EP. 55 — Jane Fonda

Jameela: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another episode of I Weigh with Jameela Jamil. I have nothing to say other than Jane fucking Fonda is on my fucking podcast. How the hell has this happened? I have been obsessed with her for basically my entire life. I was so little when I first became aware of her work as a comedic actress, as a serious actor, as a as a producer, as this incredible iconic entertainer and one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. I was so in love with her as a kid and as an adult, really. But this was before I even came to learn about what an extraordinary life this woman has lived, the ways in which she has risked her life, risked her sanity, her general well-being, the well-being of her family, all in the name of leveraging her privilege to help those who have less, all in the name of equal rights for all. She is just fearless and so interesting and sharp and funny and strong and inspiring. And listen, guys, I’m just going to level with you. You’ve heard me give some fairly competent interviews over the course of the last year, and very rarely do I become a sort of wilting, sweating squirrel. But unfortunately for us all, this is one of those times, and I was so mad at myself afterwards, I was like, what the fuck was that Jameela? Why were you such a weird, timid, gushing freak of nature? But I. I was. You’re going to hear like the little girl in me who’s been obsessed with this woman forever. I felt so, so small and shy and vulnerable. And I was on Zoom with Jane, and she’s just looking right into my soul through the Zoom. And I just couldn’t I couldn’t cope. I was so overwhelmed with what a big deal it was that she was on my podcast. And I don’t often get starstruck. And I’ve met her before and interviewed her before, but it just never wears off because she’s just it’s so far beyond entertainment or or fame or talent even it’s. It’s just what an extraordinary human being. It’s so rare that you ever get to meet someone so extraordinary, so full of love, so full of empathy, so full of humility and desire to learn, so self analytical, so, so terrifyingly and intimidatingly bright and and brave and and willing to just go to the hardest conversations in order to make sure that they had willing to sacrifice all of her privacy and be so entirely vulnerable and frank about her life, about her shortcomings, about her mistakes, about her existence in order to make other people feel seen. I didn’t you know, I remember for years thinking that she was associated with the, you know, the kind of the exercise world. I mean, she was a leader in the exercise world, had probably, I think, still the biggest selling VHS of all time with her exercise a workout video. But I used to think of that as like a kind of frivolous actress getting into a workout. I had no idea that she was funding grassroots activism with the money, all of the money that she was making from her books and and exercise videos and all of her appearances around the world about it. I had no idea that that was her motivation. It was nothing to do with vanity. It was nothing to do with thinness. It was nothing to do with diet culture. This woman was trying to save lives with something that was accessible to her anyway. I am so sorry that I became a little girl during this interview. I had the best time ever. I, I wish I had been sharper and cooler and better, but I’m never going to forget that she took the time out of her busy, busy life trying to literally save the world to come on and talk to me about how she arrived, activism about her journey through mental health, about the things that she has seen and done about love, about her relationship with her self, and about climate change and climate justice and all of the important information that she was willing to share with me about that. Amongst many other things. We went everywhere. We went everywhere. We did everything. I hope you enjoy this episode. I’m going to stop talking because I’m so irrelevant anyway. Never mind when Jane Fonda is about to speak. So here she is. She is a literal fucking icon. And I’m I’m freaking out guys. I’m never like this. Oh, God. Why am I so cringe? OK. Enjoy DM me. I really, really, really want to know how you feel about this. Oh, and please go and watch the documentary Jane Fonda In Five Acts, because it’s the wildest and most extraordinary life story that you could imagine. Lots of love. [00:05:26][326.6]

Jane: [00:05:46] You look like Vampira. [00:05:46][0.7]

Jameela: [00:05:48] Who’s Vampira? [00:05:49][0.5]

Jane: [00:05:50] I don’t know, some very exotic woman with long, dark hair. [00:05:55][5.6]

Jameela: [00:05:57] That’s an amazing way to start. [00:05:59][1.2]

Jane: [00:06:00] Amy Winehouse eyes. [00:06:00][0.3]

Jameela: [00:06:01] Oh sure I’ll take that. Jane Fonda, welcome to I Weigh. How are you? [00:06:07][5.4]

Jane: [00:06:08] I’m good. It’s good to see you. [00:06:09][1.6]

Jameela: [00:06:10] It’s lovely to see you again. Yes, indeed. We have only met a couple of times. And every time you have just struck me as such, such a dream of empowerment, kindness, openness, guidance, humility, confidence and just coolness [00:06:33][22.5]

Jane: [00:06:33] That shows what you know. [00:06:34][0.5]

Jameela: [00:06:41] Maybe not. But I [00:06:42][0.8]

Jane: [00:06:43] You got that wrong. [00:06:43][0.3]

Jameela: [00:06:43] I, I love you. I love you so much. And I know that’s weird because I don’t know you, but I can’t tell you what a role model you are for me. Well, a blueprint I feel like you’ve created for people like me. For all women everywhere, people everywhere. And just how much I admire you and also how much how grateful I am for how much of your life story that you have shared over the course of your life, because it has made people like me feel less alone. [00:07:11][27.6]

Jane: [00:07:12] Oh thank you, Jamila, that it blows my mind that that you say that and I’m honored that you say that. And I love The Good Place. And I started watching it because I love Ted Danson and I had never seen like you on the screen and so beautiful. And you’re such a great figure and and so you just aren’t afraid of sending yourself up. And I just loved you and that character and then when I finally met you, I felt like I had known you when you were so friendly. And I’m very happy that we’re becoming friends. [00:07:49][37.2]

Jameela: [00:07:50] Likewise, I have to say that it feels as though I would need an entire podcast season with you to cover how extraordinary your life has been. So it’s been quite stressful trying to figure out what the fuck I’m going to ask Jane Fonda about, because there are a billion questions I have [00:08:07][16.7]

Jane: [00:08:08] Well when you’re ready for it, it’ll be the somebody interviewing you, when there’s a lot of water under the bridge there’s a lot to say. [00:08:14][6.0]

Jameela: [00:08:14] I’m afraid it’s not. It’s not it doesn’t matter if you’re eighty four or not. I’ve met other eighty four year olds who do not have so many life experiences under their belt. But as this is a mental health podcast and mental health is something that you have spoken about so much over the course of your life, I was wondering if you could tell us for those who maybe do not know yet, what has your experience been like with your mental health across your life? [00:08:39][24.9]

Jane: [00:08:40] Oh, OK. Well, to be perfectly honest, I started off handicapped, OK? My mother was my mother had been sexually abused at a young age. She was bipolar and she killed herself when I was 12 and my father suffered from undiagnosed depression. And if there had been Prozac, then our whole lives would have been different and you know. So I started off my life as a pretty depressed, repressed person. But here is and I sort of was that way until I became an activist in my early thirties and then everything sort of changed for me, I felt that I had a reason to be on earth, my purpose in life. I started meeting different kinds of people. I started getting more of a sense of the sorts of people that I wanted to be like I wanted to have my life have meaning. I wanted to be brave. I wanted to leave this world better than when I came in it all those kind of things. And I’ve been thinking and realizing lately that one of the important things that I’ve done that I encourage people to do is I have been brave enough to continually get out of my comfort zone. I think it’s very important to do that and it can mean many different things. It certainly means. Has meant for me over and over again, taking a hard look at the relationship that I’m in and trying to figure out, do I want to stay here, is being in this relationship going to help me become a person that I want to be? Is it going to help me grow and expand? And if the answer is no, I leave. I don’t want to get stuck. [00:10:46][126.4]

Jameela: [00:10:47] And I think it’s really important to illustrate that while I think you may be mean, emotional or sort of romantic relationships, I also would extend that, hopefully with your grace to. To any kind of relationship, be that work relationship, be that one with a parent or a sibling or someone in your life who you are close to, who you need to distance yourself from, that autonomy is so important to keep checking in with yourself. What do I need? And women are so discouraged from ever asking themselves that question because we are sort of born with this understanding or this programing at least, that this nurture rather than nature. [00:11:25][37.1]

Jane: [00:11:26] We have to make it better. I’ve gotta make it. I have to stay here and help them. [00:11:28][2.1]

Jameela: [00:11:31] Yeah. We have to placate everyone. We must always put ourselves second if that and and selfishness is something that is far more admired or at least accepted in men, whereas in us it is this huge taboo. How did you manage to find your your will to walk towards self-preservation? [00:11:49][18.5]

Jane: [00:11:51] I just I have a I don’t I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m really afraid of getting to the end of life with with regrets and regrets are always about what you didn’t do. And and so if I’m in a relationship that I’m going to regret staying, and that gives me the courage to leave. I mean, with guys I’m in relationships with with men, I have issues with men. I’m single now and I realize that I’m really just not gifted at relationships. You wouldn’t know it because I do what women do. You know, I really put myself wholeheartedly into it. You know, I give myself over a lot, but then a point comes when I realize that I have to separate myself and go my my own way if I’m going to grow. And I mean, the point of life, it seems to me, is to grow. One of the smartest things that I did was with this fear of regrets when I turned when I was approaching my sixtieth birthday and realizing it would it was my it would be the beginning of my last act, my third act. And, you know, a third acts are important. I realized that in order to know where you want to go, you have to know where you’ve been. Now, this may not resonate with you and your audience because you’re probably quite young all of you, but. [00:13:20][88.7]

Jameela: [00:13:20] I don’t know. [00:13:21][0.4]

Jane: [00:13:21] If if the people who are older, I think that they will understand. What I did was I spent a number of years researching myself. I mean, that means not just I did this, then I did this. I did this, but how did I feel? And in order to get that, you sort of have to take yourself like an actor, take yourself back there to the experience even when you were very young. And try to relive that, the turning points in your life and why they happened and what you were really feeling, and who are your parents, who were your parents, why did they behave the way they did? And that in order to answer that, you have to know who your grandparents were and how they treated your parents and what they taught to your parents. And anyway, after a number of years, actually what I did was I wrote my memoir and and because I was dealing with very universal issues, that it was very useful for people to read my memoir because it’s all the things in it are pretty are pretty universal. But what that ends up doing, if you really do it deeply. And you and you and you you know, you don’t just skim the surface, what it shows you is that it had nothing to do with you, that your parents had their issues for reasons that you have to try to understand so you can forgive them. But it wasn’t your fault. Then you begin to discover who you are. And it was this was the smartest thing. But it has enabled me to live these last decades of my life as a much more grounded and whole person that I would have otherwise. You know, it’s like, you know what I’m talking about. [00:15:16][114.4]

Jameela: [00:15:16] I do. I do. And I also think because my generation were far more exposed to the conversation of mental health, thanks to your generation and thanks to the rise of the Internet and social media and the hyper normalization of the mental health discussion, I do actually think what you’re saying is more relevant to my audience than you would presume. And I think that this last year has kind of fast forwarded everyone on Earth into a state of stillness among the chaos that has forced us to really look at our lives, look at the way that we’re living, look at the world at large, what does what is normal? Do we want to return to a normal what do we make the new normal of our individual and societal experiences look like? And that’s not just our individual changes, but the changes that we make as allies, as people who support other causes outside of our own lived experience. So I really appreciate that. And I think that that’s a really, really sage piece of advice that anyone could use at any age that look back before you step forward. You’ve said before when little you adopt survival mechanisms, but then they last too long and they last beyond their usable time, they become impediments to growth. And you reflect that it took many decades to learn to not be afraid of saying how you feel or to allow your vulnerability. And I find that very interesting, something that I resonate with. I remember the last time I saw you, you commented on very fairly and accurately the fact that I can be I can come across quite closed off, quite guarded. And part of that is just because I think I I’m in awe of you, but also that is just a self-defense mechanism because I really struggle to be vulnerable because I had a very similar childhood in many ways to you. I grew up around a lot of mental health issues. And it took me until now to recognize that those mental health issues of my parents or my family members weren’t my fault, that they were victims of their parents and their family members. Any kind of lineage of neglect and abuse that led to, you know, the residue or the debris falling on my brother and I. And and so I I’m still working on opening up. And I was wondering if you could give me some tips. [00:17:34][138.2]

Jane: [00:17:36] It’s a lifelong process. You’ll go on the whole your whole life. You have to keep working on it. We have to understand that mental health can cast a shadow over future generations. For example, there are certain things that happen to a woman who has been sexually abused. The bond of trust is broken. It can be promiscuity. It can be hating body. It can be cutting. It can be if your wealth if you cut. That’s one thing. If you have money, it’s plastic surgery. You know, it’s just just hating your body. And the way you look, there’s all kinds of manifestations from sexual abuse and it can lightly dust the daughter, but it can fall hard on the granddaughter. You know, she won’t know why or the mother won’t know why her daughter is behaving in a certain way, in certain ways and so forth. It’s really important to find out these things, to understand why these things happen, why are our parents did certain things? And yes, we find out that it’s not our fault, but then we start to know how to heal, because if we don’t consciously and intentionally address the issues, first of all, admit they happen, understand oftentimes that can happen by reading. I’ve learned so much just by reading about mental health issues. Alice Miller, for example, all of her books, she’s the very famous psychiatrist and she’s written great, great books about mental health. That’s helped me enormously. And many other I read vociferously about sexual abuse and. [00:19:29][113.4]

Jameela: [00:19:30] Is that because of what your mother went through and how that then. [00:19:33][3.2]

Jane: [00:19:34] Even before I knew what my mother went through, I started an organization in Georgia to try to help young boys and girls from getting pregnant while they’re still so young. And and what I found out was that girls who are 15 or younger, you can bet your life if they’re pregnant or parenting, it’s they were sexually abused. And I became absolutely fascinated with that. So I started studying it even before I knew about my mother. I was attracted to that issue. You can heal from these things, but not unless you understand them and are very intentional about healing. And the process of healing continues for all your life. But that’s good. [00:20:16][42.7]

Jameela: [00:20:18] What was it about your childhood that you think made you closed off? Was it the fact that you had a father who wasn’t particularly forthcoming with his feelings, as you said before, that no one knew that he had depression. He didn’t maybe even know he had depression. You also had a mother who really struggled was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. She was really struggling with her mental health. Was there a feeling of because I know that this is what I had of I have to cope through this. I have to be the one that copes. I’m strong. I see I see stoicism as a sign of strength. And I, I don’t want to resemble any of these people in my life. Therefore, I’m not going to show any weakness by demonstrating any of their behaviors in myself. I’m Jane. [00:21:05][47.7]

Jane: [00:21:06] I knew I knew that there was really no place that I could occasionally I would have a girlfriend that had a mother who had empathy. But for the most part, where was I going to turn? So I and my brother was very different than me. My brother would fall apart much more. He was much, much more fragile. And I would be in need of, I mean, needy. He was much more needy and fragile. And I didn’t want to be like that. So I was the, you know, I was the strong one. I remember when I was twelve when my mother killed herself the same year my brother accidentally shot himself. In fact, he was he was pronounced dead. [00:21:51][44.5]

Jameela: [00:21:52] I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How did your brother almost shoot him or did he [00:21:55][3.2]

Jane: [00:21:55] They were playing with an antique gun that went off in his stomach. And it was just it was just luck the bullet specialist happened to be in the hospital and he was saved. But, you know, it’s like I didn’t. I didn’t cry, I didn’t even when I found out my mother died, I didn’t cry or anything and people would say, isn’t she amazing? She’s so strong. I became the rap on me. I’m so strong. And that’s what I meant when you quoted me much, something I must have written that that was my armor then that got me through. I’m strong. But then later on in life, what happens is you become a person who won’t express needs, won’t express vulnerability, won’t turn to anybody for help. I mean, it’s very, very hard for me to ask for help. [00:22:45][50.1]

Jameela: [00:22:47] I sometimes get accused of coming across as cold. And I think it’s because I’m maybe so afraid of how many feelings are in here that if I if I even crack the window, a tsunami’s coming out of me. I think that I’ve held in so much and bottled up so much and you know I, similarly to you, have family members who took our situation growing up much worse than I did. And for me, I don’t know if you did this, but I switched a part of my brain off at the age of about six or seven where I was just like, right, this isn’t happening to me anymore. This is a film. This is a this is a something I’m witnessing. This is something I’m not a part of. I’m just I’m here, but my body and my mind are safe somewhere else. I just sort of detached from myself. And I think that as much as that has definitely harmed my development, I have an arrested development emotionally. I’ve also I also credit that with how I survived everything that happened, whereas it broke other people around me. [00:23:52][65.3]

Jane: [00:23:53] Yeah. So you’ve survived so [00:23:54][1.4]

Jameela: [00:23:55] It’s a weird gift and curse at the same time. [00:23:56][0.8]

Jane: [00:23:56] Are you in therapy? [00:23:56][0.0]

Jameela: [00:23:56] Yes, Jesus Christ, yeah. [00:23:58][2.5]

Jane: [00:24:00] You need to go through with this. [00:24:02][1.9]

Jameela: [00:24:03] Yeah, no, I’m better than I used to be. Yeah. [00:24:06][3.4]

Jane: [00:24:06] What you’re describing is a typical a survival mechanism, but it is by the way, I know the people who are listening. I just want you to know I’m looking at my laptop screen at Jameela. I just want to say this is the most beautiful face. I just want you to know because you can’t see anyway, just to continue. What you described is a universal mechanism. You know, girls who are being incested or abused as young girls leave their bodies and they are up in the ceiling looking down at themselves, separated from themselves. Now, the challenge is you have to bring bring that little girl up on the ceiling down into your body and you know, and and heal. And you can [00:24:55][48.4]

Jameela: [00:24:56] what was what was it that helped you to become even be able to create that stoicism in yourself? Did you switch off and then you switched back on later? Yeah. [00:25:07][10.8]

Jane: [00:25:07] Yeah. I can’t even pretend that I totally switch back on. But, you know, I think it’s why I have it’s hard for me to be in. I mean, I’ve been married three times. Ten, ten years. Ten years. Seventeen years. It’s not too bad. But why they didn’t last, I think is partly because I can’t entirely switch back on. I just don’t have the emotional reactions that other people do. I can as an actor. Maybe one many mechanisms [00:25:39][32.0]

Jameela: [00:25:45] yeah, you once spoke about that, about your father saying that he was only able to access his emotions via a script. [00:25:51][6.8]

Jane: [00:25:52] Yeah. [00:25:52][0.0]

Jameela: [00:25:54] You also said before that you felt as though none of those marriages which we’re not going to go into now, but none of them were democratic. You always had to silence or hide a part of yourself in order to become what they wanted you to be. And I also feel like that’s something easier to do when you are a closed off person, you kind of shape shift because you don’t have such a firm sense of identity yet that you’re more watery and able to find other people’s levels. And the more stable I become and the more mentally well I become, the harder I’m finding it with age too. [00:26:26][32.4]

Jane: [00:26:26] Yeah absolutely. [00:26:27][0.1]

Jameela: [00:26:27] To budge an inch. The people for for relationships or work or any dynamic I have. I’m finding it like I’m just grinding to a halt and I feel really good about that, even though sometimes it leads to lonelier moments where there is a tremendous loneliness that we don’t speak about enough of when you’re living an authentic life because then you feel like you’re not even close to yourself. And that to me is the loneliest feeling in the world, [00:26:55][28.3]

Jane: [00:26:56] Being in inauthentic relationships, this core self. This place that is supposed to be filled with spirit, the spirit that unites us with everything, wholeness is empty. And so people fill it with all kinds of drugs, alcohol, sex, workaholism, food. You fill it with food and then you get rid of it. That’s a lot of bulimia comes from that. I speak from experience. [00:27:29][33.6]

Jameela: [00:27:30] I was going to say, you have you had a quite a long journey with bulimia. How old were you when that started? [00:27:35][5.0]

Jane: [00:27:36] I was about I would say 13, 14. [00:27:39][3.1]

Jameela: [00:27:41] And you would binge and binge in bed and and then purge. I would do all of the bingeing and then I would never manage to purge. And now I’m very grateful for it. But at the time, it just may be significantly bigger than I was planning on being because I would only regularly binge and then just sort of go to sleep. But I’m very grateful. My organs are very grateful that I was not successful at that. But you would say that that was your way of trying to fill the void, that space between you and the version of yourself that you’re projecting and pretending to be. [00:28:13][31.7]

Jane: [00:28:13] Yes. [00:28:13][0.0]

Jameela: [00:28:21] What has your journey with your body been like over the course of your life? How have you managed to come out of that? [00:28:27][6.1]

Jane: [00:28:29] I reached a point in my late forties. Early 40s, when I realized that that if I continued with this eating disorder, that I would not be able to function and I had a very full life. I was a working actor. I had two children. I had a husband. I had a I was a political activist. And that, you know, that I could very well die. And nobody knew that I did this. It was like I could hide it pretty well and that I had to stop. And so instead of going to any kind of treatment or anything like that, I simply I went cold turkey. And I, I, I the more distance you can put between yourself and the last time you binge, the better. So I just forced myself to to stop. And then I started the the Jane Fonda workout. And that really helped me. I found I found that with that kind of working out, I could I could control my body better without having to to purge and eat too much. And then gradually, little by little, I just no longer felt the need to to to do it. And I can’t, look, I can’t ever pretend that I am totally rid of body anxiety, I’m not I grew up with my father at a time when well, I guess it’s true now too women were judged by their bodies. I was. I mean, my body, my body problems were really had a big impact on my life for a long time. [00:30:18][109.8]

Jameela: [00:30:19] I think that’s amazing. I’ve recovered from bulimia and I also think it’s really important to remind people listening that it’s OK if you don’t fully overcome the body dysmorphia, it’s OK. And it’s very statistically it’s very common. I think it’s something like 60 percent of the people who suffer with eating disorders or at least two thirds even will always carry a little part of that anxiety from that time in hating the image and that you should never feel like you failed. It’s just an ongoing, incremental journey to keep trying to accept yourself. And I think that’s a large part of my work publicly is to just try and remind people of the root causes of those eating disorders [00:30:59][40.2]

Jane: [00:31:00] Right and things that cause anxiety, like inauthentic relationships or a parent that that confronts you with body issues and things like that, whatever they are, I have also found that anti anxiety medication done with a doctor can be very helpful, you know, Prozac kind of things that the serotonin reuptake inhibitor can can really help people. [00:31:28][27.6]

Jameela: [00:31:29] I also wonder if partially your activism has been a big part in saving your life, because it’s something that I know that you consider to be one of the more important and enriching things that’s ever, I don’t know, not happened to you, but you’ve ever been involved in. [00:31:43][14.2]

Jane: [00:31:45] Yeah, I. Human beings need to have meaning in their lives, all of us do, we need to be able to look at our lives and feel that there is meaning. The meaning can be, I am raising wonderful children. The meaning can be I am helping a neighborhood stay safe. What it can be different things for different people. But I’m I am making something of my life. And for the first 30 years of my life, that was not the case. And as a result, I led a pretty hedonistic life. I drank too much. I did drugs and all kinds of other things when I decided for all kinds of reasons that we don’t have time to go into now, I decided to leave that life. And is my way when I make a detour and change, I do it like five hundred percent and met totally different kinds of people and discovered a whole new world. I was so happy. There was no question about going back to anything else or I don’t know, I mean, I just I felt I felt at home in my skin for the first time. And as I’ve gotten older and continued my activism, it’s just grown grown deeper and deeper. I wasn’t depressed anymore either. [00:33:15][89.7]

Jameela: [00:33:16] I also feel as though my generation in particular and the generation after mine are encouraged to think of ourselves as an island, as a singular entity to like, focus on and and only try to nourish our and this is what maybe changed in the last year. But until then, because of the monster that is capitalism, they want us to be self obsessive, self-critical and self analytical and constantly try to acquire more things that will make us impressive to others. They don’t really encourage community. Social media can encourage community, but it can also drive us farther and farther apart. And I think that for me, what advocacy has brought to my life is that I feel better, feeling smaller, feeling less relevant, feeling part of something bigger. It makes me feel less alone. And and I think thinking of causes that are that can shift your reality into more perspective is calming and engaging and to have something to to want to find a solution for to want to help people to make a difference to someone else’s life. It’s something that we’re just I mean, now it’s become, thank God, something that is more trendy and more socially acceptable and more encouraged. But up until now, I think a lot of us have suffered from that feeling of [00:34:38][81.9]

Jane: [00:34:38] Yeah it started in the 80s, it’s Reaganism. It was very deliberate. Collective. The word collective became a bad word. I heard Trump a number on a number of occasions degrade the word collective individualism was extolled and it was done culturally. It was done on a number of different levels, but it was very intentional. At the same time, corporate power in our political system was increasing. When we are not dealing as individuals, but dealing as a collective power, there is power as individuals, there’s not much we can do. There just isn’t. I mean, it’s nice to make changes in your life that’s important because it makes you feel good. But we can’t really the changes that are needed to make this place livable, this planet are require a collective solution and and individualism gets in the way of that. So this collective crisis, for example, that is the climate crisis, couldn’t be happening at a worse time at a time when individualism has been extolled. And I hope you’re right that because of Covid, people are more or less tending to be individualistic. I grew up in the 30s and 40s and 50s and. You know, there are people belong to there were book clubs and there were sewing bees and there were quilting bees and there were all kinds of people joined clubs, a lot men and women. And that has fallen away and and and and we have to bring that back. People have to begin to congregate together with a meaning, talk to each other, help each other. [00:36:31][112.6]

Jameela: [00:36:32] Something that I have learned about you over the last couple of years is and I’ve been able to to use that. And I wish it hadn’t happened to you, but I’ve been able to use that to draw strength from was watching that however much you love advocacy and how much however much of an amazing and important and nourishing part of your life has been, it’s also been a source of a lot of public shaming. And you’ve also been put through the wringer and you’ve had the FBI like trash your home and you’ve been followed by the CIA and you’ve been you’ve had the president of the United States shame you and you were, you know, blacklisted by Hollywood for a while. If there were there were so many. And I I particularly wanted to talk to you about this, because this is something that I’ve experienced. It’s something that Greta Thunberg is experiencing. Meghan Markle, like Gloria Steinem, so many different women who have spoken out from the beginning of time I’m sure have faced this onslaught of criticism in the hopes of discouraging us not just to discourage our individual efforts, but, in my opinion, to also discourage other women from starting to wake up and speak up and stand up and stand for something. Can you talk to me a little bit about your experience of that, what it felt like every time you were just trying to help people and you would be rained on by the public and by the media? [00:37:57][85.1]

Jane: [00:37:58] Well, it feels bad. You know, it was scary. But I’m very stubborn, and the more they tried to do that to me, the more determined I became to not stop. I was they thought I was some kind of a weak little daddy’s girl. They’ll scare me away. And I was going to I was going to fu- I was gonna show them. [00:38:24][25.1]

Jameela: [00:38:25] You can say fuck on this podcast. [00:38:26][1.2]

Jane: [00:38:27] I was going to show them that no matter what they do to me, they’re not going to scare me. But the more important thing was that I wasn’t alone. I was part of a group. I was part of a movement. I was part of an organization. So I was surrounded by people who could who could bolster me and support me. And then that made all the difference in the world. [00:38:50][22.7]

Jameela: [00:38:52] Would you be able to describe to my audience the kind of things that happened at that time that that we used as a weapon to silence you? [00:38:59][7.3]

Jane: [00:39:00] I remember going someplace and I looked up and there’s a gorgeous man in a pilot’s uniform was walking towards me with this beautiful big smile on his face. And he and he kept coming and he came right up to me and the smile disappeared. And he said, I’d like to cut your fucking throat. And that was that was that was a real shocker. There was a guy named Lyndon LaRouche that had a lot of money from a computer business that he had. And he would hire people to stand in airports with huge signs that would say things like Feed Jane Fonda to the whales or Jane Fonda leaped toward the Three Mile Island or they’d attack me. They’d attack Henry Kissinger and various people. And I’d have to go walking down this gauntlet of these hateful signs with my kids. That was that was not fun or, you know, throwing smoke bombs through my bedroom window into our house at the time that I came home and all of my everything, all the drawers and closets had been dumped out into the middle of the rooms. And that was the FBI and the CIA went into my bank and got all my bank records. That was the first time that had ever happened to an American citizen and things like that. They had what’s called cointelpro, where fake articles would be sent to various columnists, like somebody sent an article to a Hollywood columnist and his very famous Army Archerd. He’s passed saying that I had called for the assassination of Richard Nixon and it wasn’t true. Then they would put articles in the paper saying that I was that I was going to military bases with my hairdresser, making it look like I was the superficial one that was just planting articles that would make that would make me look bad, that it’d range across the board like that. But I mean, if I was had been black, it would have been worse. I would have been shot. [00:41:09][128.6]

Jameela: [00:41:10] A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I can definitely relate to some of that, especially with smear campaigns working through the media. But smoke bombs, especially when you have small children. I can’t even I can’t even imagine what you went through. [00:41:21][11.4]

Jane: [00:41:22] I actually grew up with all of this, my son, as a good a good sense of humor about it. But as he said, we used to take vacations in conflict zones. We landed in South Africa and everybody was made to get off the plane. And then we finally got off and it was surrounded by tanks, with guys with machine guns. And it was quite a time. [00:41:46][23.7]

Jameela: [00:41:47] Yeah. He talked about potty training in a camp, I believe. Right. What camp was that? [00:41:51][4.3]

Jane: [00:41:52] We ran a children’s camp anyway. Yeah, it was there really something my kids, they really grew up with it. We had to have somebody that would remotely turn our car on in case there was a car bomb because friends of ours had been killed with car bombs, things like that. [00:42:11][18.8]

Jameela: [00:42:12] It’s so funny the way that they would portray you as clearly not a threat. Clearly just doing this for vanity or for attention or because you don’t know any better. And yet at the same time, clearly just fucking terrified of what it is that you’re doing, what kind of influence you’re having on people, the fact that you are you are whistle blowing what’s really happening to a generation that we’re just listening to, you people from all different walks of life, listening to you and and I think that the one of the the reasons that it was so important for me to have you on this podcast is because I’ve been talking about this for the last year. This build her up, build her up, rip her down, like use this this perfect machine to gaslight her, to smear her reputation, to drag her through the mud. And because you can’t take her out and kill her, as you were talking about, instead, they just kill your credibility, they kill your reputation and they hyperbolize your many mistakes and never, ever discuss the things that you are triumphant in or the things that you’re doing to help people because they are trying, they’re terrified of you and they are trying to make people look away all before they go ahead and then just move on to the next. Once they’ve left you for dead, they move on to the next woman and the reason that one of the many reasons that you’re so important to me is that you are one of few examples of women who somehow, because of your stubbornness and because of your strength, your profound strength, you carried on, which is the one thing that we are encouraged, especially in this business and especially as women, not to do. We’re always told, no, don’t speak back about it or don’t don’t speak up about how injustice is or fight back against their lies. You’ll just look like you’re complaining. You’ll look like you’re moaning, you know, just leave it alone, ignore it, ignore it. Or perhaps it’s time to quiet down. Let the people around you, the people that you worked with or the people who you were perhaps not working in advocacy with, but were their friends and family members saying maybe it’s time to step back a bit? [00:44:15][123.3]

Jane: [00:44:16] Oh, yeah. Yeah. And in some cases, they weren’t wrong. It’s you know, I’ll give you an example. I won my first Oscar for Klute in nineteen seventy two, and I was I hadn’t yet gone to North Vietnam, but I was a very controversial figure. And what was I going to say. I kind of figured I was going to win and there was so much I wanted to say, but I, I felt that it was it would work against me if I use that platform right then to do a diatribe against the war. So what I did was I wore a black wool suit with a Mao collar instead of a fancy dress, that was kind of my, you know, the statement and then I just said there’s a lot to be said, but tonight isn’t the time. So I took advice about toning it down at a time like that. They were right. [00:45:14][58.5]

Jameela: [00:45:16] But in your entirety, you didn’t step away. You’ve just kept going and going and going. And and that has been a massive help to me to to to watch that on the other side of that life continues on. You know, for those of us who are lucky enough to not be literally killed by the people who fear us, you know, that that that their bark is often worse than their bite. And they are they are afraid of us, which is why they are trying to fearmonger us in advance or make an example out of the public women, women in politics. We’re seeing it with AMC. We saw it with Hillary Clinton. We said it with Serena Williams or any woman who threatens the status quo of our society, who steps outside the box and shows her power we must destroy her so that no one else will try to rise to fill that space or stand up alongside her. But there have been times in my career, especially last year, where I thought, right, well, it’s all over for me. That’s it. I’m done. Everyone hates me. I should leave. I’m never going to work again. And I had that moment that I think a lot of women in my position have of just our training our programming is just to fuck off is just to go away now it’s like, oh, well the curtains closed and I don’t have the right to reopen them. And there was just something in me. And I think part of this is you and watching your documentary or reading your book and and and listening to the things that you’ve said, that you were one of the voices in me that just thought, what if I just hang on? What if I just keep going the way that a man would? What if I just take that the privilege of allowing myself the right to make a mistake, an innocent mistake, or the right to overcome a smear and a lie. What if I just take that for myself and I carry on? And what’s happened in my life is that all the dust has settled and everything has returned to normal. And I’m able to continue spreading the message that I want to spread. And my my work has returned. And the same thing has happened with you. You had a triumphant comeback. You were able to carry on doing the job you loved. You were able to keep raising your children or living with your family. You were able to continue on in activism. And even now, you are one of the more renowned climate justice activists in the world. And I just want people to look to your documentaries or your work out there, because I cannot tell you how comforting it is to see the way that Jane has been able to overcome, honestly, the worst public shaming. I think I’ve seen any woman going through my entire life. I, I would like to even imagine I could withstand a tenth of what you were stood for such a long time. And I really thank you for the stubbornness that encouraged you to stick around and remind us on the other side of that is. Is possibility for joy and effectiveness. Anyway, I yeah, I wouldn’t have been able to. [00:48:26][190.1]

Jane: [00:48:27] Thank you so much. [00:48:28][0.2]

Jameela: [00:48:28] So if I’m still around annoying people, it’s Jane Fonda’s fault explicitly and you should forward all of your hate and critique to Jane. It’s not my responsibility. Yes, exactly. She can hadle it. Will you talk to me a little bit about climate justice and and some of the things about it that you feel most passionate about and you want us to know about? [00:48:53][25.7]

Jane: [00:48:54] Well, first, let me just very quickly say something about the climate crisis. There is science is very clear and it’s unanimous we are facing a potential catastrophe with the climate crisis. We have a very because we didn’t act sooner, the amount of carbon that we can continue to burn is growing smaller and smaller. It’s a carbon budget because the science says we have to keep warming below one point five degrees Celsius. If we don’t, then we may pass a tipping point where we lose all control and ecosystems will begin to collapse. And we human beings depend on those ecosystems for our lives. So the reason that the warming is happening because of the burning of fossil fuel oil, gas and coal, so we have to keep fossil fuel in the ground and gradually phase out. We have to do it very, very quickly. The justice part of it is. Historically, the fossil fuel industry, the petrochemical industry, the refineries have put their pollutants, their toxins in communities of color, indigenous lands, black communities and communities of color, where people are dying, where children are suffering from asthma and are hospitalized and missing school as a result of that, where where cancer is rampant, where whole neighborhoods are dying of cancer. This is racism. When you when you when you boil it all down, if it wasn’t for racism, there would be no climate crisis because they would not be able to put their toxins in Beverly Hills or Bel Air. And and so in addressing the climate crisis, we have to address the racism. And I have to say that the President Biden is very well aware of this. He’s been very good in saying that the money that he’s calling for, the trillions of dollars he’s calling for, will be first and foremost allocated and cleaning up and protecting and refurbishing the communities of color and indigenous lands that have been at the forefront of the climate crisis. And so I take my hat off to him. We just have to be sure he does it fast and more. [00:51:21][146.8]

Jameela: [00:51:22] Also, the last time we spoke, you told me some incredible statistics and facts about the ways in which climate also impacts women. There’s a disparity in how it impacts women. Would you tell me more about that? [00:51:36][13.6]

Jane: [00:51:36] Well, women bear the brunt of the climate crisis because especially in the global south, it’s women who plant crops and harvest the crops and fetch the water and chopped the wood and provide food for their families in their communities so that any kind of extreme weather event, be it a flood, be it a fire, be a drought, is going to impact her ability to feed her family. And I know that that a lot of the women that are at the border of of of Texas and New Mexico, they come from Central American countries, are there because the prolonged drought in Central America has made it impossible for them to grow food. And what happens is that they are then beaten by their husbands for not providing the food. I mean, it’s 80 percent of climate refugees are women. And we are the last to be rescued because women have more body fat than men, body fat sequesters pollutants. So in our bodies, we carry more of the toxins that come because of fossil fuel emissions and not only affects us, but when we have a baby inside of us that affects our fetus. When we nurse a newborn, it’s in our breast milk. It’s a major cause of disabilities and and and early deaths of children, and this is true all over the country. It’s just unbelievable. [00:53:05][88.6]

Jameela: [00:53:05] All over the world. [00:53:07][2.0]

Jane: [00:53:08] All over the world yes. This is a global problem. And and I think that is one reason why women are on the forefront of the climate crisis. And there’s another problem I was trying to call attention to this terrible under line three, bringing tar sands oil from Canada down through Minnesota over to underneath two hundred bodies of water, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River. When these when these pipes are laid, thousands of workers come in and more than Minnesota, most of them are out of state. They come to Minnesota to do this work and they live in what are called man camps. And. Suddenly, the young women and girls are in danger, they’re trafficked, they are disappeared, they are raped. I’m not saying that all men who work in the fossil fuel industry do this, but everywhere there are man camps, these are rural areas with thousands of men for long periods of time, every time there’s a man camp, there is a heightened, heightened reporting of disappearances and murders and rapes. And it’s just it’s it’s scary. They’re so scared up there. [00:54:20][72.2]

Jameela: [00:54:21] And so I think you make the important point that any of us who care about feminism, any of us who care about anti-racist work, climate justice and and and bringing an end to the climate crisis is a pivotal part of our efforts going forward, that it can’t just be the things that we retweet on social media. We have to do this to create equality and equity for everyone around the world. [00:54:45][24.1]

Jane: [00:54:47] I mean, there’s a reason that for I don’t have the numbers in my head, but far more black people and Latino people care about the climate crisis than white people. And during the uprisings, the amazing uprisings all over the country after the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and, you know, we had a lot of black people come on to the fire drill Fridays that I have every Friday talking about the interconnections between the climate crisis and racism and racial justice. And these are intersectional issues that have to be spelled together. [00:55:20][33.6]

Jameela: [00:55:21] And we have a following of people who are very engaged and very much so looking for ways to help. How can people help support your work or the work of climate justice activists around the world? [00:55:32][10.9]

Jane: [00:55:33] Well, if you’re young, I would join the Sunrise Movement. It’s a wonderful movement. It’s one of the movements that started around the time twenty nineteen of the global uprising of climate activists, students. You can you can go onto the website of Fire Drill Fridays and join us every every Friday at eleven o’clock Pacific Time. I have interviews with climate activists and scientists and experts. And this coming Friday, it’s going to be the governor, Jay Inslee of the state of Washington, who was a climate expert. But we have hundreds of thousands of people following us and and they’re active. They write letters and they call the president and they are actually doing things. And most of them have never done it before, which is great. We’re bringing new people into the climate movement. But there’s great we’re part of Greenpeace. So there’s Greenpeace, there’s Sunrise there’s Extinction Rebellion. There’s there’s so many climate organizations. But join join an organization that isn’t afraid of actions because we’re going to have to be ready to take big actions. [00:56:42][69.9]

Jameela: [00:56:44] Yeah, we have no time. We are way beyond Greta talks about this all the time, that we are nowhere near on schedule to be able to reverse the damage of the damage that has been done currently. I I really appreciate that even after all of the different causes that you have served in your life, that I was going back through them and I realized that for the longest time in your career, it wasn’t just your work against the war in Vietnam, it wasn’t just your work for women and for feminism, but also your support when a lot of other people didn’t for the gay community, your support for a lot of in times where a lot of white people in particular didn’t your support for the black community decades before it’s now, you know, something that we are all more engaged in. You have been using your platform, your privilege, your your own kind of lived expertize to help other causes. And you’re still doing it now, even in your 80s. I think that’s fucking admirable and also an imperative, I guess an imperative measure for us all to take, I think that our work is never done because there’s so much injustice all around the world, and I think that the day that we stop fighting for other people is it, as you said before, a day where all life loses its meaning. [00:58:03][79.2]

Jane: [00:58:04] Yeah and it’s joyful to do it. It’s not like eating broccoli or something. I mean, it’s fun. It’s joyful. You make friends with people who have your same values and it’s just it’s wonderful. [00:58:14][9.8]

Jameela: [00:58:15] So, Jane, before I let you go, and this has been such a wonderful chat so I really don’t want to, but will you please tell me? What do you weigh? [00:58:23][8.5]

Jane: [00:58:24] I weigh if I am still a student, learning things every day. I weigh whether I am able to use my platform effectively to address the climate crisis, I weigh that I can wake up in the morning and go through the day not depressed. I weigh that my children love me. I weigh that my grandchildren love me. I have one that’s in college and one that’s not even two. That’s what I weigh. [00:59:02][37.6]

Jameela: [00:59:06] I love that. I thank you so much for giving me this time, and I know you’re so busy and thank you for all of the work you’ve done across the course of your life. And also thank you for your inspiring attitude towards failure. At the beginning of this podcast, you talked about the fact that you love running towards new things and investigating new things, even when success is not guaranteed. [00:59:26][20.0]

Jane: [00:59:27] Leaving my comfort zone. [00:59:27][0.7]

Jameela: [00:59:28] Leaving your comfort zone indeed. And I was wondering, is there anything you want in particular women to know because we are the ones most fearmonger around failure. Is there anything from your experience of it that you want them to know or to take from your life experience? [00:59:44][16.2]

Jane: [00:59:46] Well, failure is. Couple of things. I believe that there is a spirit, a higher power, let’s let’s call it God for now for simplicity’s sake, although I don’t see God the way that normally I don’t see God as a man, as a human, as a gender or sitting up there, but. It’s what fills my solar plexus and connects me to the rest of the world. [01:00:16][30.7]

Jameela: [01:00:17] Are you quite spiritual? Is this Buddhism or is it just a [01:00:20][2.8]

Jane: [01:00:21] I’ve done a lot of studying of Christianity early Christianity, the Gnostic gospels and so forth. That spirit, which is critical to a good life, enters you through your wounds and your failures, not through your rewards and your successes. That’s you you learn from your failures and your wounds if you’re willing to. I mean, you have to be willing to. But they are critical. [01:00:58][36.9]

Jameela: [01:01:00] Well, everyone go and pour the spirit into those wounds of yours and and I agree, the mistakes we had, we had a doctor come on here before who was neuroscientist and told us that mistakes are how people learn the most effectively. It’s always by their mistakes. That’s how you can almost insure someone is less likely to ever do that again, because they’re going to remember it firmly. [01:01:23][22.4]

Jane: [01:01:25] In terms of working out, which is another thing that I have some expertize in when you lift weights. I mean, if you if you lift challenging weights, OK, what is happening is there are tiny microscopic tears happening in your muscles. And the reason that a fitness trainer will say to you, you have to wait 20, 48 hours before you work that same muscle again, because those microscopic tears have to heal. And when they heal, they’re kind of keloiding and they’re stronger. Where the tear was becomes stronger, you’re stronger at your broken places. You can become you become stronger at your broken, broken places. [01:02:10][44.4]

Jameela: [01:02:11] Well, you must feel like you are made of bloody steel then. I sure as shit feel like I’m on my way. Jane Fonda, you’re an absolute hero of mine. I bloody love you. Thank you for making this time. I hope I get to see you in person again soon. [01:02:23][12.6]

Jane: [01:02:24] Thank you very much. [01:02:24][0.4]

Jameela: [01:02:25] And please let me know how I can come support your Fire Drill Fridays with my community because we are there. [01:02:29][4.1]

Jane: [01:02:31] Thank you. It’s been a pleasure to me I admire you a lot. Keep it up. [01:02:35][3.6]

Jameela: [01:02:37] Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode, I Weigh with Jameela Jamil is produced and researched by myself, Jameela Jamil, Erin Finegan and Kimmie Gregory. It is edited by Andrew Carlson. And the beautiful music that you’re hearing now is made by my boyfriend, James Blake. If you haven’t already, please rate, review and subscribe to the show. It’s a great way to show your support. I really appreciate it and it amps me up to bring on better and better guest. Lastly, at I Weigh we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast. You can leave us a voicemail at 1-818-660-5543. Or email us what you weigh at IWeighpodcast@gmail.com. It’s not in pounds and kilos so please don’t send that. It’s all about you just you know, you’ve been on the Instagram anyway, and now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners. [01:03:24][47.5]

Listener: [01:03:28] I weigh self-love, empowering others, trans rights, and human rights and adoring my beautiful rescue cat Mogg. [01:03:28][0.0]

[3663.5]