Letters to the Editor
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Jane Fonda was striking back -- hard -- against the au courant public perception that she's a humorless scold --
There is pretty much a whole generation of movie goers who have likely been turned OFF-OFF-OFF by her repeated public scolding of Lindsay Lohan ... regardless of how well deserved or how odd welcome some sort of comeuppance for Lohan may be ... contradictory much?
Fonda's always had problems with being perceived as "too serious" and has now, daringly, launched a new career in "light domestic comedies" ... skipping over (so far) Mrs. Robinson-like roles, and heading straight for Shirley McClaine independent woman, avoiding (so far) Olympus Dukakis territory ... nor "competing" with relative young'uns like Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn (entering into mother of young adult children / grandmother of precious tykes territory) who in turn are "older" than Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan who are likely to turn up in roles with teenaged children any day now ...
Too bad that Chevy Chase and franchise has already remade most of the domestic comedy classics ... There are simply not a lot of roles out there ... I give Fonda a lot of credit for bravery for attempting to ressurect the genre and I hope she succeeds.
For an under-30 young adult today, Barbarella and Golden Pondand The Morning After are probably all the Jane Fonda they've seen. Klute and Coming Home appear on TV very rarely... I haven't seen Julia for ages and I doubt it would hold much appeal for young'uns. I'm not sure gems like The Dollmaker are ever shown.
As I think she would agree, she's a smart cookie ... and she can in fact USE humor, even if by nature she appears quite serious. I found her contribution to the recent Marlon Brando documentary unnessarily grim and unenlightening.
What we saw on Colbert was the NEW JANE FONDA ... get used to it.