FTA: Jane Fonda’s Anti-War Movie that Still Resonates Today

The re-release of this 1972 Vietnam war documentary is headlined by Hanoi Jane herself.

March 8, 2009 - by Christian Toto
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If you think the current anti-war movement camouflages an anti-American sentiment, you’re only partly right. Rent or buy FTA, the 1972 Vietnam War protest documentary just released on DVD after a 37-year absence. It’s the best example of an anti-war brigade which set out to blast America right along with its hawkish foreign policy. And it’s headlined by — big surprise –Jane Fonda. FTA captures Fonda, Donald Sutherland, and lesser known artists traveling throughout U.S. military bases, both here and abroad, to protest the war — and just about every facet of American life.

And yes, the letter “F” in the title does stand for what you think it does, even though the tour regulars merrily shout out “Foxtrot … Tango … Alpha …” in some of their song and dance skits.

The film makes for a fine historical document, even if its entertainment value is hopelessly dated. Clearly, releasing the film anew wasn’t mean to reintroduce cobwebbed protest songs to popular culture, and the political skits require plenty of background reading to fully appreciate them. And they’re not always worth the effort, although one bit involving a battle being described like a sports game is inspired. But anyone looking to tell their child or grandchild what the Vietnam War protests were all about need not bother. Just pop in the DVD and let them see for themselves. FTA combines musical numbers, political speeches, heartfelt ballads, and interviews with U.S. soldiers lined up staunchly against the war. It’s a pastiche that’s sloppily arranged but still effective. The message comes through loud and clear, and it’s rarely dull.

“We are waging a genocidal war in Vietnam,” one balladeer tells the crowd. And that’s only scratching the surface of the anger directed toward the U.S. This country is imperialistic, bullying, racist, sexist … and too many other flaws to list here. Oh, and we never should have gone into Vietnam to kill the “yellow man.”

We’re also treated to a short segment on the effects of radiation on those who survived the atomic bomb drops in Japan to end World War II. No context is given for the U.S.’s actions. Context often kills whatever mojo the anti-warriors hope to ratchet up. Just ask the Rev. Jeremiah Wright about how subtracting context helps your rail-thin arguments against America.

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Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?

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29 Comments

1. GDT:

In 1983 I saw the funniest thing I have ever seen in the helicopter pilot’s restroom at Ft. Knox KY. They were three inch circles laminated to the back of the urinals. Each circle had a picture of the lovely Ms. Fonda. They were indentified as “Hanoi Jane Urinal Targets”. These had the dual benefit of helping keep the bathroom clean and helping one to feel better about the world at large.

I have, unsuccessfully looked for “Hanoi Jane Urinal Targets” since. There are a great many restrooms that would benefit from the addition. While I have not found this useful article anywhere else I do often imagine them – which is almost as good.

Mar 8, 2009 - 3:59 am 2. JackT:

Thanks Jane for your work to get us the hell out of a war Kennedy would never have allowed.

Mar 8, 2009 - 6:59 am 3. Oscar the Grump:

JackT
Learn your history. Kennedy had already committed troops and weapons to South Vietnam before Johnson formalized the war. Officially the troops were “advisors” but they had full combat roles.

Mar 8, 2009 - 7:14 am 4. MarkD:

I won’t spend a nickel to watch anything that traitor is in. No sale, ever. Treason is unforgiveable.

Mar 8, 2009 - 7:23 am 5. B.D.:

THe release of this film belies the odd notion made in the 1980’s that the left was “Not against the warrior, only against the war.” Clearly with a re-relase those responsible for the film and its re-release are against the troops who fought that war as best as they were allowed.

Do we need to vicitimize them all over again?

Mar 8, 2009 - 8:51 am 6. Outlaw13:

Just like MarkD, I refuse to watch or spend a dime on anything that might benefit a traitor. When she visited North Vietnam during the war she gave aid and comfort to our enemies and even worse caused a great deal of harm to befall POWs who were tortured to appear on camera with her or to make propaganda statements against the war.

She can try and rationalize this all she likes but her actions crossed a line, and I for one refuse to reward that behavior.

Mar 8, 2009 - 9:05 am 7. LawhawkSF:

Apparently, JackT is a victim of lefty revisionist history. John and Bobby Kennedy were both ardent anticommunists. As President, John Kennedy learned some lessons from the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He just didn’t learn all the lessons. He learned to be wary of anything the CIA told him. He learned that communist dictatorships were not the easy pushovers he had been told they were. But he didn’t learn that if you go into a war, you must have strong justification for it, and once committed, go in to win–full bore. The idea of Kennedy planning to get out of Viet Nam is pure fabrication. We can never know what he would have done had he lived, but at the time of his death, he had no intention of withdrawing the “advisors.”

Bobby did eventually turn against the war, as did a large number of us. A great many of us hated the war, but loved our country. We didn’t join the anti-military spit-fests. We didn’t call our soldiers “baby killers.” We didn’t join the radical America-hating groups. My uncle was a Marine Corps colonel who had gotten his field commission twenty years earlier at Iwo Jima–and in private, he said the war was a mistake. Many of us sincerely wished to see Jane Fonda disappear in a puff of smoke from a well-aimed missile during one of her commie-hugging propaganda tours.

Mar 8, 2009 - 9:32 am 8. Joe Bison:

The year the film came out there were what like
25,000 US troops left in Vietnam and these
were being withdrawn. This was not much above
the US levels when Kennedy was assassinated
and way down from the Johnson era of 500,000.

The US air war was kicking commie ass and the
ARVN were holding their own so the stooges and
useful idiots made a film. There were not a
hell of a lot of Blacks in Vietnam in 1972 either.

The ARVN collapsed when the Democrats cut
funding in 1975. Meanwhile the communists
retained full funding and more from the USSR.

This film was made to aid a failing communist
cause in their war effort and peace talks period.

Mar 8, 2009 - 9:37 am 9. pst314:

All you have to do is actually listen to what Fonda and Sutherland said to realize that this wasn’t about peace, this was about aiding communist terrorists and thugs. And they have never stopped loving those thugs, the more murderous the better.

Mar 8, 2009 - 10:41 am 10. Peter Stone:

JackT

Do you also thank Hanoi Jane for the Millions of So. East Asians that were slaughtered by the Communists after the USA left So So East Asia with our tail between our legs?

Mar 8, 2009 - 10:48 am 11. thefrog:

If Jane Fonda’s teeth were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on her gums.

Mar 8, 2009 - 11:16 am 12. Jack K:

Yes you have to hand it to Jane Fonda: nothing is as helpful to soldiers fighting in the mud like seeing a pampered moron from their own country consorting with the enemy. At least the Dixie Chicks had enough sense to dump on our president in an allied country. So Jane has some regrets now does she? Typical: she says “oops, I have regrets” and the matter is over as far as she is concerned. No better than people that chummed it up with Goebbels and Ribbentrop as far as I can see. Like Mark D I will not spend or allow anyone in my family to spend a nickel on her product.

Mar 8, 2009 - 2:36 pm 13. Raoul Deming:

Try eBay or Google it. I bought some years ago, it was pretty easy to find.

Mar 8, 2009 - 3:11 pm 14. Bilgeman:

Mr. Toto:
“And it’s hard to defend aggressive measures like dropping chemical weapons on Vietnamese societies as we did with Agent Orange.”

Whose rot are you repeating here?

Agent Orange was not a chemical weapon, and it wasn’t dropped on Vietnamese societies.

It was a chemical defoliant, meant to strip the jungle canopy and thereby deny cover and concealment to the enemy.
As such, it’s use was a defensive, not an aggresive, initiative.

Try to get your facts straight, will ya?

And no, I have utterly no desire to contribute royalty income to Fonda or Sutherland or the rest of those low-life hippie scumbags.

If Janey needs some cash, then she can shag her wrinkled ass down to court and see if the judge will wring some more loot out of Ted Turner’s piggy-bank.

Mar 8, 2009 - 5:13 pm 15. K:

And it’s hard to defend aggressive measures like dropping chemical weapons on Vietnamese societies as we did with Agent Orange.

Agent Orange is not a “chemical weapon” unless your definition of “weapon” includes things like field glasses or radar that makes it easier to see an enemy. It is a defoliant similar to the commercially available “Roundup” week killer.

There was a large payout to US vets based on the supposed ill health effects of the dixon exposure in Agent Orange, but those effects are now considered controversial or non existent at the levels most personel were exposed.

http://www.amazon.com/Dioxin-Agent-Orange-Michael-Gough/dp/0306422476

Mar 8, 2009 - 5:27 pm 16. fred:

No one talks about the contacts that Jane Fonda and Michael Hayden had with KGB proxy cutouts in Europe during the war. Any good piece of agitprop is going to have “hooks” and I’m sure, as this author allows, there are hooks in the movie. The best lies have a patina of truth about them. But you will never get any of these Communist swine to admit what North Vietnam, China, and the Soviet Union were doing in Southeast Asia. The anti-war people made Ho Chi Minh into a kind of democratic hero rebelling against foreign imperialists. Ho was a Communist since well before WWII, and had indeed spent years inside the Soviet Union being trained by the foreign directorate of the KGB.

People like “JackT” would be challenged to understand that we were defending a nation against Communist aggression. The enormous resources the Soviet Union poured into Hanoi for that war effort helped to eventually collapse their economy and military. We eventually recovered from the effects of that war. They never did.

Mar 8, 2009 - 5:38 pm 17. John Moore:

This Vietnam Vet encourages you to Steal the DVD (hey, didn’t Abbie Hoffman say something like that?)

No F way will I ever contribute a nickel that might make it’s way to Hanoi Jane’s pocket.

Mar 8, 2009 - 6:21 pm 18. fred:

Agent Orange was a defoliant that was used in jungle and bush areas, not in populated areas. It was not a chemical weapon used against the Vietnamese people. You can construe it as a “weapon” used against the enemy to deny him the cover of the jungle, so we could blast his ass to kingdom come.

Mar 8, 2009 - 6:44 pm 19. WestGuard:

#1 GDT:
“They were indentified as “Hanoi Jane Urinal Targets”.”
————————————

Too funny! There’s probably a market for this kind of thing nowadays. I would like to see some others toilet decorations as well: “Moorer, O’Donnell, Code Pink” et al.
Maybe “Osama, Chavez, Amadinejad” toilet paper too!

Mar 8, 2009 - 7:26 pm 20. JFM:

Jane Fonda contributed to making the Vietnamese and Cambodian genocides possible. Jane Fonda n=knew all too well this would happen as many atrocities had made well clear what would follow a communist victory. Jane Fonda is a criminal against humankind.L It is not too late to hang her just like it was done for Saddam and the Nazi criminals. She is from the same stock.

Mar 9, 2009 - 3:18 am 21. Dan Maloney:

If anyone is in the New York City area, and wishes to express their ‘affection’ for Hanoi Jane Fonda, please join us on Saturdays from 12:30pm to 2:00pm at West 49th St. between Broadway and 8th Avenue where we are running an ongoing protest outside the theater where Hanoi Jane is appearing in a play.

Here is a link to pictures and video:
http://nygoe.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/aar-hanoi-jane-in-nyc/

Dan Maloney
NY State Coordinator
Gathering of Eagles

Mar 9, 2009 - 3:31 am 22. COL.SEBASTIAN MORAN:

BILGEMAN
#14
I was in Viet Nam 1n ‘67 & ‘68 (in time to enjoy the Tet festivities). Agent Orange was, indeed, used as a defoliant only. It was never used as an offensive chemical weapon. Hanoi Jane should have been lodged at a U.s. equivalent of the Hanoi Hilton – damned if she shouldn’t still be there ! Treason is both unforgivable and unpardonable.
S. M.

Mar 9, 2009 - 9:43 am 23. Bilgeman:

#22 Col. Moran:
“I was in Viet Nam 1n ‘67 & ‘68 (in time to enjoy the Tet festivities). Agent Orange was, indeed, used as a defoliant only.”

Heck, I recall watching a CBS Reports about the 1st Infantry Division who had a young captain or colonel,(don’t recall which), named Alexander Haig who made his bones with a squadron of Rome Plows and a few cold six-packs for the engineers who could clear the most forest.

This woulda been about your time…7 years later Haig was NATO commander and in the orbit of Nixon’s Oval Office.

Not a bad career track, huh?

I wonder how his ‘dozer operators made out?

Mar 9, 2009 - 5:32 pm 24. john from cinncinatti:

she was in the movie Klute, and as far as i know she has never gotten out of character. this capitalist endeavor of selling movies is kind of like selling Che shirts.

Mar 10, 2009 - 5:21 pm 25. dale:

I was also in country in time to enjoy tet. Col you are correct she should have taken the place of some of our pow’s. I honor my brothers and sisters who were there. Jane you pos someone should piss on you not only your urinal cake

Mar 11, 2009 - 6:10 am 26. Chris:

Jane Fonda proves herself to be her boldest and most courages in FTA. I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks, my favorite Jane has always been the F%%$ the establishment Jane of the early seventies. Fight the power Fonda!

Mar 20, 2009 - 10:48 pm 27. Malcolm Z:

“FTA epitomized the era’s anti-war template, and at times the film rises to the level of the best protest battle cries. Just don’t bother asking the antiwar protesters of that era, or today’s, about what the Communists were really up to. They’ll likely change the subject back to imperialism or the evils of capitalism. Maybe both.”

Ah, finally! The “Reverend” Sun Myung Moon won’t fire you now, Toto. (Wasn’t that the dog in The Wizard of Oz?)

And don’t ask the protestors what the VIETNAMESE were really up to:

1. Overthrowing 100 years of Western colonialism / imperialism / oppression / racism / etc.

2. Fighting and defeating the most fascistic nation on earth, now the 21st century successor to Nazi Germany.

3. Sacrificing 3 million of their people who gave their lives to support their “Communist” government.

Sieg Heil, Washington Times.

Mar 30, 2009 - 9:35 am 28. zayne:

Hey GDT Just google it i found them in less then a min.

Apr 9, 2009 - 7:09 am 29. Spurwing Plover:

She is still a traitor and i,ll never watch any of her movies again

Jul 10, 2009 - 11:41 pm