Jane Fonda: Women must fight for film power

Jane Fonda thinks women have to fight hard for “positions of power”.

The legendary actress spoke at the Women at Sundance Brunch on Monday as part of the annual film festival. And the two-time Oscar winner believes despite her own success in the movie business, there is still a real problem with gender bias among the big studios.

“The studios are run by men and they have the bottom line to meet and they give jobs to people like them, it’s a matter of gender, not that we don’t have the experience,” she said. “We have to shame the studios for being so gender-biased, we have to prove we can be commercial. We have to fight real hard to get women in positions of power and remember there are no set rules.”

The 77-year-old went on to use the example of Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar for 2008 war film, The Hurt Locker. Jane acknowledged Kathryn’s success for making “a guy’s film”, while her ex-husband James Cameron “made a feminist film in Avatar”.

However despite these achievements, Jane admitted to the audience she felt it was much easier to make serious dramas in the 1970s in the early part of her career.

“I made movies about things I passionately care about,” she said. “Some of them really hit big, some didn’t.”

The Barbarella star got a laugh from the audience when she referred to the classic 1968 film in which she appeared scantily clad.

“I like being someone who caused a generation of men to have their first erection,” she joked.