On Oct. 1, Jane Fonda helped relaunch the Committee for the First Amendment, standing alongside many members of the entertainment industry in an open letter condemning the federal government for being “engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry.”
As mentioned, this is a relaunching, not a launching. The original Committee for the First Amendment was created in 1947 by a group of Hollywood and Broadway artists, including Fonda’s father, Henry Fonda.
The committee was founded in response to the House Un-American Activities Committee — the legislative body responsible for legitimizing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and subsequently investigating the suspected communists. In particular, the HUAC’s accusations of communist sympathies led to the targeting and blacklisting of several members of Hollywood.
The relaunched Committee for the First Amendment likens the HUAC’s actions to those of the current government. “Those forces have returned,” the open letter reads. “And it is our turn to stand together in defense of our constitutional rights.”
The letter, though relatively brief, shifts greatly in tone. The bulk of the text offers comfort and solidarity to Americans who may be fearful in the face of recent and ongoing politics.
“We understand that this is a frightening and confusing moment for many people. We recognize that we represent just one group of many who are under threat right now. Across classrooms, libraries, factories, companies and workplaces of all kinds, Americans of every walk of life are facing intimidation and censorship too — and we stand with them,” the letter reads.
The language, however, becomes far more aggressive when referring to “those who profit from [the entertainment industry’s] work while threatening the livelihoods of everyday working people, bowing to government censorship, and cowering to brute intimidation.”
To them, the letter’s authors had the following to say: “We see you and history will not forget. This will not be the last you hear from us.”
The committee has already garnered a response from the White House in an official statement from spokesperson Abigail Jackson. The statement ostensibly affirms Fonda’s rights to free speech, while also referring to her as “Hanoi Jane” — the nickname given to her by critics of her anti-Vietnam War activism — and clarifying that “[Fonda] is free to share whatever bad opinions she wants.”
The statement continues to assert that “President [Donald] Trump is a strong supporter of free speech,” and refers to partisan challenges to that fact as “so false, they’re laughable”.
Though the committee has only been active since the beginning of October, Fonda has explained that they are fighting against the clock. “Authoritarians, I’m learning, take about 18 to 22 months to consolidate power,” she explained in an interview with Democracy Now. “[The Trump] administration is moving fast, which means we have to move fast.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, Fonda remains optimistic. She is calling for a mass “nonviolent noncooperation” movement, drawing on the same organized response that targeted ABC and its parent company Disney following the suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. The company reversed the decision a mere six days later, after 1.7 million people cancelled subscriptions to Disney-owned streaming services.
Americans, Fonda believes, can and will mobilize: “That’s what we have to do. And we’re going to do it.”
Moreover, Fonda is far from alone. The letter announcing the committee’s relaunching was signed by a long list of notable actors and filmmakers, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Ayo Edebiri, Pedro Pascal, Billie Eilish, Hannah Einbinder and Fran Drescher, among many others.
