Jane Fonda: She Said a Bad, Bad Thing
By Roberta Rosenberg on Feb 15, 2008 in Occasional Rantings, Picture This!
Words can heal. Words can hurt. Words can bring merriment or offend.
Just ask Jane Fonda. She inadvertently used a most vulgar term for a lady’s private parts in an interview with Meredith Vieira on the Today show yesterday.
Jane, who is starring in a production of The Vagina Monologues, was talking about her original reticence to join the play. Let’s watch, shall we? (Notice the immediate pained, tight expression on Vieira, noticeable in profile in the camera long shot.)
Wow, Jane. You go, girl. I love the offhand way she used it and the little aside that was attached to it.
So I’m thinking about words. Is hell a “bad word?” One of the kids at the school bus complained to me my son used the word “hell” and that it was a bad word, a cuss word. I replied, “Honey, hell is a place. The name of a place isn’t a bad word.”
Being Jewish, I don’t even believe in hell but why would hell even BE a cuss word anymore than Pittsburgh or Trenton? (Okay, maybe Trenton IS hell, but I digress.)
Many years ago in the pre-cable, pre-internet days, George Carlin wrote/performed a classic routine about The 7 Words You Couldn’t Say on Radio/TV. Yesterday, I think Jane just killed the list for good.
The power of words reside in the the power we invest in them. Not all words are appropriate everywhere all the time. Knowing were/when to use them with care and thought makes all the difference.
I’m not particularly fond of the ‘c-word’ - I think it sounds downright mean and ugly. (I think the p-word is so much more fun and girly.) Doesn’t mean I haven’t used it - and meant it - when the time was right.
But Jane was talking about vaginas. A word I don’t think my mother-in-law has ever said outloud. Ever. But it’s not a dirty word. It’s the right word. A play about women and their relationships to and with their sexuality? Vaginas, c-words, p-words - they all rate. (I generally don’t like to use sexual terms in posts because I get all sorts of unsavory email and search engine rankings afterwards.)
But maybe not over the morning’s cornflakes. 
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Drew McLellan | Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Hmm, I wonder how you (or anyone) would have reacted differently if a man had uttered the c-word?
You’re right, words are very powerful. Perhaps even more so when they “invade” our home during a family time.
Drew
Roberta Rosenberg | Feb 15, 2008 | Reply
Drew - I think ultimately it all comes down to context. Jane just didn’t willy-nilly use the c-word. Within the context of the conversation and the play, I can see how she said it without much thinking about it. (Other commentators have been far more cynical about her motives.)
If Tom Hanks wants to appear in The Vagina Monologues, be interviewed about it and make a slip of the um, (tongue just seems so wrong here) lip, I’ll cut him some slack, too.
Mark Steinborn | Feb 23, 2008 | Reply
Drew - Just expanding on a point you made.
When I hear the amount of profanity used by kids today, youngsters 12 years old and younger, it was a shock at first. Children are using words whose meanings I didn’t learn until high school.
But the bigger problem is a kind of Orwellian reduction in vocabulary they impose on themselves. You’ll remember that 1984’s government disarmed the people reducing their vocabulary. There was no longer a “good-better-best,” there was only “good” and “double good,” “ungood,” “double ungood,” etc.
When kids insist on using the f-word to replace good, better, best, bad, ugly, fly, fantastic, and so on, they deprive the f-word of its emotional power and, indeed, of any meaning at all that can’t be conveyed with tone of voice. And since most of the time the f-word can’t be used in writing, they cut themselves off from learning a thousand real words.
Perhaps worst of all, they have no idea that they are “untraining” themselves for their future success.
Lori | Feb 29, 2008 | Reply
Yes, I have to agree with the guys. If a man had said it, he’d be out of a job and ostracized, but I digress…
I’ve never been a big fan of the word. It hurts the ears to hear it. But that she said it in coversation - whatever. It’s okay with me. There are a lot worse things going on in the media. A slang word for vagina shouldn’t be the worst!