Do we like Jane Fonda?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Decades on the right side of workers, women, climate and free speech, held back by one Vietnam-era photo she says she will regret to her dying day.
Jane Fonda was born into Hollywood royalty in 1937, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda. She started as a model, made her film and Broadway debuts in 1960 and became a sex symbol with Barbarella. Then she did something stars rarely do: she turned into a serious actor, winning Best Actress Oscars for Klute and Coming Home.
The big turning point was Vietnam. Fonda has said she became an activist in her thirties after hearing about the war from American veterans in Paris, and in 1972 she visited North Vietnam. That trip earned her the nickname Hanoi Jane, and some veterans still haven't forgiven her.
The photo of her seated on an anti-aircraft gun is the centre of it. In a 2011 post she said she would regret it “to my dying day”, and that she takes responsibility for it. Where you land depends on whether you read that as a real reckoning or as covering only one picture, but it is the one real mark on a long record.
On the harm test, nothing nasty turned up. Her 2025 SAG Awards speech argued that empathy is not weak or woke, and that “woke just means that you give a damn about other people.” She also called for a “big tent” to resist what she sees as coming. That is her political argument, and it is aimed at helping people rather than hurting them. I did find reports of her backing LGBTQ+ rights, but I couldn't open the pages, so I'm not leaning on them.
In October 2025 she relaunched the Committee for the First Amendment, the free speech group her father joined in 1947. It drew hundreds of signatories including Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand and Viola Davis, and it was launched after the brief suspension of Jimmy Kimmel's show. She has also said that at 87 “this is not the time to go inward”, which sums up her third act.
The good stuff is long. She got SAG-AFTRA's Life Achievement Award in 2025, and she is still turning up for causes in her late eighties rather than coasting. Fans love her for staying loud and funny. She hasn't gone into conspiracy theories or grievance, which is more than can be said for plenty of her critics.