User Reviews

Among the splendid choices made to compile who are considered '100 years of 100 great women' in 1999, Jane Fonda is among them most appropriately. To focus upon a militaristic bias against the woman, the actor, the interviewee, the producer, the daughter & the sister (probably much more), is just that highly biased from a position of living in the past. As if time doesn't move on. . . .

The content of this film is terrific for various audiences. It reveals women's history, by women, and centers upon what matters most to women. I find that this is a film that I like to watch over & again because the morsels of detail are so abundant that I can't help but need to review the film to remind me of them.

Ms. Fonda won an Oscar for her role in "Coming Home," for portraying the significant woman who helped a war veteran with disabilities heal emotionally enough to regain his desire to live.

There have been many men & women in the 21st century who openly & vociferously US troops being risked in the Bush-Cheney fiascoes in the Middle East. Thank goodness for them & for freedom of speech.

In relation to this film, thank goodness so many great women have taken public stands for & against the violations of the war. I recall the "Hollywood Canteen" that Bette Davis inspired, led & ran to boost the moral of troops on leave during WWII. The multitudes of women who have stood together against men of war--such as Virginia Woolf. Or those who risked their lives & still do, because men are too trigger-happy & foolish to resolve political conflicts, nonviolently.

Hopefully, when November 2008 arrives & the US citizens respond to the very simple choice between ideologies, we will choose to make friends of people who believe we are there enemies rather than making them our enemies by making war against them.

Perhaps with the input of more women, like those in this film, that violence which poses a threat to every citizen that war has created would not have even been started.

Why single out one great woman among the many who have taken very strong stands to oppose war? Today, for instance, we have Jessica Lange & Susan Sarandon among the most notable women in show business who strive like other US citizens are doing by the millions to end the insane violence that has already become "Vietnam II." I celebrate the freedom of every woman's voice that holds the violence of authority accountable to the people they do not represent.

It is important that great women are honored in this way as equality has been a historic struggle. However, it is unconscionable that this would be done by including Jane Fonda. To try an analogy, imagine a male Hollywood actor who was found to have covered up the rapes of a hundred women or more in a commune where he had visited several times, having made promotional videos of the wonderful housing and treatment they received? Suppose he called the raped women whores and tried to get them to confess their sins that put them there? Suppose the women had the opportunity to slip pieces of paper identifying themselves or their situation, and he had handed them to the men of the commune who later raped them more (also refuting any defense that he hadn't known anything about the incidents)?

Suppose a few decades have passed, and he was now being honored as part of a large event, and that he was made a key element. Should we forget the earlier behavior and/or attribute it to youthful exuberance?

While there were many that opposed the war in Vietnam there were only a few that had contact with the North Vietnamese. Of these people Jane Fonda was the ONLY one that posed for enemy propaganda photos while sitting in the operators seat of a North Vietnamese anti aircraft gun. She is a traitor and should be treated as such. A lifetime of alleged good deeds does in no way erase a crime. The requirement that a reply contain ten lines of text is ludicrous. If you can make your point in a few sentences you will not be allowed to post your opinion. The fact that the site states that "attempts to pad the comment with junk words can result in your account being blocked from future submissions" is a restriction on the First Amendments guarantee of freedom of speech. I fully expect to be blocked from future postings because I don't put "fluff" in my opinions. I hope this meets their quota.

The fact that anyone would honor that traitor is preposterous. This woman visited servicemen being held prisoner in Vietnam.

The following is an excerpt from a popular urban myth website:

In July 1972, Jane Fonda visited Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a 2-week tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts. Aside from visiting villages, hospitals, schools, and factories, Fonda also posed for pictures in which she was shown applauding North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners, was photographed peering into the sights of an NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and made ten propagandistic Tokyo Rose-like radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals". She also spoke with 8 American POWs at a carefully arranged "press conference," POWs who had been beaten by their North Vietnamese captors to force them to meet with Fonda, deny they had been tortured, and decry the American war effort. Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress or find it unusual that she was not allowed to visit the POW camp itself. She merely went home and told the world that "(the POWs) assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done." She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American POW camps.

When American POWs finally began to return home and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to the law."

Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms.. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during Vietnam

The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot

The pilot's name is Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat.

In 1968, the former Commandant of the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison the 'Hanoi Hilton.'

Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell, cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJ's, he was ordered to describe for a visiting American 'Peace Activist' the 'lenient and humane treatment' he'd received.

He spat at Ms. Fonda, was clubbed and was dragged away. During the subsequent beating, he fell forward on to the camp Commandant 's feet which sent that officer berserk

In 1978, the Air Force Colonel still suffered from double vision (which permanently ended his flying career) from the Commandant's frenzied application of a wooden baton. From 1963-65, Col. Larry Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4E's). He spent 6 years in the 'Hanoi Hilton',,, the first three of which his family only knew he was 'missing in action'. His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got the cleaned-up, fed and clothed routine in preparation for a 'peace delegation' visit. They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the world that they were alive and st ill survi ved.. Each man secreted a tiny piece of paper, with his Social Security Number on it, in the palm of his hand...

When paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging snippets like: 'Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?' and 'Are you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent captors?' Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed her their sliver of paper. She took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed him all the little pieces of paper.

Three men died from the subsequent beatings. Colonel Carrigan was almost number four but he survived, which is the only reason we know of her actions that day.

I was in college when JANE visited Vietnam; I thought her actions were disloyal to the United States, and to the men & women fighting in SE Asia against communism. In all the years since then there has been nothing that Jane Fonda Turner has done other than marry a rich man. Any of her supported charities or so called good works could not measure up to other people who volunteer or give money for causes. Nor could she ever make up for the harm she did to individuals or the military fighting in Vietnam. She is a traitor and should have been charged as one, and should have been deported and denied citizenship back in the '70s. Her family name has given her privilege, but should not give her honor. She is infamous, not famous. ABC & Barbara Walters should never have considered her a great woman. She was even mediocre as an actress/entertainer.

That she is "celebrated" as a great woman robs this special of any aire of credibility. What's next? Benedict Arnold celebrated as one of America's great commanders? Charles Manson celebrated as a great family guy?

All of the fanatics so eager to attack a US anti-war activist from the Vietnam era, should be able to recognize by now that each one who points a finger has three pointing back at themselves.

I notice how easy it is to hand a label on a lady who was courageous to stand up to the Aus government's mass murder of US soldiers & Vietnamese citizens. But, where's the outrage at Donald Sutherland who was right along side of Jane Fonda and their troop entertaining entourage, doing exactly the same things, even speaking out more vehemently. He was the leader of the pack.

Going to call his son Kieffer, Hanoi Sutherland, Jr.? Jane Fonda's politics are not her acting achievements. It's bigotry to hold a political bias against someone because you disagree with them believing your thoughts are the only right thoughts.

Jane Fonda's acting & film production career is extraordinary. Take off your biased blinders do you can see what she's accomplished in the film-making industry.