Jane Fonda
IFQ magazine sits down with Jane Fonda as she discusses codependency, Ted Turner, politics and overcoming her body issues.
IFQ: Every woman has issues with her body. How do you stay slim and youthful?
Jane Fonda: It’s been easier as I’ve gotten older. I don’t exercise nearly as much. I’m not in the limelight anymore. I’m not on the screen all the time, so the pressure to be bone-thin is not there anymore. The important thing is to help women and talk about unconditional love and not talk about fat or thin. In my case, it was my father who made me feel not enough.
IFQ: Describe your coming out with bulimia.
JF: That was very hard to do, to come out with that disease. I did it in the early 80’s when I wrote my first workout book. It was so hard; I didn’t even know that there was a word for it [bulimia]. I thought it was this horrible thing that showed what a terrible person I was. I wrote about it for the same reason I was honest in this book. I knew that telling my journey wouldn’t be true if I didn’t say where I’ve come from. My editor asked me if I wrote in general [about bulimia] or did I do it? I was like at arm’s length and I had to do it. My husband didn’t want me to.
IFQ: Was it because you invested in the idea that you had the perfect body with your entire workout?
JF: No. It was such a disgusting thing to write about. Everybody who was an alcoholic or took drugs, talked about it–that’s another thing. Bulimia? That was very hard to write about.
IFQ: I read your book My Life So Far and was amazed how strong you were and still, the sex thing with Vadim happened to you. Why was that?
JF: That’s what happens when a girl grows up being made to feel that she isn’t good enough. To be loved, she has to be perfect and nobody is perfect. At a certain point in life, usually in adolescence, when a girl realizes she isn’t perfect, and even if she’s close to perfection, she doesn’t ever feel that way because nobody ever made her feel that way. She moves outside herself. What’s left is a terrible anxiety that she numbs with food and alcohol, gambling, shopping, whatever. In her relationship with a man, this girl feels that if she really brings herself into the relationship, all of herself, including the part she’s left behind, she won’t be loved. She only brings what she thinks is perfect to the party. Behind the closed doors of an intimate relationship, she feels that she is not enough. If she senses what the man loves is more than her, she arranges for it.
He never forced me to do anything. It has nothing to do with the man, and it has to do with me. Black-belt codependence. Academy Award in codependency. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Slowly, over time, I worked really, really hard and tried to understand myself and moved back in and reinvented myself. I am not that person anymore.
IFQ: How did you overcome your personal problems?
JF: I met Ted Turner and I thought, this is the man who is not afraid of my success and not afraid of my strength. He’s not afraid of letting me know that he needs me, which is really important for women. This is the man that I can actually have a full relationship with and I am going to do everything in my power to get well and get over my fear of intimacy and learn to bring myself to the table.
I worked real hard. He gave me tremendous confidence. It was easy to heal with him. The problem was when I finally brought myself to the table. I was so scared. I said this is who I am [not leaving myself behind] and he couldn’t take it. He wanted that person that left half of herself behind. He is not a bad person. He’s a fantastic human being who I love dearly, and we are still close. But he didn’t want me whole. That was the point when I realized I can make a choice– I can stay with him and stay married and stay half of what I am and die regretting that, or I can end up alone. My greatest fear always has been to end up alone, but I would be with myself. And I chose the latter path and I don’t regret it for a minute.
IFQ: Scary?
JF: Not at all.
IFQ: You mentioned on a couple of interview shows that your ex-husbands read the book and gave you some feedback. Did Ted Turner take that analysis of the situation to heart? Did he agree with you?
JF: He made some changes, mostly factual changes. I was very anxious to see his reaction because I thought in the quiet tranquility of reading it he would understand what happened on a new level, and he didn’t. He just couldn’t really internalize the meaning of what I wrote because it would necessitate looking deeply inside himself and that was too scary. He’s the most brilliant and wonderful man. It’s too scary.
IFQ: What was it?
JF: It’s a lot of things–living laterally, moving fast through life over his twenty-three properties, two days here and two days there. When you’re chased by demons, that’s what you do. You can’t slow down; it’s too scary. I want to live vertically; I want to spend time with my children, my organization and my grandchildren. I wanted to do some stuff sporadically, and I couldn’t do that. That was a biggy.
IFQ: Would you get back with him if he changed?
JF: I would, if he changed–but he won’t. We really love each other, but I don’t want to live that way again. He can’t change; the wounds are too deep.
IFQ: Why did you stay in Georgia after Ted? According to Georgia’s laws, they are very conservative.
JF: Some of the laws are actually very progressive in Georgia. Essentially, at my core I am a social activist, which means I see myself as an agent of change. If you manage to create change in Hollywood, people easily dismiss it as an elitist enclave. Georgia is much closer to the heartland of America. If you can create change there, you can do it anywhere.
IFQ: What is the biggest thing you’d like to change?
JF: In the world? Women cannot be afraid to have their own power and we have to raise girls who are not afraid to say, this is who I am and my full humanity, and not silence their voices. On the other hand, they should not be afraid to claim their heart, sensitivity and empathy.
IFQ: Why do you work with girls?
JF: So they don’t have to wait as long as I did.
IFQ: Do you notice women starting to take their own power? How about the men? Is there progress in the men claiming their hearts?
JF: Not as much, no. But it is always harder for men to change. One of the interesting things that I have learned, and I wrote about it in my book, is that there is a scientific underpinning to that: boys get cut off from their hearts around five or six years old when they start formal schooling. That’s when the messages are received that in order to be a real guy you have to not be a mama’s boy. Don’t cry, be brave! In men, this develops a thing that starts so early that they think this is just the way it is. That it is good to be cut off from your heart. With women, the danger doesn’t start until adolescence, on the cusp of puberty, when they start approaching womanhood. That’s when they suddenly move out of themselves and become disembodied. If you can get to girls soon enough you don’t have to scratch too deep where you can make them think, damn it, I don’t have to let this happen to me! With boys, it’s much harder. They think its just life. You have to start early with boys. I have a five-year-old grandson who I pay real close attention to. I can see the pressures. He’s not that open about expressing himself. There are lots of men of conscious who are feminists, but most have to be pulled along. I traveled to Nigeria and did a documentary film about the girls there. I documented three different programs. One was in the South of Nigeria and it was called “Girl’s Power Initiative.” All of the smartest, brightest and energetic girls in this country were going through this program. They learned to stand for themselves, and this is a country where women have no status whatsoever. The boys wanted to be popular with these self-realized girls and were buying into it. So the boys, without even knowing it, were coming along. Girls will always be the first who change.
IFQ: Have you thought about going into politics?
JF: I am not diplomatic. I’m too outspoken. I couldn’t get elected a dogcatcher!