I just don’t think it ever sounded so mellifluous
I *heart* Jane Fonda. Don’t you?
Here is a little clip from this morning’s Today Show, on which Fonda appeared with Eve Ensler. Fonda was discussing her role in a production of Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” (make sure you look at their little icon in the url if you click on that link and see the play if you can…it’s terrific!), when she simply named the title of the vignette Ensler had asked her to perform. Sounds innocuous enough, no?
Well…no. Meredith Viera followed the “slip” with a sorry apology to her viewers. It’s sad that she couldn’t also have apologized for the anti-Hillary 527 organization, “Citizens Untied Not Timid.”
Nevertheless, cover the ears of your children when you hit play. This “vulgar slang,” as Forbes magazine called it today, isn’t suitable for their delicate cilia.
You know Fonda’s delivery and tone were so matter-of-fact that I can see where the censor might have snoozed through it. The apology seemed overblown…particularly since the next segment was on how to keep your love alive.
Oy. How is that a “slip” anyway?
I would like to know what Joy Behar’s response to that apology was.
Go Fonda.
Like Mrs. G said, her delivery was straight dead-pan. And really, I didn’t find it offensive because it wasn’t used in a derogatory manner or directed at anyone in particular. She was just stating that she already is widely despised and to appear in a vignette with a distasteful title might just add to her problems. She was being funny and I thought it made perfect sense. Of course, having been married to Ted Turner at one time and being as politically savvy as she is, I find it difficult to believe that she doesn’t know the words that earn fines from the FCC. Still. She’s just one of those women who says what’s on her mind and then takes the punches. I really admire the fearlessness. A lot.
Did you see Viera’s reaction over there on the right? Haaaaa. Delicious. I love live televised awkwardness.
It’s not a “vulgar” term, it’s a title! Of course I don’t find this surprising – a student in one of my grad school classes (not undergrad, I went to (the all women’s college) Smith, we talked about vaginas, um, all the time) announced the annual performance of “Vagina Monologues” and the little bastard of a professor screamed “Don’t use that word in my class!!!” In his biology class. Sad. So in a way I’m not surprised cunt caused such an uproar when biologists don’t like to hear vagina. Anywho, thanks for posting the video, I missed it live!
I’m sure that between that segment and the apology there were about 5,000 phone calls from horrified midwestern housewives. I gotta say, there’s a difference when a man says it and when a woman says it—many years ago I filed a complaint against a male co-worker (pre-CityBeat!) who had a penchant for snarling “cunt” whenever he got a phone call from a difficult female client. I sat only a few feet away from him—I didn’t think it would bother me as much as it did. But it did. Jane’s utterance, however—no prob.
That’s the thing about it, Kelly, that I was saying. The whole point of The Vagina Monologues is to reclaim, respect and honor the vagina in all of it’s terms. Ensler interviews hundreds (thousands) of women to create that play and so, the vignettes are in their words. When Fonda used the term, she wasn’t using it to insult someone—as was that awful co-worker you used to have—but just stating the name of a play she was going to be in. And that, I think, is why it isn’t bothersome. I agree, they probably did get tons of phone calls from people who would rather not have the conversation with their children (or spouses…or even with themselves) about what that word means, where it comes from and why it carries such an offensive, negative connotation.
1. from Eve Ensler:
“Let me just say something about that word,” she said. “The whole point of the play is to reclaim that word, and to make that word beautiful, and to make that word powerful, and not denigrating, and not ugly.”
2. any “offended” audience should have been prepared and shuttled their poor innocent selves and their sheltered children out of the room… the topic was THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES. doh!