Last week, Ava and C.I. noted Cher used her Twitter feed to make a difference. This week, another Academy Award winning actress used her blog to pose as helpless.
It takes a lot of stupidity to express distaste and dismay over a situation you've not done nothing to improve.
Jane Fonda concluded her blog today with this paragraph:
I’ll try to blog more often but can’t promise. There’s so little time. I wish I could also blog about what’s been happening in Ferguson, Missouri. It’s utterly mind-blowing what happened because citizens stood up to protest the murder of Michael Brown and President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and many elected officials from both sides of the isle spoke out against the militarization of the police response so that the next evening there was freedom, harmony (more like jubilation!) and hope that, for once, justice might be done in the wake of a yet another killing of a black teenager. It felt like the 21st Century version of the ’60s –more responsive leaders and truly articulate African American locals that shone last night on MSNBC.
Does it feel that way, Jane?
We're troubled by the wording of that last sentence which seems rather Joe Biden-ish but we'll let that pass.
Instead, we'll ask: WTF are you doing?
You're one of four leads in a sitcom you're producing.
What the f**k are you doing?
An all White cast.
That's what you're doing.
So hop off your high horse and examine your body of work. With the exception of Otto Preminger's Hurry Sundown -- a film exploring race -- you've never appeared in a film with anything but a token African-American actor.
For those who may not know, beginning with Coming Home, you produced many of your films including 9 to 5 which featured a workforce at an office with no African-American qualifying as even a supporting actress. The film did, however, feature an overweight African-American custodian saying one line ("Hey, Vera, we've got another stiff in the john.")
Now you're in charge of a new series and you've got an all White cast.
Sorry, Jane, you are the problem.
So stop whining and do something.
And stop bragging about how great it is to work again with the same people -- your all White cast -- because that's exactly how systematic racism is fostered -- a bunch of White people just hiring from their own circle of friends.
With this show, only the second sitcom you've produced, you had a chance to imagine a world as you wanted and what you went with was an all White cast.
And, by the way, Jane, when you get around to writing that blog post that you want to, maybe after you can write about events in Iraq?
"I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years, because I've been afraid that because of the lies that have been and continue to be spread about me and that war, that they would be used to hurt this new antiwar movement, but silence is no longer an option."
You said that in January 2007.
Could you explain how silence is an option today?
Illustration is by Isaiah.