Being a very big fan of Jane Fonda, I focus on Dyer's textbook for this blog post and his very detailed analysis of Jane Fonda persona, which was, as he claims, built upon her father's reputation, her acting, and her strong radical politics.
Dyer argues that at the beginning of her career, Jane Fonda was always referred to in relation to her father, who was an undeniable Hollywood royalty. All newspapers, especially the Times, spoke of her as a “second generation-Fonda with a smile her father’s and legs like a chorus girl.” This definition and this box she was placed in, dictated most of the roles she was offered and especially how she was painted on several movie posters. That was the tool that most of the publicity promoted a movie she was starring in. This constriction within her persona only started to slacken after her movie “They shoot horses, don’t they” (1969) and her ferocious entering into radical politics. After this moment, she was still occasionally correlated with her father but not in quite the same defining way as before. This was, in fact, inevitable to a certain extent, as Jane and her father carried two fundamental connotations, which were their compelling Americanness and their left-wing liberalism. Her father completely embodied for an entire nation who was looking up to him, those important qualities that are “American, middle class, and good (Rolling Stone, 9 March 1978)” around which Jane grew up in. Thus, this notion of All-Americanness was directly reproduced upon Jane Fonda’s physical similarities to her father as well as other elements in her personal life and acting career. The fact that she was brought up on a farm or that she attended one of the most notorious all-female colleges in the United States. She was labeled by the public itself as an iconic image of American normalcy, being “the majorette.” Dyer argues that “this deliberate Americanness has been an important element in her later career, which, with its French sex films and radical politics, has in substance been the antithesis of all-Americanness.” It is safe to say, Jane’s relation to her father was built upon the inheritance of physical, cultural, and political traits. This is how critics saw and defined her. But the notion of Jane Fonda constantly striving to negotiate this aspect of her life was extremely central to her image. The cause of this phenomenon in her life was partly because of her fame, but mostly due to the “spread of Freudian ideas of America endowing the image of father/daughter relationships with a greater charge than their mother/daughter equivalent.” Thus, the unhealthy psychological aspect of Jane’s relationship with her father led her to constantly search for father figures in her life and career.
As I mentioned before, her physical appearance and her sex appeal were the main elements that publicity used to sell movies she was starring in. However, this was also acting against her, as, whenever she was involved in a political discussion, newspapers would introduce her as “Jane: the battling beauty who is preaching revolution” or “Hollywood, friendzdiely searching for its own backbone, might well study the philosophy of Jane Fonda. Studying the anatomy would be no hardship either.” She was fighting the contradiction of her plane beauty but passionate attractiveness. It was indeed quite hurtful how crudely her sex appeal was constructed most of the time in her career. This was alimented by her relationship with director Vladim, who contributed in intensifying the sex element in Fonda’s persona, but also complicated it and alimented the negative news about her. This was also due to her statements when she claimed that he managed to liberate her through his movies. However, their openness about their private sexuality managed to shut the media up to a certain extent, as it couldn’t be seen as sexual objectification anymore. She was genuinely and simply coming to terms with her very discussed sexuality. In addition, because this happened in Europe, it gave the idea of liberation a certain credibility, which, Dyer states, “this belonged to a familiar cultural syndrome.” Her political radicalism that brought her to do things like, taking part in the occupation of Alcatraz, or her association with the Huey Newton of the black panthers, her anti-Vietnam War work in GI coffee-houses in which she was also arrested, and her strong feminism. Despite all of this, the public and media still wouldn’t take her seriously, saying “her dangerous political fling, may well deprive her of that Oscar accolade tomorrow night” or “she’s the instant cause girl, working for the right causes for what I think are the wrong reasons. She won’t be satisfied until they burn her like Joan of Arc.”
From last class screenings, it is safe to say political involvement very much defined one’s career for actors. In “Paul Robeson: Here I Stand” documentary, it is shown how his political stands had a direct effect on his career. After he reached the pinnacle of success in 1930s, he started speaking out against America’s racism and declared his support for the USSR as an antidote to fascism and imperialism. However, because of this, he was put under surveillance by the FBI, was blacklisted across the country, and was denied a passport by the State Department. The documentary, in fact, showed, the price he had to pay in his career as an actor for being also a spokesperson for black liberation. His passion for acting very much clashed with his ardent attempt to remain true to his principles, as the acting opportunities offered to him at that time were mostly against what he passionately stand for.
In relation to this, “Show Boat” was an aberration under many aspects. Leaving aside the fact that it was a high-budget musical, which was a rare bold choice for Universal Pictures, that was mostly producing westerns and comedies at the time. But what the film really did, was to dare to show the uglier aspect of the late 19th century of the Southern States environment surrounding the Mississippi communities. Thus, touching upon the racial segregation, which was a taboo topic for Hollywood. Robeson’s role was very much elevated, although not present in the entire film. The way he sings the lyrics of Hammerstein emphasizes the racial double standard and somehow promises a life away from “the white boss.”
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