An Open Letter to Jane Fonda and the Toronto Film Festival Boycotters
The celebrity boycott of the Toronto Film Festival for the sin of screening Tel Aviv cinema is unjustified and self-defeating.
Boycott season it is, indeed. The dust hasn’t settled yet regarding Ben Gurion University’s tenured political science professor, Neve Gordon, publicly calling for cultural and academic boycotts of Israel, and an uproar surrounding this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has already erupted.
A prestigious film industry gathering, the festival is billed as “one of the world’s most important cultural events” on the official TIFF website.
But apparently, the organizers are clueless. Because in inaugurating the festival’s new City-to-City Spotlight strand, they chose to highlight Tel Aviv. And that didn’t go over well with a handful of industry people like David Byrne (Remember the Talking Heads?), Danny Glover, John Greyson, Alice Walker, and Jane Fonda, who collectively called for a festival boycott, signed a protest letter to event organizers, and withdrew film submissions.
In a letter to festival powers-that-be, filmmaker John Greyson justified yanking his work based on Israeli action in Gaza and settlement expansion. He accused festival organizers of “an ostrich-like indifference to the realities (cinematic and otherwise) of the region” and compared the strand to one “celebrating Montgomery buses in 1963 … Chilean wines in 1973 … or South African fruit in 1991.” His objection was not due to the Israeli titles being screened, but over what he termed the festival’s co-operation with Israel’s “Brand Israel” marketing agenda.
After browsing the list of protesters, I headed on over to Jane Fonda’s blog — she’s been quite vocal and visible on this issue and she was one of the people who signed the petition decrying TIFF’s Spotlight Tel Aviv decision.
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26 Comments
1. John "birther" Samford:It’s only fair. After all, nobody goes to watch the star’s movies, so why should the stars go to see a movie?
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:19 am 2. MarkD:Hollywood is dead. It will keep on kicking for a while, like any other big beast with a small brain. Don’t be fooled by that.
The absence of Hanoi Jane is hardly anything to be upset about. Boycott away, I am. Nothing she is in will get a nickel of my money, ever.
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:27 am 3. DD:There is nothing more ridiculous than self-described progressives (like Hanoi Jane) aligning themselves with the likes of Hamas- arguably one of the most misogynistic, homophobic, ruthless, anti-Semitic organizations on the face of the earth. Kudos to Cameron Bailey for sticking to his guns on thi one. The useful idiots have been called out and they have been shown to be the fools that they are.
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:31 am 4. jimpres:I hate to see Hanoi Jane get any press coverage. As a veteran she is a traitor to this nation.
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:42 am 5. bubblehead:Jane Fonda does not care, and never did care about the truth! WHY does ANYBODY still pay any attention to this TRAITOR???!
I used to enjoy Danny Glover’s films, but I don’t watch them any more. He’s another Godless, traitorous socialist who talks one life and lives another. If he had any integrity at all, he would abandon his wealth and cushy life in America and move to Cuba to take his chances under his pal, Fidel Castro! But, alas lefties do not have integrity. They have narcissistic infatuation!
Go to hell, Danny & Jane! Your adjoining pits are already warmed up and waiting for you!
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:44 am 6. rob:i’d think jane fonda would support a liberal democracy (israel) rather than a would-be basket-case of a state that makes apartheid south africa look like a walk in the park. just look at the rights of minorities in both and there is no comparison. i know because me and my arab family live in the jewish state and couldn’t be happier (especially when we look around at our neighboring countries and imagine how life would be if we lived there).
Sep 10, 2009 - 7:24 am 7. knoodsen:JF visits the Hanoi Hilton. A prisoner slips her a note which she reads. It states that the POW’s are being tortured. She gives the note to the North Vietnamese and points out which prisoner gave it to her. I grew up during the Viet Nam era. I was shocked by much that happened, but this reminds me of that which was most shocking. How on earth did so many people, like Jane Fonda, get away with treason? I knew we were doomed back in 1970. It’s only a matter of time.
Sep 10, 2009 - 7:34 am 8. knoodsen:By the way, I spent 22 years in the Army. Some things I miss, some, well, not so much. One thing I really miss are the Jane Fonda urinal targets.
Sep 10, 2009 - 7:37 am 9. carla:It is indeed a monstrous shame, that on that day, in Hanoi, when Jane was merrily demonstrating astride a VC antiaircraft gun, looking so fetching in her pith helmet, an American A6 Intruder didn’t happen along and nail the bitch. Lost opportunity. Pity. One of Jane’s more memorable roles was in the movie Klute, in which she portrayed a high priced hooker. Well, because of advancing age I doubt that she could still command a high price, but she’s still the same old whore.
Sep 10, 2009 - 7:54 am 10. John Clarke:It was John Greyson who “politicized” this years TIFF and not the Toronto International Film Festival.
I wonder if John Greyson’s big public hissy fit about TIFF has anything to do with him being on the Advisory Board of the Toronto Palestinian Film Festival and always pushing for a world-wide boycott of anything even remotely related to Israel?
Knowing what TIFF’s plans were, one wonders why he waited to the last moment to withdraw, rather than just in the beginning many months ago withdrawing?
Sep 10, 2009 - 7:56 am 11. paul_unalaska:The movie ‘Coming Home’ starring staunch conservative Jon Voigt, liberal Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern.
I wonder if Jon was nauseous being that close to Jane? Apparently crazy Ted Turner was feeling those symptoms..
Sep 10, 2009 - 8:18 am 12. dong_ha68:Is that traitorist slut still breathing? she should have been put in front of a wall long ago. Jane you miserable slut please vanish
SEMPER FI
Sep 10, 2009 - 8:24 am 13. Rick O'Shea:GOD BLESS AMERICA
DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR
Not sure why anyone would give a rat’s rhomboid what J. Fonda has to say on any subject (nor the odious and feculent D. Glover, for that matter) but as far as this Canadian is concerned they can both STFU and stay home.
P.S. Anybody who finds their way of “thinking” to be worthwhile can FRO, too.
Sep 10, 2009 - 8:59 am 14. Toronto Girl:The Toronto Film Festival lost all credibility for me when they showed two disgusting films in recent years. One was the mock assassination of GWB and the other was an “art” by some psycho animal-killer who skinned a cat alive and filmed it. It has become a hotbed for leftist lunatics. My skin in crawling just thinking about Jane Fonda, Danny Glover et al in the same city as me.
Sep 10, 2009 - 9:52 am 15. An Open Letter to Jane Fonda and the Toronto Film Festival Boycotters | Secolul 21 ~ 21st Century:[...] more: An Open Letter to Jane Fonda and the Toronto Film Festival Boycotters This entry is filed under America – Blogs, Pajamas Media. You can follow any responses to this [...]
Sep 10, 2009 - 11:09 am 16. Sam:I think more raging bigots, anti-semitic and otherwise, like these should step up and identify themselves prominently.
Sep 10, 2009 - 1:03 pm 17. Lynn:In these harsh economic times, I need all the help I can get in knowing whose movies and music and such to boycott.
Self absorbed, self interested, self promoting, Jane Fonda can’t seem to wipe the stain of the past from her present.
Don’t worry Israel we know what her so-called LOVE for this country meant, and we know what her professed LOVE for your country means… absolutely nothing.
Hamas is a fitting friend for these Nuttywood stars, film writers, film producers and hangers-on.
Sep 10, 2009 - 1:04 pm 18. Dave Surls:If I had a film festival, I wouldn’t allow scum like Jane Fonda anywhere near it.
Sounds like she’s doing the Toronto Film Festival a favor by boycotting it.
Sep 10, 2009 - 1:32 pm 19. Hotpatch 6:Hanoi Jane is still alive? What a pity.
Sep 10, 2009 - 1:56 pm 20. mingus:JANE: Leave. Emigrate. Take the money you ‘earned’ from your exercise program, movies, etc, the capitalist system that you revile, and go away. You are a whore. Possibly you think that this is an honorable prefession. You are mistaken. You are a parasite. So take your winnings and leave. Ted, schmuck as he is, was right about one thing; you.
Sep 10, 2009 - 3:06 pm 21. GDT:Perhaps the coolest thing I have ever seen was in 1983, in Ft. Knox KY, at the helicopter pilot’s lounge, in the restroom. Affixed to the porcelain was a “Hanoi Jane Urinal Target” to aim at while relieving ones self. A more fit use of this woman’s image was never created.
Sep 10, 2009 - 3:27 pm 22. Blackwell:But it is facinating–the moral obtuseness in a used up marginal actress that lets her pick the North Vietnamese and hamas –all in one lifetime! One of freedom’s freeriders–enjoys everything a free country has to offer but prefers the other guys.
Sep 10, 2009 - 5:43 pm 23. Judy, NYC:whatever happened to baby jane? is she still vomiting to be thin? remember her videos and treadmill. nah. the dirtbag was in the bathroom throwing up her breakfast, lunch and dinner. sick woman. dumb. vicious. crazy. and obsessed with the camera. she’s nothing anymore, never was much. even the media teat has become bored with her hanging onto it.
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:23 pm 24. Valerie:Has anybody asked that silly twit if she’s read the http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP109206 ” rel=”nofollow”>Hamas Covenant?.
Sep 10, 2009 - 6:42 pm 25. Joe:The thing I have never been able to to understand about people like Fonda, Glover and other so-called liberals, they have made a really great living in America, due to Americans paying to see them do their thing on the movie screen. If they hate America so much why don’t they go to another country that would be more to their liking? And apparently, they are also anti-semites. How do folks carry that much hate around without a big, bad stomach ache?
Sep 11, 2009 - 6:54 am 26. Anonymous:Jane Fonda and her cosignatories are making Arab, antisemitic propaganda supporting Hamas (ruling in Gaza).
Sep 11, 2009 - 8:39 am