CANNES, FRANCE: Jane Fonda is under fire for remarks she made at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 27. Fonda called for men to face "arrest and jail," and specifically blamed White men for creating "climate crisis."
"It is a tragedy that we have to absolutely stop. We have to arrest and jail those men — they're all men [behind this]," she said at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, May 27. Fonda added that there "would be no climate crisis if there was no racism." Speaking of the "hierarchy" that gives power to men, the actress said, "White men are the things that matter and then everything else [is] at the bottom."
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Jane Fonda opens up on 'bad mood' Robert Redford and reveals the one intimate act he hated
Jane Fonda previously linked racism to climate crisis
This is not the first time Fonda has been blasted for remarks that came across as inappropriate to people. The actress first shared her thoughts on the connection between the climate crisis and racism in an interview on 'The Kelly Clarkson Show'. "Where would they put the sh**," she said, according to Daily Mail. "They're not gonna put it in Bel Air. They've got to find someplace where poor people or indigenous people or people of color are living."
"Well, you know, you can take anything — sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, whatever, the war," she said. "And if you really get into it, and study it and learn about it and the history of it, everything’s connected. There’d be no climate crisis if it wasn’t for racism."
How Jane Fonda earned the nickname 'Hanoi Jane'
Fonda's activism against the Vietnam War has earned her the hatred of conservative America. The star drew criticism after being photographed atop an anti-aircraft gun during a visit to North Vietnam in 1972. The photo showed her sitting on the aircraft in Hanoi, making it look like she would shoot down American planes. This incident earned her the nickname of 'Hanoi Jane.'
Fonda reportedly traveled to Hanoi at the time to witness the bombing damage to the dikes firsthand. She toured and photographed dike systems across North Vietnam, later stating that the United States had intentionally targeted the dike system along the Red River.
Fonda has since apologized several times for the picture. Addressing the photo in her 2005 memoir 'My Life So Far', Fonda wrote, "Here is my best, honest recollection of what took place. Someone (I don’t remember who) leads me toward the gun, and I sit down, still laughing, still applauding. It all has nothing to do with where I am sitting. I hardly even think about where I am sitting. The cameras flash. I get up, and as I start to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what has just happened hits me."
"Oh, my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes! I plead with him, “You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.” I am assured it will be taken care of. I don’t know what else to do. It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it," she added.
Decades later, however, several veterans are still not pleased with Fonda. As many as 50 veterans protested her appearance at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Md. in 2015. Fonda said that she tried to sit down and speak with vets "because I understand and it makes me sad." “It hurts me and it will to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers," she said.
