Jane Fonda | Activism Through The Years | Who What Wear

So, hi, I'm Jane Fonda, and I've been asked to very briefly talk about the role of activism in my life

It has helped me focus and be a better actor and be a better person and be a happier person

So I invite you to join me. Right, this is kind of funny

I had just finished making clute, and I was traveling around the country speaking on campuses where I would be paid $2,000 a speech

and all the money was going to fund the Winter Soldier investigation

which was members of the American Armed Forces, all branches, came together in Detroit, Michigan

to discuss what they had seen and done in Vietnam, and the documentary was made

And before I started making clute, I became friends with a fashion designer who had a factory of knitwear in San Francisco named Alvin Duskin

And he gave me a lot of free clothes in this coat. Even though it's not knit, it was leather

But this was one of them. And so that's what I had on. It's fortuitous that I was wearing a very fashionable long suede coat

When I was arrested, the arresting officer told me, as he was holding me in his office, that he was arresting me under orders from the White House

That would be Richard Nixon. I had flown in from my first speech in Windsor, Canada, into Cleveland, where I was stopped at customs, and all of my notes, my address books, everything were taken

I had a lot of vitamins in a little plastic, little plastic bags, breakfast, lunch, and dinner

And they accused me of smuggling drugs. Right after this picture was taken see I have double jointed hands I slipped my hands out of the handcuffs and threw a fist This was the early 70s so I still had that iconic haircut

It was the wonderful Paul McGregor in Greenwich Village who gave me this haircut

I had been making a film in France with Jean-Luc Godard, and I went to Italy for a manifestation

That meant a political rally on behalf of women's rights in Italy

And I had my well-worn knitwear that Alvin Duskin gave me. He gave me a whole lot of clothes and they were really my wardrobe for years

I see a little shredding at the cuffs. I wore them a lot. Oh, yes

Well, this is a day when it was National Secretary's Day. And so I went out in support of women office workers and talked a little bit about them

and the struggles that they had. I was in the middle of making a film that I produced called Nine to Five

I'm wearing the wig from that movie. The struggles that women office workers have today

is even more difficult and more challenging. It's not just sexual abuse

The spying by employers is worse because they are given computers and cell phones

and so the bosses know everything of how long they take toilet breaks

They experience wage theft. It's really, really bad. In other words, the fight continues

That's Marlo Thomas. That's Whoopi Goldberg, Bella Abzug, me, Morgan Fairchild, Ellie Smeal

Glenn Close. This was a national march for freedom of choice for women. It was a huge march in

Washington, D.C. was a very important time. It makes me sad to look at this that we lost Bella Abzug because she was such a force to be reckoned with This was around 1989

White clothing we associate with the suffragette movement, and so we all wore white

Again, this is a movement that continues today. The right of women to control their bodies, because if women control their bodies, they control their lives

And we still live in a patriarchal society that doesn't want women to control their lives

This is now. This is now. I was in Big Sur with my friends Catherine Keener and Rosanna Arquette

and I was reading about Greta Thunberg, the Swedish student who began the Friday student school strike

that became a global movement. Inspired by Greta, I decided to move to Washington, D.C

and hold what we're calling Fire Drill Fridays. You see, Greta said

we have to behave like we're in a crisis. We have to behave like our house is on fire because it is

So Fire Drill Friday. And every Friday, we have a rally that focuses on a specific topic

Oceans, women, war and military, forests, human rights, migration, and how they are affected by climate change

We have expert scientists, people who are the most affected from frontline communities, and celebrity friends come and join me

And after the rally, we engage in civil disobedience, which means risking getting arrested

So I'm being arrested. Note the white plastic handcuffs, whereas the arrest photo back in 1970 were metal handcuffs

These are white plastic and they hurt more. These rallies aren't in order to get arrested

They are to try to raise the sense of urgency around this looming disaster of climate crisis For 40 years we marched we rallied we written we petitioned

We haven't succeeded in getting enough people and enough elected officials to really deal with this like the crisis it is

And so we have increased our activism to include civil disobedience, which is an extremely honorable thing to do

to commit nonviolent civil disobedience for an important cause like the potential destruction of human civilization

No kidding. So when we started meeting about these Fire Drill Fridays

we decided that we should try to wear something red every Friday

and I didn't have anything red, so I found this coat. I don't even know who designed it

On sale. This is the last item of clothing that I will buy

so much of our identity, especially in this country, is about shopping, buying things

See, I grew up, I was born in 1937, and for the first decades of my life, we weren't so focused

on shopping. Consumerism wasn't a big thing. Plastics didn't exist, nor did television

by the way. And I'm grateful that I lived at a time when we did just fine, thank you

without television, without consumerism, and without plastic. Trying to minimize consumerism, I have to walk the talk

It's not easy. I had to do an interview in the upstairs floor of Saks the other day

and as I'm walking through Saks, I'm going, Oh, look at that. Oh, no, I can't

Oh, no, I can't. It's hard, so I can't shop anymore, but that's okay because I have other things to do