Women have a power over men. She was using that power.

Colbert is always trying to embarrass others with his wit. She embarrassed him with physical contact. OK, so...

Jane Fonda is seventy years old. Let her have a few laughs. I suspect Stephen Colbert is the kind of person who can live with a moment's discomfort.

Were you offended/creeped out when Adrien Brody slobbered all over Halle Berry at the Oscars?

I thought Jane was incredibly sexy, bold, and making a very funny statement about disarming conservative blowhards.

Granted, Colbert is not a "real" conservative blowhard, he just plays one on TV, but the premise to me was Jane winking- "See, you're not so big and mean, you just need a little love..." Which to me is very funny. I loved it and laughed the whole time. I was actually flabbergasted to read Joan Walsh's interpretation.

Prude, Joan? I don't know. You also wondered if you were just jealous, and I think this might be closer to the mark. But at any rate, it seems you missed the joke. I think you were way off on this one.

He is great at improv, like someone said, but he also breaks character pretty frequently (usually through laughing). I think she caught him totally off guard, and that was the point.

You were appropriately uncomfortable, I'd say, but far more comfortable than he was. He got off a funny line about the Georgia Rule clip, something like, "Now I know what's going to happen to me when I get home."

I think it goes too far to say she's embracing her Barbarella past. She's embracing being that old and still being able to make Stephen blush.

Fonda has the grace of Deneuve, Loren, Ardant coupled with enough quiet animal reserve that she can still inspire bone-crushing lust in men of every age. If some director fails to capture this fine wine in a sexy flick soon, we will all have been the worse for it. Fonda Rules!

There is something a little odd about Jane Fonda. I really don't know what it is, but I find her a little creepy and a little... clueless? Perhaps it's her cluelessness that I find unsettling, because she just goes a little further with things than that point at which a normal person says "this is becoming inappropriate."

I recently felt this way while watching the TCM documentary on Marlon Brando. While every other actor or director or celebrity icon was tastefully dressed for the camera, Fonda appeared in a huge cowboy hat with the stars and stripes lightly airbrushed on it, and a tiny American flag stuck in the back like a truck antenna ornament.

I'm not one of those people who cares about Best/Worst-Dressed lists, or who still gives a damn about Björk's swan-dress at the Oscars (a night when dressing outrageously is not uncommon), but seeing Fonda dressed like that, I did say to myself out loud "What is she thinking? Why would she dress like that for this?"

When I saw the Colbert segment, I laughed pretty hard at first, remembering how funny the original "Baking with Feminists" segment was, but I sort of stopped midway through. It was only upon reading this article in Salon days later that I realized how uncomfortable I had become. Come on, lady! Talk about your movie, but don't be so pushy!

Then again, maybe it was Colbert's idea.

to show that feminists can flirt and be sexy???

I confess I am mystified by heterosexual women who are still running around trying to prove that being a feminist means they aren't gay or something. It's so weird and insecure and homophobic. The constant need to reassure men that you aren't queer and the endless mentioning of your motherhood at every opportunity just exposes all the weakness and insecurity that you have supposedly overcome or are fighting against.

I'm in the control group. He lost control and she didn't give it back. How much better would it have been if he had managed to stay in character and say something hot and funny along the lines of, "...and me without my falafel."

Instead he asked questions like, "Why are you adjusting?" and "That's a firm leg there." That sounds more like an erection than a misstep to me. Delightfully awkward.

That said, Jane's style of seduction wasn't all that appealing to me. If I were her, I would have stayed in my seat for at least half of the interview and poured forth scandalous innuendo about his fantasies while I verbally objectified -- his mouth, wonky ear, plastic looking hair...then massage his shoulders, get in his lap, mess up his hair, blow in his ear...maybe round out the scene with a kiss and an invitation to my casting couch or smoke filled room for 'foreign affairs and policy'.

He was totally right, it was kinda Klute. Too direct, not kittenish at all. Not to mention a fine illustration of just how much actors benefit from the guidance of publicists, handlers, stylists, writers and directors in deploying their craft.

C'mon people now.... "Are we doing Klute?" or Larry Sanders?

It was funny to see the Fonda turn the tables on Colbert, taking him to task for censoring *his* on-air fantasies about her. He's game, and he's good. He appeared more amused than anything else, really.

I'm puzzled why anyone would think that Jane Fonda would be serious in the least -- nevermind "desperate"? (As if she'd pick a TV broadcast to reveal her "true" feelings to Colbert.) She was playful and unconventional.

Culturally, we don't know what to make of older women acting this way. They must be drunk or insane or desperate -- it's just so... so... unseemly!

hear, hear!

I don't know Joan... I had no problem watching it... I thought it was pretty amusing.

Maybe it was just you.

I don't think it is really so much about Fonda being "an over-the-hill vamp" as it is that she isn't a comedienne. Even though she has decent-enough timing as an actor, she is not fully comfortable with the nuances of comedy.

Thus, the problem seems one of this being just not being a funny bit over the course of the interview. Just making somebody uncomfortable is not funny. And all she did was smooch him and sit on him. If she had made a joke about "inappropriate sitting" (as one of the letters here mentioned), and maybe had some point to making Colbert squirm (although I did like that part, because I like spontaneity), then it would not have been so uncomfortable to watch.

I'm all for Fonda keeping her sex vibe alive (gives the rest of us hope), but I think she needs to maintain a little more subtlety about it and leave the heavy comedy lifting to the comedians.