As a way to step up her commitment to the global fight against climate inaction, Jane Fonda has decided to start getting arrested – on what seems to be weekly basis.
It’s a curious sentiment for her to feel like she should be doing more, considering her activist history eclipses pretty much the entirety of Hollywood’s, but it’s a genuinely heart-warming notion from our pinko grandmother. (Those pics of her picketing with Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein? You really love to see it.) In recent photos, she is seen dressed immaculately in a Chanel coat, smiling while police take her away, raising her closed fists as high as she can, given the restraints binding them together.
The reaction, interestingly, has been mixed. Young people (ie those who haven’t grown up with an especially firm knowledge of now-aged Hollywood divas– I can’t relate) have taken to Twitter to critique the action. It’s performative, they write from the safety of their Brooklyn apartments – it’s problematic, it’s an irresponsible show of privilege as an older rich white woman … as if her privilege, and manoeuvring of it, isn’t the point.
It’s quite the ouroboros – a tweet calling someone else performative can end up being performative in itself, but it’s par for the course with online discourse these days. It’s also a peculiar misreading of the optics behind Jane’s actions. At her age, garnering media attention and using the tools of recognisability is an effective way of connecting to her much older audience. It’s one that isn’t particularly known for positive contributions to environmental sustainability conversations, and one that might be uninterested in hearing from younger activists on the topic. It’s a shame that’s the case, but integrating older figures into our battles is nothing more than a smart tactical move. It’s time to start getting intergenerational instead of fixating solely on a single voice.
Imagine being 81 years old and facing ostracisation and constant threats by multiple US governments and a powerful contingent of rightwingers, only for young leftwing people to call your activism superficial, and you might have some kind of understanding of how bad faith these criticisms sound. There are, of course, hundreds of celebrities who have tapped into the zeitgeist and the metrics of “wokeness” to appeal to new markets without doing anything significant to, say, change that market, or enact any kind of significant difference or shift in consciousness, so the suspicion is perhaps understandable. It’s nonetheless important for us to parse why legitimate actions are scorned, so that we may be more critical of the powerful, and less susceptible to the ever growing manipulations of modern day PR.
by Jonno Revanche, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images
It’s a curious sentiment for her to feel like she should be doing more, considering her activist history eclipses pretty much the entirety of Hollywood’s, but it’s a genuinely heart-warming notion from our pinko grandmother. (Those pics of her picketing with Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein? You really love to see it.) In recent photos, she is seen dressed immaculately in a Chanel coat, smiling while police take her away, raising her closed fists as high as she can, given the restraints binding them together.
The reaction, interestingly, has been mixed. Young people (ie those who haven’t grown up with an especially firm knowledge of now-aged Hollywood divas– I can’t relate) have taken to Twitter to critique the action. It’s performative, they write from the safety of their Brooklyn apartments – it’s problematic, it’s an irresponsible show of privilege as an older rich white woman … as if her privilege, and manoeuvring of it, isn’t the point.It’s quite the ouroboros – a tweet calling someone else performative can end up being performative in itself, but it’s par for the course with online discourse these days. It’s also a peculiar misreading of the optics behind Jane’s actions. At her age, garnering media attention and using the tools of recognisability is an effective way of connecting to her much older audience. It’s one that isn’t particularly known for positive contributions to environmental sustainability conversations, and one that might be uninterested in hearing from younger activists on the topic. It’s a shame that’s the case, but integrating older figures into our battles is nothing more than a smart tactical move. It’s time to start getting intergenerational instead of fixating solely on a single voice.
Imagine being 81 years old and facing ostracisation and constant threats by multiple US governments and a powerful contingent of rightwingers, only for young leftwing people to call your activism superficial, and you might have some kind of understanding of how bad faith these criticisms sound. There are, of course, hundreds of celebrities who have tapped into the zeitgeist and the metrics of “wokeness” to appeal to new markets without doing anything significant to, say, change that market, or enact any kind of significant difference or shift in consciousness, so the suspicion is perhaps understandable. It’s nonetheless important for us to parse why legitimate actions are scorned, so that we may be more critical of the powerful, and less susceptible to the ever growing manipulations of modern day PR.
by Jonno Revanche, The Guardian | Read more:
Image: John Lamparski/Getty Images
