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Re: Vet Pays Back Hanoi Jane
Kirby: Cutting Hanoi Jane a little slack
By Robert Kirby
Tribune Columnist
I have seen exactly one Jane Fonda movie in my life. In fact, I've seen more of Fonda on screen because she was once married to Ted Turner than I ever saw because of her acting.
I once saw all of Jane. In 1968 I managed to sit through every second of "Barbarella," including the credits. The film itself was just awful, but I was a teenage boy and serious skin was at stake.
My dislike for Fonda came naturally. I grew up an Army brat. My father and the fathers of most of my childhood friends served in the Vietnam War.
Men who Fonda called "murderers" we knew as decent men doing a crappy job in worse haircuts. They coached us, treated our moms with respect and made us come home by curfew.
So we didn't appreciate the roundest set of heels in Hollywood referring to our fathers as "liars" and "war criminals." Later, when faced with the prospect of Vietnam ourselves, my friends and I would have rather stayed home and shot Jane.
Until recently, I wouldn't have taken time out of a root canal to listen to anything Fonda had to say. Even as I got older and understood more about the senseless tragedy of that war, she remained beneath contempt.
Lately, this unforgiving view has started to slip. Fonda has publicly admitted that she went a bit overboard protesting the war. In particular, she apologized for preening atop a communist anti-aircraft gun during a photo op in North Vietnam.
Fonda, who hasn't renounced her opposition to the Vietnam War, probably doesn't want to be understood solely for this spectacular lapse of judgment. That's fair.
It's also fair that America doesn't want its efforts to thwart the spread of communism in the world to be defined solely by the My Lai Massacre.
Like Fonda and my country, I have done some regrettable things. But I have enough miles on me now to hope that I am more than just the sum of those past stupidities.
Does Fonda's apology undo the pain and rage she once caused? Nope. I still don't like her or her politics. But today I am a little more willing to cut her a tiny bit of slack as a human being.
At my age, life seems mostly about trying to be a better person. And for people who hope to be that, better doesn't come by returning hurt for hurt.
I hope I'm better enough today that I wouldn't do something stupid like spit in Fonda's face just because she once caused me pain.
Not Mark Smith, 54, who was arrested Wednesday for spitting tobacco juice into Fonda's face at a Kansas City book signing. Smith said it was a "debt of honor" he owed all Vietnam vets, most of whom he claims were spat upon when they came home.
I'm not sure how Smith or anyone finds "honor" in this sort of behavior. It's certainly not my father's definition of the word. Maybe it's how you twist the word to suit your needs.
I'll have to stick with the definition of better. Nothing I've learned about trying to improve myself has taught me to confuse better with bitter.
---------------- M E R G E D ---------------
CBS/AP) Decades after her Vietnam War protests and 15 years since her last movie, actress Jane Fonda still commands headlines.
Fonda has a new film, “Monster-In-Law,” set to open next week. And she is traveling the country promoting her new book, "My Life So Far," which was released earlier this month.
It was at one of the those book signings, in Kansas City, Mo., last Tuesday, that Vietnam veteran Michael A. Smith spit tobacco juice in her face, calling Fonda a traitor for the way she protested the Vietnam War, including her infamous 1972 visit to Hanoi.
On Sunday Morning, contributor David Edelstein reviews Fonda’s new film, which also stars Jennifer Lopez, and looks back on her career.
That career, highlighted by two Academy Awards and five Oscar nominations, is detailed in her memoirs - which she calls the three acts of her life. Her opposition to the Vietnam War is detailed as well along with her visit to North Vietnam that made her an enemy of many veterans and earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane."
She has apologized for posing on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes, but that doesn’t mean anything to the spitting suspect. Arrested for disorderly conduct, Smith told a newspaper he had no regrets: "It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did."
In an interview broadcast on 60 Minutes Fonda said of the anti-aircraft gun picture: "I will go to my grave regretting that. The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter, just a woman sitting on an enemy aircraft gun, was a betrayal. It was like I was thumbing my nose at the military. And at the country that gave me privilege. It was the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine. I don't thumb my nose at this country. I care deeply about American soldiers."
Also in that interview, Fonda discussed her childhood as the daughter of film legend Henry Fonda, the 50 movies she has made in her career and her three failed marriages: to film director Roger Vadim ( 1965-73), activist Tom Hayden ( 1973-1990) and media mogul Ted Turner ( 1991-2001).
In “Monster-In-Law,” a romantic comedy directed by Robert Luketic, Fonda plays Viola Fields, a merciless woman who stops at nothing to destroy the relationship between her son and the character played by Lopez. The movie also stars Michael Vartan and Wanda Sykes.
Kirby: Cutting Hanoi Jane a little slack
By Robert Kirby
Tribune Columnist
I have seen exactly one Jane Fonda movie in my life. In fact, I've seen more of Fonda on screen because she was once married to Ted Turner than I ever saw because of her acting.
I once saw all of Jane. In 1968 I managed to sit through every second of "Barbarella," including the credits. The film itself was just awful, but I was a teenage boy and serious skin was at stake.
My dislike for Fonda came naturally. I grew up an Army brat. My father and the fathers of most of my childhood friends served in the Vietnam War.
Men who Fonda called "murderers" we knew as decent men doing a crappy job in worse haircuts. They coached us, treated our moms with respect and made us come home by curfew.
So we didn't appreciate the roundest set of heels in Hollywood referring to our fathers as "liars" and "war criminals." Later, when faced with the prospect of Vietnam ourselves, my friends and I would have rather stayed home and shot Jane.
Until recently, I wouldn't have taken time out of a root canal to listen to anything Fonda had to say. Even as I got older and understood more about the senseless tragedy of that war, she remained beneath contempt.
Lately, this unforgiving view has started to slip. Fonda has publicly admitted that she went a bit overboard protesting the war. In particular, she apologized for preening atop a communist anti-aircraft gun during a photo op in North Vietnam.
Fonda, who hasn't renounced her opposition to the Vietnam War, probably doesn't want to be understood solely for this spectacular lapse of judgment. That's fair.
It's also fair that America doesn't want its efforts to thwart the spread of communism in the world to be defined solely by the My Lai Massacre.
Like Fonda and my country, I have done some regrettable things. But I have enough miles on me now to hope that I am more than just the sum of those past stupidities.
Does Fonda's apology undo the pain and rage she once caused? Nope. I still don't like her or her politics. But today I am a little more willing to cut her a tiny bit of slack as a human being.
At my age, life seems mostly about trying to be a better person. And for people who hope to be that, better doesn't come by returning hurt for hurt.
I hope I'm better enough today that I wouldn't do something stupid like spit in Fonda's face just because she once caused me pain.
Not Mark Smith, 54, who was arrested Wednesday for spitting tobacco juice into Fonda's face at a Kansas City book signing. Smith said it was a "debt of honor" he owed all Vietnam vets, most of whom he claims were spat upon when they came home.
I'm not sure how Smith or anyone finds "honor" in this sort of behavior. It's certainly not my father's definition of the word. Maybe it's how you twist the word to suit your needs.
I'll have to stick with the definition of better. Nothing I've learned about trying to improve myself has taught me to confuse better with bitter.
---------------- M E R G E D ---------------
CBS/AP) Decades after her Vietnam War protests and 15 years since her last movie, actress Jane Fonda still commands headlines.
Fonda has a new film, “Monster-In-Law,” set to open next week. And she is traveling the country promoting her new book, "My Life So Far," which was released earlier this month.
It was at one of the those book signings, in Kansas City, Mo., last Tuesday, that Vietnam veteran Michael A. Smith spit tobacco juice in her face, calling Fonda a traitor for the way she protested the Vietnam War, including her infamous 1972 visit to Hanoi.
On Sunday Morning, contributor David Edelstein reviews Fonda’s new film, which also stars Jennifer Lopez, and looks back on her career.
That career, highlighted by two Academy Awards and five Oscar nominations, is detailed in her memoirs - which she calls the three acts of her life. Her opposition to the Vietnam War is detailed as well along with her visit to North Vietnam that made her an enemy of many veterans and earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane."
She has apologized for posing on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun used to shoot down American planes, but that doesn’t mean anything to the spitting suspect. Arrested for disorderly conduct, Smith told a newspaper he had no regrets: "It was absolutely worth it. There are a lot of veterans who would love to do what I did."
In an interview broadcast on 60 Minutes Fonda said of the anti-aircraft gun picture: "I will go to my grave regretting that. The image of Jane Fonda, Barbarella, Henry Fonda's daughter, just a woman sitting on an enemy aircraft gun, was a betrayal. It was like I was thumbing my nose at the military. And at the country that gave me privilege. It was the largest lapse of judgment that I can even imagine. I don't thumb my nose at this country. I care deeply about American soldiers."
Also in that interview, Fonda discussed her childhood as the daughter of film legend Henry Fonda, the 50 movies she has made in her career and her three failed marriages: to film director Roger Vadim ( 1965-73), activist Tom Hayden ( 1973-1990) and media mogul Ted Turner ( 1991-2001).
In “Monster-In-Law,” a romantic comedy directed by Robert Luketic, Fonda plays Viola Fields, a merciless woman who stops at nothing to destroy the relationship between her son and the character played by Lopez. The movie also stars Michael Vartan and Wanda Sykes.
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