Decoder Ring | Jane Fonda’s Workout, Part 2: Hanoi Jane’s VHS Revolution (Encore)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Decoder Ring | Jane Fonda’s Workout, Part 2: Hanoi Jane’s VHS Revolution (Encore)

Host: Willa Paskin (Slate Podcasts)
Date: September 10, 2025
Episode Length: ~55 minutes (ads and non-content skipped)

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Overview of the Episode

This episode, a reprise of the second part of Decoder Ring’s Jane Fonda series, unravels the extraordinary story of how Jane Fonda—Hollywood actress, political lightning rod, and activist—became a fitness icon and changed the way Americans viewed exercise, celebrity, and even home video. Host Willa Paskin explores the paradoxical journey of “Hanoi Jane” into “Exercise Jane,” examining how Fonda’s public persona evolved, how her workout video shaped a cultural phenomenon, and why her political controversies both shadowed and, at times, were eclipsed by her subsequent mass appeal. The episode delves into the making of the original workout tape, the impact of Fonda’s activism (especially regarding Vietnam), and the deep generational divides in public memory of her legacy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Mystery at the Heart of Jane Fonda’s Reinvention

• Fonda, at the zenith of her acting and her notoriety as a divisive activist, launched an exercise video—an odd pivot that initially puzzled many, including Paskin herself.
• Quote:
  • “It is mysterious to me thinking about all the facets of Jane Fonda…truly and fairly controversial political activist…got into everyone’s homes…mastermind, aerobics instructor. It’s such a weird thing. She wanted to do that and then she did it. Like, what?” (Willa Paskin, 02:04)

2. The Beginnings: Activism, Hollywood, & the Workout’s Political Roots

• Fonda’s exercise business was initially designed to fund the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), the progressive organization she co-founded with then-husband Tom Hayden.
• The workout studio, book, and later video directly supported CED’s mission. The CED’s existence and funding set Fonda’s early workout efforts apart from pure commercial ventures.
• Quote:
  • “[Fonda’s] initial workout studio [was] to fund the CED…Her book made money for the CED…The entity that encompassed all facets of the workout business. By 1982…proceeds from Workout Inc. were providing CED with at least $30,000 a month.” (Willa Paskin, 11:02)

3. The Birth of the Workout Video (and the VHS Revolution)

• At the time (1982), home video was nascent (only 2 million VCR-equipped homes). The idea of an exercise video was almost alien—the vast majority of home video was rentals, not purchases; most were movies or adult content.
• Stuart Carl and wife Debbie Carl were instrumental in connecting with Fonda to make the video.
• Fonda was initially reluctant:
  • Quote:
    • “He called me and I said, no…because I thought, well, that really will affect my career as an actor. I mean, I can’t do both.” (Fonda, 12:03)
  • Fonda only agreed after CED convinced her, and she hired her politically seasoned friend Sidney Galante as director.
• The first tape was filmed on a shoestring, in a studio recreated to mimic her classes.
  • Quote:
    • “I mean, it was spit and prayer.” (Jane Fonda, 14:42)

4. The Workout Video’s Immediate and Lasting Impact (16:14 – 17:33)

• The video exceeded expectations, eventually selling 17 million copies and creating multiple new commercial categories—including the “for sale” video and the celebrity exercise video.
• Spurred huge exercise video boom (by 1992, US fitness video sales totaled $415 million).
• Fonda’s nationwide promotional tour — “Exercise 82” — further cemented her image and broadened her reach, transitioning her from “controversial activist” to “relatable home fitness coach.”

5. The Political Backdrop: Vietnam, Hanoi Jane, and Memory (19:10 – 32:04)

• Paskin explores Fonda’s political activism—focusing on her divisive role in the anti-Vietnam War movement, her 1972 Hanoi trip, and ensuing “Hanoi Jane” legend.
• At the height of Vietnam controversy, Fonda was surveilled by the Nixon Administration, targeted in political attacks, and suffered real career consequences (“gray-listed” in Hollywood).
• Contextualizes the delayed public backlash:
  • “For all of the people who were angry at Fonda, there were even more who were not angry with her, who shared her views on this deeply unpopular war…” (Mary Hirshberger, 30:38)
• Fonda’s reputation underwent rehabilitation by late 1970s—admiration for her activism grew as the country’s views shifted.

6. How “Exercise Jane” Rewrote the Narrative (36:00 – 47:24)

• Fonda’s workout tape success changed her public image, making her into “the woman in your house encouraging you to make it burn” instead of the radical “Hanoi Jane.”
  • Notable Quote:
    • “When you’re on television and you’re coming into somebody’s home…becomes a far more intimate relationship.” (Jane Fonda, 36:59)
• The tape’s success paved the way for a cascade of celebrity workout tapes (Debbie Reynolds, Richard Simmons, Mary Lou Retton, Cher, and many more).
• By mid-1980s, Fonda was known more for fitness than for film or activism (“What about the causes I’m fighting for? It made me uneasy… I didn’t want pelvic tilt to define me.” – Jane Fonda, 42:45)
• Yet in 1987, as Fonda’s fitness empire was at its peak, the “Hanoi Jane” controversy was rekindled by Vietnam veterans and grew into a cultural myth, thanks to the political environment of the Reagan era.

7. The Persistence and Afterlife of “Hanoi Jane”

• By the late ’80s and ’90s, “Hanoi Jane” legend exploded with misinformation, culminating in demands for her treason prosecution and viral urban legends (even in the pre-internet era).
• Despite this, Fonda’s exercise videos remained popular and kept coming, remaining a fixture for a generation.
• Fonda’s attempts to apologize for her Vietnam actions did little to quell the controversy, but her broader influence on American exercise norms and lifestyle branding persisted.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It is like mysterious to me thinking about all the facets of Jane Fonda…truly and fairly controversial political activist…got into everyone’s homes…mastermind, aerobics instructor. It’s such a weird thing.” – Willa Paskin (02:04)
• “I thought, well, that really will affect my career as an actor. I mean, I can’t do both.” – Jane Fonda (12:03)
• “I mean, it was spit and prayer.” – Jane Fonda on the production of the first tape (14:42)
• “When you’re on television and you’re coming into somebody’s home…then the relationship between you and the audience changes a lot. It becomes far more intimate.” – Jane Fonda (36:59)
• “This was when Hanoi Jane was turned into an art form during the Reagan administration. That was when it really escalated…they thought, aha, we can scare people away from joining any anti-war movement by turning Jane Fonda into a pariah.” – Jane Fonda (47:00)
• “I will go to my grave regretting the fact that I was photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun.” – Jane Fonda (48:01)
• “It isn’t easy for me to accept the fact that many young people, if they know me at all, know me as the woman in the exercise video that their mother used.” – Jane Fonda (from her memoir, quoted at 51:00)
• “Are they using you?…I hope they use me. What am I here for if not to be used by good people for good things?” – Jane Fonda (52:10)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 01:41 – Paskin introduces the central mystery: how did Fonda go from activism to ’80s fitness icon?
• 08:17 – Origin of the Jane Fonda Workout video, the video market, and Stuart Carl’s involvement.
• 12:03 – Fonda’s reluctance and eventual acceptance to make a fitness tape.
• 14:42 – Filming the iconic video: production anecdotes.
• 16:14 – 17:33 – Rise to fitness phenomenon; how the video changed American consumer habits.
• 19:10 – 32:04 – Deep dive into Fonda’s activism, the Vietnam era, and transformation of her public persona.
• 36:00 – Reagan jokes about Fonda’s workout; analysis of her changing image.
• 36:59 – Fonda on the intimacy of home video.
• 38:04 – 42:24 – Explosion of the celebrity fitness video genre; Fonda’s ambivalence about her new identity.
• 45:49 – 47:24 – “Hanoi Jane” legend’s resurgence; shifting political context.
• 48:01 – Fonda’s regrets and public apologies.
• 50:11 – 51:00 – The generational split in Fonda’s legacy: political icon vs. fitness guru.
• 52:10 – Jane Fonda on being “used” for good causes.

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• Jane Fonda’s workout tapes did not just create a multi-million dollar fitness industry—they transformed how Americans used home video, normalized women’s fitness, and reshaped the arc of celebrity branding, even as her own political history was hotly debated.
• The episode draws a larger lesson about cultural memory, generational shifts in reputation, and how figures like Fonda can become both symbols and scapegoats, their legacies refracted through changing social and political climates.
• Ultimately, the Jane Fonda Workout was only one facet of a multi-decade public life, a life that has included activism, controversy, reinvention—and the relentless pursuit of “things that matter.”

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Memorable closing:

Jane Fonda: “What am I here for if not to be used by good people for good things?” (52:11)

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For Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In

This episode is rich in cultural history, personal testimony, and analysis—tracing how Jane Fonda went from pariah to pioneer and back again, and how one VHS tape helped change America’s relationship to both exercise and celebrity. If you want an episode that dissects the intersection of politics, pop culture, and identity, this is essential listening.

Transcript

[Willa Paskin]

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[Willa Paskin]

Hi, it's willa. Back in 2020, we aired a two part episode all about Jane Fonda. Last time we played you the first part, all about the complicated relationship that birthed the Jane Fonda workout tape. Today we're going to play you the second, which tries to make sense of how the exerc tape fits in with Jane Fonda's career and activism more largely. Hope you enjoy.

[Jane Fonda]

5, 6, 7, 8 and pull down. 1, 2.

[Willa Paskin]

So there's something about the Jane Fonda workout that's never quite made sense to me. I know I'm inclined to see mysteries everywhere, but I saw one here between the leg warmers and the leotards.

[Jane Fonda]

Six, seven, eight and pull down. Right. Stretch it out.

[Willa Paskin]

Here's me trying to explain myself during an interview. It is like mysterious to me thinking about all the facets of Jane Fonda and being like this woman at the height of her acting career, truly and fairly controversial political activist, got into everyone's homes. Mastermind, aerobics instructor. It's such a weird thing. She wanted to do that and then she did it. Like what?

[Jane Fonda]

Straight legs. Reach your butt out behind you, feel the stretch and flex. 2, 3, 4. Reach, 6.

[Willa Paskin]

In the moment Right before the workout became a phenomenon, Jane Fonda had a lot going on. First, there was actress Jane and if.

[Jane Fonda]

I want to have have an affair or play play sex games or do M&MS. You can't stop me.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

M&MS.

[Jane Fonda]

As a matter of fact, I smoke pot.

[Willa Paskin]

That's her 9 to 5, which came out in 1981 in a string of critical and commercial hits that were produced by Fonda's own production company. Her career was going fantastically and she was making movies that had ideas and politics, movies that fit in snugly with another aspect of her Persona activist chain.

[Jane Fonda]

Culturally, psychologically, economically, politically, gays and lesbians are discriminated against.

[Willa Paskin]

That's Fonda at a fundraiser in San Francisco talking about the importance of gay rights in 1979, decades ahead of most people.

[Jane Fonda]

They don't need me, but they like me. And they like our organization, the Campaign.

[Willa Paskin]

For Economic but of course, not everybody liked Jane Fonda. Also in 1979, a number of conservative California state senators had just banded together to keep Fonda from sitting on the state's arts advisory board because of her activism during Vietnam, because she was also, to them, Hanoi Jane.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Hanoi Jane, why don't you just leave America?

[Willa Paskin]

Hanoi Jane is the extremely controversial figure that some people still passionately hate for what she did or supposedly did during the Vietnam War. And what I couldn't quite understand what was puzzling me is how this back.

[Jane Fonda]

To what your leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. And this they are a very powerful movement, especially in San Francisco. They don't need me.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

And this Jane called her POWs stupid.

[Willa Paskin]

And liar could possibly have led to.

[Jane Fonda]

This Are you ready to do the workout?

[Willa Paskin]

How on earth did Jane Fonda become exercise? Jane this is Decoder Ring, a show about cracking cultural mysteries. I'm Willa Paskin. This is the second episode of our two parter about the 1982 Jane Fonda workout tape. In the first, we looked at the complex relationship between Jane Fonda and Lenny Kasdan that birthed the workout in the first place. And you haven't listened to that one yet. Please go do so. It will give you important context for this one. As for this episode, this episode is about the other complicated relationship embedded in the workout. The relationship between Jane Fonda and the American public. It's one that started way before the workout and continued continues to this very day. But that, with the workout, reached a fascinating inflection point. The Jane Fonda workout changed how we see video gyms, exercise, celebrity and lifestyle branding. But most of all, it changed how we see Jane Fonda. So today, I'm decodering the same question two ways. How did Jane Fonda make the workout? How did Jane Fonda, of all people, make the workout? Fall is in full swing, and it's.

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[Willa Paskin]

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Keep it classic and cozy this fall with long lasting staples from quint. Go to quint.comdecoder for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E.com decoder to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com decoder as discussed in the last episode, in 1979, Fonda had opened an immediately successful workout studio in Los Angeles. It led to two other studios and in 1981, Jane Fonda's workout Record and the best selling Jane Fonda Workout book. And then in April of 1982, the workout video. At the time, these all seemed like pieces in one big multimedia onslaught. But the reason Jane Fonda became so close, closely associated with exercise for such an extended period, is not because of the class or the book or the record. It's because of the video and the 20 plus ones that came after it. So I'm going to start today with that first video, the one that kicked it all off much, even to the surprise of Jane Fonda, who, you'll recall, I actually got to speak with.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

It was really something I never expected.

[Willa Paskin]

In early 1982, making an exercise video was an out there idea. And that's because pretty much everything having to do with video was an out there idea. Only 2 million homes in America had a VCR at the time, and those homes almost exclusively rented. No one was making video content for consumers to buy, except for a young man from Southern California named Stuart Carl.

[Court Shannon]

He was kind of very much the innovative entrepreneur. You know, he started like the first Wal Waterbed magazine.

[Willa Paskin]

Stuart Carle died in 1991 at 38 of cancer. But Court Shannon, who you just heard, was a longtime colleague of his. After dropping out of college in the early 1970s, Stewart had spent a few years as a waterbed salesman. Thus the successful waterbed magazine. But once he was in publishing, he noticed another nascent industry that could use a trade paper, video stores. He started Videostore magazine, which gave him enough insight into the business to think both that video was going to be a big deal and and that it was way too focused on renting movies and also pornography, which is a big part of the rental market at the time.

[Court Shannon]

The video store would pay 80, 90, $100 for one copy of a feature film and then they would rent that out for X number of dollars per night. No one was actually transacting sales. They didn't have something that people necessarily wanted to buy or own, especially at those price points. I think Stuart's vision was in looking at the television overall in the home is, hey, there's a whole other category that no one's ever touched which is how to how to cook, how to exercise.

[Willa Paskin]

The company Stewart founded was called Carl Video. It specialized in what Stewart described as midvid everything between quote, Jaws and Deep Throat. Prior to the Jane Fonda workout, its offerings included the Art of Speed Reading Video, First Aid Kit, a series of cooking how tos with titles like Making Bread and Soups, Slash Salads and Exercise now, which sold for 59.95 and was their first, if not the first exercise video. In mid-1981 it was the best selling how to cassette in the industry, which court Shannon guesses means it sold a few thousand copies. One day, Stewart's wife Debbie Carl, who had seen the Jane Fonda workout book, suggested he make a video with her. He thought it was a great idea, but he needed a way to get in touch with Fonda.

[Court Shannon]

Okay, what's going to be the vehicle? How are we going to get there? Let's find a way. He had a friend who referred him in and said, you should become involved in ced. And that's how he connected with Jane.

[Willa Paskin]

Initially, for Fonda, the exercise business had always been tied up with the ced, the Campaign for Economic Democracy, the political organization she founded with her then husband and the activist and politician Tom Hayden. The CED pushed for progressive legislation all over California, often by funding local political races. And it was the reason the workout business existed in the first place. Fonda had started her initial workout studio to fund the ced. Her book made money for the ced. In fact, the CED owned Workout Inc. The entity that encompassed all facets of the workout business. By 1982, even before the workout video, proceeds from Workout Inc. Were providing CED with at least $30,000 a month and well over half of its yearly $400,000 operating budget. Up to this point, Fonda hadn't been particularly concerned that her exercise based fundraising would interfere with her acting career. When Stuart Carl got in touch with her about doing a video, she wasn't so sure.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

And he called me and I said, no, you know, because I thought, well, that really will affect my career as an actor. I mean, I can't do both.

[Willa Paskin]

Fonda also did not have a VCR or know anyone who had ever bought a videotape.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

But then he kept asking, and I think that the organization said, no, do it. And so I did.

[Willa Paskin]

Her first move was to hire a director, producer.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

So I went to the guy who happened to be a friend of mine, Sid Galante was his name, and he was making the political campaigns for Tom. And I said, well, you know, you're doing these commercials for Tom. Would you film the workout?

[Willa Paskin]

So Sidney Galanti, the man who oversaw the first workout tape and many of the ones to follow, was a political campaign strategist for progressive candidates and causes who had been making political ads for years. Here's an ad he made in 1964.

[Jane Fonda]

Holy breaking and entering. It's Batgirl.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Quick, Batgirl, untie us before it's too late.

[Jane Fonda]

I've worked for you a long time, and I paid less than Robin. Same job, same employer means equal pay for men and women.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

No time for jokes, fat girl.

[Willa Paskin]

With the workout, Fonda, Galante, Stuart Carl and everyone else involved were starting almost from scratch. There were a few exercise shows on tv, but none of them felt like an exercise class. There weren't other people doing the workout on screen, too. And that's what Fonda wanted the video to feel like a class. She already had quite a bit of experience as an instructor. She regularly taught at the Beverly Hills studio while filming 9 to 5, she'd actually led a 4:30am class there.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

And it was a full class at 4:30 in the morning.

[Willa Paskin]

So with a budget of around $50,000 and just a few days to film, they recreated a class. The set looks like a dance studio with a wood floor and folding chairs no one's using. Set up around the edge of the room, there's a ballet bar and a payphone and a bulletin board with flyers tacked to it. And a bunch of other exercisers, dancers who pipe up all routine long, giving Jane encouragement. Jane herself is wearing a lilac and fuchsia striped leotard, lilac tights, dark purple leg warmers, and no shoes. As an aside, Reebok only released the first athletic shoe for women, the Reebok Freestyle, this same year, 1982. By 1984, boosted by the craze, Fonda kicked off it would account for half of Reebok's sales. Anyway, though the workout is pretty taxing and fast, Fonda does the whole thing effortlessly. She doesn't even appear to sweat. Still, she says, they kind of winged the whole thing.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

I mean, it was spit and prayer.

[Willa Paskin]

When the workout was finally released, expectations weren't that high. It was clear from the book, which had spent six six months at number one on the New York Times bestseller list on its way to selling 2 million copies. There was a mass audience for the Jane Fonda workout. But it was unclear if that size audience would exist in the completely unproven field of home video. Initially, it seemed like maybe not. It entered the Billboard video charts a month after its Release at number 23. But the workout video had something going for it. Jane Fonda. She started going around the country on a tour called Exercise 82, teaching in person exercise classes to hundreds of women. The events for which you had to buy tickets were fundraisers for the ced, but you could also buy merch there. A Jane Fonda Workout sweatshirt and sweatpants. The book, the video, the record.

[Jane Fonda]

Now inhale, open your arms to the side. Exhale and raise them over your head. Now reach with the right arm. Lift, Stretch. Now let's stretch. And right.

[Willa Paskin]

Carl Video took note of the live events and offered to organize even more. They piggybacked on them with in person events at local video stores and on local media. And they got the video into bookstores and big box retail outlets before that was common. By late 1982, the video was becoming a phenomenon in its own right.

[Court Shannon]

It didn't matter whether it was us in the company or the distribution companies or the stores, they're like going, this is unbelievable.

[Willa Paskin]

Court Shannon, who is now a media and advertising consultant and who worked at Carl Video at the time, again, how.

[Court Shannon]

Could this grow so fast, sell so much, and do it week in, week out, month after month? It seemed like it was an out of control rocket ship.

[Willa Paskin]

By 1984, Fonda's tape had sold 275,000 copies at $60 a pop, $160 in 2020 money, breaking all records for VHS sales up to that point and becoming the best selling video of all time. But this doesn't capture the scope of its success. It wasn't just a hit, it was a category creator. At the time, no non theatrical video had ever sold more than 100,000 copies. Vonda's video more than doubled that and kept going all the way to 17 million. It not only pushed VCR sales through the roof and created the exercise video category. It created the for sale video category, meaning every tape you could buy and bring home. It was the breakout hit that led directly to every weird and not so weird weird video of the 1980s VHS boom. And all of this was thanks to Jane Fonda. Which brings me back to the mystery I was mulling over at the top of the show because didn't people hate.

[Jane Fonda]

Her.

[Willa Paskin]

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[Willa Paskin]

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[Willa Paskin]

So I just want to say here that my curiosity about the Jane Fonda workout is deeply generational. I was born in 1981 when Exercise Jane was about to become fully ascendant, and the whole thing is a curious artifact of my childhood. She's one of the first celebrities I can remember knowing about because my mom had the Jane Fonda workout record and I learned who she was from the COVID I learned a lot more about Jane Fonda since then, but I've come to see that there's another way that my age informed my curiosity about the workout by informing my understanding of the Vietnam War. One of the things that most puzzled me about the workout was totally tied up in Vietnam. And it was this. If Jane Fonda's Vietnam activism had been so controversial, how did the workout become so successful? If so many people despised her, why had others let her into their house to teach them how to do pelvic tilts? How had she gone from someone so political to someone so not? How had Hanoi Jane become Exercise Jane? And the answer to that is actually that a lot of Americans, not just me, misremember Hanoi Jane. And to understand how I have to go back to her origins, I have to go back and look at Jane Fonda and Vietnam. In 1970, Fonda, back in America after years in France and newly politicized, throws herself into activism. She becomes involved in the fight for Native American rights, marches women seeking welfare reform, does fundraisers for the Black Panthers, and most especially dives into the already robust anti war effort. From the start, she is especially focused on the GI movement, the growing cohort of enlisted and former members of the armed forces who opposed the war in Vietnam. It was a pretty head spinning transformation for much of the American film and celebrity attuned public. The blonde sex kitten in Barbarella had seemingly overnight become a political radical with a dark shag haircut. In 1971, her film career on hold, she toured the country and then South Asia alongside a number of other celebrities in a popular variety show for the troops, an anti war version of Bob Hope's USO tours called fta, which stood for Free the Army, but only if you were being polite. Here's Jane playing the first lady, Pat Nixon in one of the sketches.

[Jane Fonda]

Mr. President, there's a terrible demonstration going on outside.

[Willa Paskin]

Oh, there's always a demonstration going on outside, Pat.

[Jane Fonda]

But Richard, this one is completely out of control. They're storming the White House.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Oh, in that case I better call out the 3rd Marines.

[Jane Fonda]

You can't, Richard.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Why not?

[Jane Fonda]

It is the 3rd Marines.

[Willa Paskin]

By this point Nixon was already paying attention to her. Starting in 1970, his FBI had begun spying on her, going through her mail, illegally accessing her bank information, trailing her five year old daughter to school, and actively attempting to discredit her in one instance by trying to plant fake gossip items and another by arresting her at an airport on trumped up drug charges. Nixon was recorded speaking about her on the White house tapes in 1971.

[Mary Hirshberger]

Jane Fonda.

[Willa Paskin]

What in the world is the matter with Jane Fonda? I feel, I feel so sorry for Henry Fonda, who's a nice man, she really is. She's, she's a great actress and she looks pretty, but mar she off on a wrong track. An aide reportedly said of Nixon around this time that what Brezhnev the then head of the Soviet Union, and Jane Fonda said, got about the same treatment. And this was all before her famous trip to Hanoi in 1972. In advance of the upcoming election and in response to the war's widespread unpopularity, Nixon was pursuing a strategy called Vietnamization, pulling back American troops so the war could be carried out by South Vietnamese forces and an unprecedented amount of American bombs. As American soldiers left Southeast Asia, for many people the war was becoming less urgent. But not for Fonda.

[Jane Fonda]

If he reduces the number of white American deaths and reduces the cost of the war, that our conscience can be pacified, that the American, American people don't care whether millions of people in Asia are killed in our names.

[Willa Paskin]

News reports corroborated by the Swedish ambassador to Hanoi suggested that the Nixon administration was intentionally bombing river levees in North Vietnam that should they give way, would destroy the rice fields, potentially starving a million people. The administration denied this at the time, though later the Nixon tapes would reveal Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, talking about this very possibility with little concern. But Fonda was very concerned. In July of 1972, at the invitation of the North Vietnamese government, she traveled to Hanoi specifically to gather evidence of the bombings.

[Jane Fonda]

Nixon is aiming at the one most vulnerable point since it is an agrarian society and that is their crops, their land, their agriculture.

[Willa Paskin]

At the time that she went, 300Americans had already visited or would soon visit North Vietnam, including famous ones like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Susan Sontag and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. Many of them had or would do exactly what Fonda did. Bring letters to and Visit with American POWs being held by the North Vietnamese and broadcast over Radio Hanoi, though only Fonda would be photographed laughing and smiling, sitting atop a Vietnamese anti aircraft gun, aiming at the sky, ready to shoot down an American plane. The moment, and those photos haunt her reputation to this very day. But that didn't start right away. So though some State Department officials were trotting out the word traitor while Fonda was still in North Vietnam in the days after she came back to the US in July of 1972, her trip wasn't that big of a story. Her return was mentioned in a gossip column in the Washington Post and on page nine of the New York Times. On her way back to the States, though, Fonda had stopped in Paris to show the footage she'd taken of the levees to the media. And this got attention not so much as a story about Fonda, but as a story about the American military.

[Mary Hirshberger]

Media accepted her testimony as accurate.

[Willa Paskin]

Mary Hirshberger is a historian and the author of Jane Fonda's War, a political biography of an anti war icon.

[Mary Hirshberger]

This really tipped what had been sort of a low level concern into an international issue that President Nixon could not ignore. I think this fact that Nixon administration officials felt somewhat humiliated by this actress who they scorned, really led to a lot of the initial outrage at Jane Fonda in Vietnam.

[Willa Paskin]

Nixon had been heaping scorn on the student activists and anti war protesters he'd famously called bums for years. But Rick Perlstein, writing in his popular history of this time, Nixon Land, says that in making herself such a problem for the administration, Fonda inspired a more pointed Nixon strategy, one that would outlast Nixon's own presidency. He writes, Fonda's trip marked the emergence of a new narrative about Vietnam, that people like Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon weren't responsible for the disaster, but people like Fonda stabbing American soldiers and South Vietnamese allies in the back were. Over the next couple of weeks and months, attacks on Fonda increased, led by right wing political figures calling her traitorous, communistic and shrill. Jesse Helms, who was running for his first term as senator at the time, was then the executive Vice president and chairman at a North Carolina based TV station and he regularly denounced Fonda on tv. In August, First Lady Pat Nixon criticized the visit. That same month, Representative Fletcher Thompson sought to subpoena Fonda to speak before a congressional committee holding hearings on travel to hostile areas, that is North Vietnam. Another congressman would later introduce legislation that would restrict such travel. Because of Fonda, the Veterans of Foreign wars called her a traitorous meddler and said she should be prosecuted and she would be chastised and censured by a couple of state and city legislatures and excoriated in a handful of newspapers. But all of this didn't come to very much at the time.

[Mary Hirshberger]

In 1972, yes, you can say there was a lot of venom directed against her, a lot of criticism. She was called a traitor. But this did not get much traction because at this time fewer than 50% of Americans supported the war.

[Willa Paskin]

This may also explain why the anti aircraft gun photo, which has since become the iconic image of Fonda's supposed treachery, wasn't yet central to the attacks on her.

[Mary Hirshberger]

That photograph, nobody paid much attention to it at the time. I suspect the primary reason is that at the time in 1972, a lot of Americans were horrified at all the bombing. What that picture showed is not just Jane Fonda on an anti aircraft emplacement. But what you don't see is that there are planes up in the sky that are dropping bombs on people.

[Willa Paskin]

Instead of the photos, the focus was on Fonda's Radio Hanoi broadcast in which he addressed American soldiers in South Vietnam.

[Jane Fonda]

This is Jane Fonda speaking from him. A phenomenon has been taking place in the United states called the GI Movement. Prior to 1968, many of the soldiers, the grunts, the snuffies, the ground troops in South Vietnam had believed what their officers and their generals had told them.

[Willa Paskin]

In focusing on the broadcaster, critics were hoping to establish a lineage between Fonda and Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose, two American women who had been charged with treason for broadcasting on German and Japanese radio during World War II. There was also a Vietnamese woman who had broadcast in English on Radio Hanoi who was known as Hanoi Hannah. Sometime in late 72 or early 73, Fonda got the nickname Hanoi Jane at first to connect her to these women. But the name took on a life of its own in 1973 when Fonda called returning POWs who said the North Vietnamese had a blanket torture policy liars. It's a comment for which she would later apologize, but that spurred a lot of immediate and intense hostility, like people burning her in effigy and death threats, as well as much of the long lasting anger.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

If she doesn't like it here, I believe that you should coincide with all of those people over there and cohabit with them.

[Willa Paskin]

It also prompted this song, which you heard earlier, a country western track performed by Leon Rauch.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

I know, Jane, why don't you just leave America, button up your big mouth and leave a POWs alone.

[Willa Paskin]

By this point, her acting career was in a precarious position. Talking to the New York Times in 1982, she said, Nixon was president and I couldn't get a job. I can't say I was blacklisted, but I was gray listed. So clearly many people were very angry with Jane Fonda. What's important to keep in mind is that for all of the people who were angry with Fonda, there were even more who were not angry with her, who shared her views on this deeply unpopular war and admired her for expressing them.

[Mary Hirshberger]

The American public at the time was living with the reality of the war. They knew what the bombing was doing to Vietnam. There were a lot of Americans who were really distressed about it. And her popularity actually increased at the.

[Willa Paskin]

In 1973, the Gallup Poll listed Fonda as one of the most admired women in America for the first time on a List topped by Pat Nixon. Articles written now about this period tend to say this is when Fonda became controversial, and that's just been the case ever since. But it's not. By 1974, the level of ire towards her was already abating. With the Watergate scandal as a backdrop, Fonda seemed right and righteous, a personal survivor of Tricky Dick's dirty tricks. By 1975, with the war over and Nixon out of office, she returned to acting, no longer on any gray list. On the occasion of one of her first significant films in years, 1977's Julia, she went on the Tonight Show. Johnny Carson introduced her like this.

[Johnny Carson]

My first guest tonight is a gal that I admire highly, not because she is such a fine actress, which she is. Neidmar not only is a professional, because as a person who has taken a stand on issues that at times were unpopular and was willing to stand up and be counted called a radical. And it's a funny thing how people who were called radicals at the time now are considered people who a lot of them who were right on. And a lot of people wish that they had taken those stands previously, anyway.

[Willa Paskin]

In 1978, Fonda's IPC Films, her production company, which takes its name from her political organization, the Indochina Peace Campaign, released Coming Home. Coming Home is about a paraplegic Vietnam vet played by Jon Voight and the married woman whose mind and sexuality he opens, played by Fonda.

[Jane Fonda]

It's gonna be very hard for him. He's not gonna like the fact that I've changed, you know, that I've never been on my own before.

[Willa Paskin]

The movie, a critical text about Vietnam that focuses on the experience of a woman wounded and disillusioned veteran, was very much in conversation with Fonda's anti war work and the accusations of betrayal that she had faced after her trip to Hanoi. Basically, it's her Vietnam movie. She won her second Oscar for it. What you see happening in the late 1970s is that while almost everything that Fonda does is still in a conversation with her Vietnam activism, that conversation is generally admiring. A People magazine cover from 1977 says, Jane Fonda, America loves her again. Of course, not everyone loved her, particularly on the right. She remained a reliable boogeyman. And there were a smattering of protests of her exercise tour, just as there are protests of her now. But in the late 1970s, to most people, she wasn't Hanoi Jane anymore, if she ever had been. Though loathing her was a familiar position, it had also become a fringe one. It wouldn't stay that way. But by the time it returned, Fonda would be less associated with politics than she'd been in years, because by then she would have become exercise Jane. Some days we celebrate the wins, like calling your best friend to congratulate them.

[AT&T Advertiser]

On a big promotion or texting your grandmother happy birthday. Other days we work through the tough stuff, like calling a partner to deliver bad news.

[Willa Paskin]

Whatever the reason for picking up the.

[AT&T Advertiser]

Phone or sending that message, staying connected matters. That's why, in the rare event of a network outage, AT and T will proactively credit you for a full day of service. That's the AT and T guarantee. So what are you waiting for?

[Willa Paskin]

Send that message to someone you miss.

[AT&T Advertiser]

Make that call you've been putting off, because those are the moments that matter most. AT and T Connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers must be connected to impacted tower at onset of outage. Restrictions and exclusions apply. See att.com guarantee for full details.

[Willa Paskin]

This episode is brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to get creative with your personal style and find the best arrivals for falling Transitioning from summer outfits to a fall wardrobe is always a little bit of a hassle, and I find [e-mail] helpful. They make it easy and fun to browse the latest fall fashions and find pieces that fit together and that fit me. They have some really great chunky cardigans, some from Polo by Ralph Lauren, that look extremely comfortable and fashionable, and I can imagine wearing them all around my house and also out on the town. But that's my experience. With Saks.com there's so much more to explore based on your personal style and what you're looking for. So this fall, whether you're trying out the latest fashion trends or curating a closet that stands the test of time, Saks has you covered. If you're looking for shopping to be fun and easy, then head to Saks Fifth Avenue for inspiring ways to elevate your personal style every day. Almost immediately, the workout in all its iterations, starts to change people's relationship to Jane Fonda. Here's President Ronald Reagan in 1983 mentioning Fonda not to critique her, but to joke about her workout.

[Johnny Carson]

I was worried that I'd get out of shape in this job, but thanks.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

To Mike Deaver's diet and Jane Fonda's workout book I did just great. You wouldn't believe the muscle I developed.

[Willa Paskin]

In my left arm. I think it's fair to say that Reagan mentioning Fonda must have been something, something of a risque joke unto itself. But this captures the extent to which the workout had started to dominate the perception of her, to, in her own words, supersede everything else about her. Though the workout video was still funding the ced, on its face, it wasn't political at all. The book had actually had its share of politics. A feminist framing a chapter on environmental dangers. Fonda calling herself an activist multiple times in the text. But you could buy the video because it was a great exercise routine and Fonda looked great doing it and not think about anything else. And this changed how Fonda resonated the video, refashioned her into a different kind of star, a relatable one.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

I was in a drugstore buying something, and I was at the counter and I said something to the pharmacist. And somebody three rows back in the line said, oh, my God, it's Jane Fonda. And they knew it because of my voice. They recognized my voice because my workout had been coming into their house. And I realized when you're on television and you're coming into somebody's home, then the relationship between you and the audience changes a lot. It becomes far more intimate when you're doing Jane.

[Willa Paskin]

As people would say, Jane isn't a movie star anymore, let alone Hanoi Jane. She's the woman in your house encouraging you to make it burn. And Jane was soon encouraging people on multiple tapes. Over the next 12 years, she would release over 20 videos and inspire, this is a conservative estimate, 100 other celebrity exercise tapes. This was the most obvious knock on effect of the workout. All of the other celebrities who looked at Fonda's success and thought, I could do that. It begins in 1983.

[Debbie Reynolds]

All right, we have some wonderful music. Now we're going to begin our breathing. Nice stretching, right, girl? Everybody get up. Take your hands below. You're gonna breathe in. You're gonna breathe in.

[Willa Paskin]

That's from the legendary actress, singer and dancer Debbie Reynolds. Exercise tape, Do It Debbie's Way. Reynolds had also founded a fitness studio of her own in Los angeles in the 1970s. But she implies, right at the top, that her video was inspired by Fonda.

[Debbie Reynolds]

But you know what happened to me? I went out and I bought all these other tapes, which are excellent, but I found that I really couldn't keep up with. Well, maybe I didn't want to keep up with them because they're really fast. I like to do everything.

[Willa Paskin]

Do It Debbie's Way was targeted at an older crowd, and it features celebrity appearances by Dionne Warwick and Florence Henderson and one knowingly sloppy backup dancer, the Oscar winning actress Shelley Winters in and I'm Only Doing this for Debbie Sweatshirt, who cracks wise throughout the entire class.

[Debbie Reynolds]

Rub our necks. Reach up there and massage those muscles up.

[Jane Fonda]

Jelly. Rest your mind right now.

[Debbie Reynolds]

Rub your neck out.

[Willa Paskin]

Though it can be at times a little half hearted. Do It Debbie's Way ultimately sold at least 130,000 copies, along with Every Day with Richard Simmons, which also came out in 1983. Also made by Carl Video, it was proof that this exercise video thing could work for people other than Jane Fonda. And then it was off to the races.

[Debbie Reynolds]

We're gonna take you on a trip.

[Jane Fonda]

Down the center of your body.

[Willa Paskin]

That's your spine.

[Debbie Reynolds]

Break down your foundation, your feet. And after every extremity.

[Willa Paskin]

That's from the gymnast Mary Lou Retton's Fun Fit, a workout for kids that was just one of dozens of tapes from the 1980s. Another was NFL player Lyle Elzado's 1984 tape no Sweat, the exercise program for Everyone, which has a lot of crossover with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pumping Iron.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

When you approach weights, you don't approach it with a sensitivity. You approach it with a warlike attitude. And we're gonna do war with the weights. You ready? Begin. 1, 2.

[Willa Paskin]

Marie Osmond, Caitlyn Jenner, Alyssa Milano, Shirley MacLaine with exercise for your Mind, not yout Body and Angela Lansbury all put out videos in the 1980s.

[Jane Fonda]

I think femininity and sexuality go hand in hand. It used to be thought that women lose interest in sex after menopause, but now we know that just isn't true.

[Willa Paskin]

In 1990, former porn actor Tracee Lords does her workout jazz. Warm up to Tracee Lords in rhyming couplets.

[Jane Fonda]

Stretch it hard to Florga's chest. Keep the pace is the test. Push hard, see the ground. Better body, you are bound change.

[Willa Paskin]

By 1992, fitness video sales across America totaled $415 million, and celebrity tapes had started to settle into a more set formula, which strongly resembled Jane Fonda's original workout. Less talking and more straightforward routines. A good example is Cher Fitness, a step routine very much in the no nonsense Fonda mode that features Cher in an indescribable raven black leotard with tutu accents that sold 1.5 million copies to.

[Jane Fonda]

What I'm really doing.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

And in 40 minutes.

[Jane Fonda]

You know, you've burned off a lot of fat, it's over and you've really had a good time. I mean, I must say it's difficult for me, but I never, I never hate it. I always enjoy it.

[Willa Paskin]

But even as Jane and Cher dominated the market, other celebrities were still doing their thing. Like Estelle Getty with her young at heart. Raise your arms up high and say.

[Jane Fonda]

Out loud, I feel lousy. I feel lousy.

[Willa Paskin]

Raquel Welch's A Week with Raquel and it's easy. Every morning when you wake up, just turn on your vcr, make sure that you're on the right day and follow right on. Here's Mark Wahlberg's Marky Mark workout.

[Jane Fonda]

What's up?

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

It's the Monk D Cock D in gym workout.

[Willa Paskin]

We're about to get busy with some fat weights and all that. Also making tapes in the 1990s, Rita Moreno, Sally Struthers, Heather Locklear, Florence Henderson, Latoya Jackson, Regis Philbin, O.J. simpson, Cindy Crawford, Mary Tyler Moore, Dixie Carter, Suzanne Somers, Paula Abdul, Claudia Schiffer, Joan Rivers and Milton Berle, who did a segment in his low impact high comedy workout in drag as you know it. Jane Fonda.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Hi, I'm Jane Fonda. I know just what you're all thinking. She looks much better in person than she does on the screen.

[Willa Paskin]

By the late 90s, things took started to peter out on the celebrity front, ceding ground to trainer led routines like Tae Bow and Buns of Steel, which were also influenced by Fonda. Compared to almost all of these videos, Fonda's were the cream of the crop. Not just because hers were the first and least ridiculous. Because you might have noticed she's a lot more a list than most of these other celebrities. Exercise tape makers tended to be trying to up their profile or hold on to it. Fonda's videos in contrast, were part of a big, lucrative, relatively long running business. A significant enterprise that she'd gotten into at the height of her fame. And that made her distinct from these one off video makers. But not as distinct as when she was just a movie star. Fonda was not without ambivalence about the workout. She writes in her autobiography of the workout. I began to think, hey, wait a minute, what about me as an actor? What about the causes I'm fighting for? It made me uneasy. I didn't want pelvic tilt to define me. But over the course of the 1980s, she becomes more involved in the exercise business anyway. It just interested her. Even as she steps back from films, which increasingly did not. Between 1982 and 1990, she made four movies and 13 workout tapes. In 1987, she separated the workout business from the CED, having made it $17 million. And ironically, it's exactly this year, 1987, when Exercise Jane is fully ascendant and Fonda is widely seen as the least overtly political she's been since the start of her career, that Hanoi Jane comes roaring back into the foreground. It seems to start as Fonda is readying to film Stanley and Iris, which will turn out to be her last movie until 2005 in Waterbury, Connecticut, when it's announced that Fonda will be filming there. A Waterbury resident, World War II veteran and member of the local Veterans of Foreign wars chapter, writes an angry letter to the local paper urging the city not to give comfort and support to Jane Fonda. He also prints up 250 bumper stickers saying, I'm not Fonda, Hanoi Jane. As chronicled in Mary Hirshberger's book, Jane Fonda's War. This letter massively snowballed. It's soon followed by more, first from other local VFW members, not necessarily veterans of Vietnam, and then from ones all over the country. Even as most Waterbury residents defend Fonda, protests begin in which there are calls for Fonda to be executed and that eventually attract the support of the Ku Klux Klan. The ire towards Fonda that had always been in the background, it hadn't been lessening, it had been festering. Starting earlier in the 1980s, the idea that Nixon had first floated that America could only have been defeated from within started to gain traction. Ronald Reagan wins an election running on a platform of restoring America to itself. Movies like Rambo reframe Vietnam veterans as skilled, brilliant fighting machines who could never possibly have invested in a fair fight. And all the while, the realities of the war itself begin to recede from memory. Mary Hershberger again 15 years later.

[Mary Hirshberger]

What people really remembered was the fact that in the mid-1970s they had lost a war to a country that was much smaller, much poorer, barely even had an air force. And they need an explanation for that.

[Willa Paskin]

Jane Fonda, a one time pinup turned outspoken anti war feminist turned exercise entrepreneur, who all the way back in 1972 had been very clear that America had lost this war, becomes one such explanation.

[Jane Fonda]

Until the people in this country understand that it's been an American defeat. Hard as it is for Americans to accept a third world underdeveloped country with no industry, 90% of whose people are peasants has defeated the mightiest imperialist power in the world.

[Willa Paskin]

Though Hanoi Jane had its roots in the 1970s, this is when it really explodes. When the people who agreed with Fonda about the war are thinking about other things and the people who didn't are more aggrieved than ever. Fonda herself experienced this period as different from the one that came before. Telling me was when Hanoi Jane was.

[Jane Fonda (Interview Clips)]

Turned into an art form during the Reagan administration. That was when it really escalated. Ah, they thought, aha. We can scare people away from joining any anti war movement by turning Jane Fonda into a pariah. Well, you don't want to be like Jane Fonda. You don't want to join an anti look what happened to Jane Fonda.

[Willa Paskin]

It's hard not to think that the workout enabled this spin because of course immediately after the war, nothing had happened to Jane Fonda's career. It had rebounded and then some, and it's only later, of her own volition, that she had moved into exercise. In June of 1988, in response to what happened in Waterbury, Fonda did a 2020 interview with Barbara Walters where she said she regretted criticizing the POWs and sitting on the anti aircraft gun and apologized to the veterans that she'd hurt. This isn't a clip from that original interview, but Fonda has since apologized many, many times and this is one of them.

[Jane Fonda]

I will go to my grave regretting the fact that I was photographed sitting.

[Willa Paskin]

On an anti aircraft gun, but it doesn't matter. Instead of clearing the air, the apology just breathes further life into the scandal, which remains at a fever pitch for close to a decade. The VFW passes a resolution asking Congress to try her for treason. Legends about Hanoi Jane, which had spread through the armed forces spread faster still. Stickers of her face show up in army based urinals and stories about how she put personally got POWs killed become military lore, eventually traveling farther and further with the advent of the Internet. No matter how many times the made up stories about Fonda's behavior in Hanoi are debunked, people still believe them. Earlier in the show when I wondered why the workout was so widely embraced when Fonda was still so disliked, I was asking that question through the lens of all of this. The late 1980s and the early 1990s when Fonda was way more controversial than she had been. When the workout actually came out, the success of the workout seemed mysterious to me because I was a kid when all of this was going down and all I knew about Fonda was that she had an exercise record and somehow that some people really didn't like her. As ever, it wasn't everyone. As all this was going on, the workout tapes kept coming, kept selling.

[Jane Fonda]

Ms. Houston, get your elbow.

[Willa Paskin]

They kept coming. When she got divorced from Hayden, when she married Ted Turner, when she started to live a more private life, when she retired from acting in 1990. The last workout tape didn't come until 1994, and like a flashbulb, it left a long afterimage. Even after she stopped releasing tapes, their influence continued to shape the world of fitness and. And, of course, how we see her.

[Jane Fonda]

Do it, babe. Do it, do it, do it.

[Willa Paskin]

While we were working on this piece, a video of Jane Fonda from 1979 went viral on Twitter. We played a bit of it at the top of the show.

[Jane Fonda]

Culturally, psychologically, economically, politically, gays and lesbians are discriminated against.

[Willa Paskin]

They it was really popular. 200,000 likes, 55,000 retweets. And it's one of a number of videos featuring Fonda doing something impressive and political like, say, getting arrested for climate change, that have gone viral in the last few years. The subtext around these tweets, often the explicit text, isn't just admiration, it's surprise. Whoa, check out Jane Fonda. This is also generational. People of my generation and younger having the realization that a woman they thought was the queen of exercise or just on Grace and Frankie has been fighting the good fight since before they were born. I don't want to diminish the Jane Fonda workout, which I only came to admire as a bigger and bigger deal the more I knew about it. It was one of the preeminent lifestyle phenomena of the 1980s and 90s, and it helped normalize strenuous physical, physical exercise for women. And it still works. And people are doing it right now when they can't go to the gym, which is actually how it started, when gyms were much less welcoming to women. But it was only ever a piece of Fonda, and for a while there, its popularity obscured more substantial things about her. In my life so far, which came out in 2005, she wrote, it isn't easy for me to accept the fact that many young people, if they know me at all, know me as the woman in the exercise video that their mother used. Fonda is 83 now. She lived about as full a life as any celebrity as any woman has, and she's still at it. I think it's only in the years since she unretired in 2005 that Exercise Jane has started to take its proper place in the scheme of Jane Fonda, just a part of the 50 years she has spent throwing her herself. Not without missteps, into things that matter. She may do a mean pelvic tilt, but you should see her life. It's better.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Are they using you?

[Jane Fonda]

I hope they use me. What am I here for if not to be used by good people for good things?

[Willa Paskin]

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. If you aren't already a Slate plus member, please subscribe now from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com forward/decoder ring+ to get access. Wherever you listen, Slate+ members get access to our bonus episodes and they get to hear our show and every other Slate podcast without any ads, including the great show Death, Sex and Money. There's an episode from last year I highly recommend that you check out called Love actually, where host Anna Sale speaks with Jane Fonda about her marriage and divorce from Ted Turner. This episode was written by me. It was produced and edited by Benjamin Frisch. We had research assistance from Cleo Levin. Decoder Ring is produced by me, Katie Shepherd, Max Friedman, and Evan Chung. Our supervising producer, Merritt Jacob, is senior Technical director. Thanks to Mark Harris, Jeff Wackey, Carol Burke, Jerry Lembeck, Joe Pickett, Nick Prewer, Kaylee Morgan, Kimberly Christman, Amanda Cormier, Lenny Kasdan, June Thomas, Jared Holt, and Gabriel Roth. There are a number of texts that were essential to reporting this episode, including Jane Fonda's My Life so Far, Mary Hirschberger's Jane Fonda's War, Rick Perlstein's Nixon Land, Carol Burke's Camp All American Hanoi D. Jane and the High and Tight, Jerry Lemb's Hanoi Jane, War, Sex and Fantasies of Betrayal, and J. Michael Rafferty's doctoral thesis, Politicizing Stardom, Jane Fonda, IPC Films and Hollywood, 1977-82. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us@decodering slate.com and you can also call us now at our new Decoder ring phone number that is 341-4746-07281. We'd love to hear any and all of your ideas for the show. We'll see you in two weeks. This episode is brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to get creative with your personal style and find the best arrivals for fall. Transitioning from summer outfits to a fall wardrobe is always a little bit of a hassle, and I find [e-mail] helpful. They make it easy and fun to browse the latest fall fashions and find pieces that fit together and that fit me. They have some really great chunky cardigans, some from Polo by Ralph Lauren, that look extremely comfortable and fashionable, and I can imagine wearing them all around my house and also out on the town, but that's my experience. With Saks.com there's so much more to explore based on your personal style and what you're looking for. So this fall, whether you're trying out the latest fashion trends or curating a closet that stands the test of time, Saks has you covered. If you're looking for shopping to be fun and easy, then head to Saks Fifth Avenue for inspiring ways to elevate your personal style every day.

[Critics/Protesters of Jane Fonda]

Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra Value meal includes a hash brow a small coffee for just $5 only at McDonald's for a limited time.

[Willa Paskin]

Prices and participation may vary.