Controlling the narrative: on Jane Fonda’s Third Act

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article centres on what Fonda herself has called the ‘Third Act’ f her career in her 2006 memoir My Life So Far. After 15 years in retirement, she came back to acting in 2005. I argue that the memoir is a key piece of her makeover, a return to public life and to acting that displays a striking continuity with the key traits that defined her career since the 1960s: sexuality, politics and family; each of which is always engaging with her acting. Each element is given a new twist in her Third Act and the different strategies to achieve such a makeover will be illustrated with examples from three works that were released in the six months between late 2017 and mid-2018, as well as the companion piece to My Life So Far, Susan Lacy’s documentary Jane Fonda in Five Acts, which opened in Cannes in May 2018. Like many roles in her Third Act years, the films and the TV series are full of echoes of her previous career and engage with her persona, sometimes boldly, sometimes movingly. The range of strategies used by Fonda points towards her drive to control the narrative and, ultimately, the meaning of her public persona.