low-key, she has two Academy Awards, a couple of BAFTAs and more than a few Golden Globes. And that’s just to start.

She first married a French author, then a radical activist followed by a media mogul. She was the sci-fi femme Barbarella and stuck it to the man in 9 To 5. She trained with Lee Strasberg – the same man who trained Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman and Al Pacino.

A force to be reckoned with, she rallied against Vietnam and the rising continues: her interviews are rarely about her. They’re about Black Lives Matter, about #MeToo, about the state of the labour unions in the US.

And that workout video? It was about way more than just lycra.

Still the highest-selling VHS of all time, that video bankrolled a US-based, California-wide organisation for economic democracy.

She calls for a perpetual revolution, a constant questioning of authority, canvases her causes door to door. The New Yorker asked her: What do people say when Jane Fonda Knocks on their door?

“Well, they don’t always know who I am.”

Trump is not a fan, but it seems he is pretty much alone in that sentiment.

Fonda’s latest effort, Netflix’s watch-a-minimum-of-three-times Grace and Frankie, is headed fast for its fifth season

“I know,” she whispered to one Guardian journalist. “We’re stunned. We did not expect that. We’re trying to figure it out!”