Jane Fonda Relaunches the Committee for the First Amendment with 550+ Signatories (Including Me)
Fonda will talk to me LIVE today about the group, first led by her dad to fight McCarthyism: ‘This is not symbolic. This is a fight’
This morning, Hollywood’s most legendary actress, producer and activist, the Oscar-winning Jane Fonda, announced the re-launch of The Committee for the First Amendment, a group once led by her father, Henry Fonda, among other A-list Golden Age stars, including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The Committee’s reformation was announced with the release of a statement signed by over 550 artists and members of the Hollywood community, a star-studded array of talent and power players — and me.
The Committee for the First Amendment was first formed in the 1940s to fight against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), a Congressional committee that targeted protest and questioned the loyalties of American citizens. HUAC infamously put on trial and sentenced to prison the Hollywood Ten, directors, producers and screenwriters accused of being Communists. The fervor would soon spiral into McCarthyism, named for Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who led a Black List that raged through the entertainment industry, destroying countless careers and lives in the process.
TODAY, Jane Fonda herself will join me for a live conversation on The Rushfield Lunch at 1 p.m. PT / 4 p.m. ET to talk about the reformation of the Committee for the First Amendment, the road that brought her here, what Hollywood’s responsibility is in these times and what we can all do now.
Please join us and bring your questions and comments. Follow this link to add the conversation to your calendar and make sure you’re subscribed to The Ankler to participate and be alerted when the live discussion begins.
Inspired to action by the Trump Administration’s aggressive assault on free speech and civil liberties, Fonda announced the re-creation of the group to address today’s threats.
The list of signatories includes: Jane Fonda, Aaron Sorkin, Adam McKay, Alan Cumming, Alex Gibney, Angelica Huston, Annette Benning, Barbra Streisand, Barry Jenkins, Ben Stiller, Bill Maher, Billie Eilish, Bryan Lourd, Chelsea Handler, Christopher Guest, Damon Lindelof, Davis Guggenheim, Ethan Hawke, Florence Pugh, Fran Drescher, Glenn Close, Gracie Abrams, Hannah Einbinder, Helen Mirren, Issa Roe, Jamie Lee Curtis, J.J. Abrams, John Legend, Judd Apatow, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julianne Moore, Larry David, Lena Dunham, Maha Dakhil, Margaret Cho, Margaret Qualley, Melanie Griffith, Mike Royce, Natalie Portman, Nicolas Cage, Nikki Glaser, Olivia Wilde, Pedro Pascal, Philip Rosenthal, Quinta Brunson, Ramy Youssef, Rob Reiner, Sam Esmail, Sean Penn, Siân Heder, Ted Danson, Tiffany Haddish, Viola Davis, Winona Ryder and Zoey Deutch.
To name a few.
(The statement is also signed, full disclosure, by a certain Ankler columnist whom you are reading right now.)
The statement reads in full:
This Committee was initially created during the McCarthy Era, a dark time when the federal government repressed and persecuted American citizens for their political beliefs. They targeted elected officials, government employees, academics, and artists. They were blacklisted, harassed, silenced, and even imprisoned.
The McCarthy Era ended when Americans from across the political spectrum finally came together and stood up for the principles in the Constitution against the forces of repression.
Those forces have returned. And it is our turn to stand together in defense of our constitutional rights.
The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry.
We refuse to stand by and let that happen. Free speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political beliefs – no matter how liberal or conservative you may be. The ability to criticize, question, protest, and even mock those in power is foundational to what America has always aspired to be.
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.
We know there is power in solidarity and strength in numbers. We will stand together—fiercely united—to defend free speech and expression from this assault. This is not a partisan issue. That is why we urge every American who cares about the First Amendment—the cornerstone of our democracy—and every artist around the globe who looks to the United States as a beacon of freedom to join us.
And to those who profit from our work while threatening the livelihoods of everyday working people, bowing to government censorship, and cowering to brute intimidation: we see you and history will not forget. This will not be the last you hear from us.
The statement and the complete list of signees can be found on the Committee’s site, where interested parties can add their signatures. The group’s Instagram account (@1acommittee) will also offer updates on upcoming news and activities.
The Committee’s official functions are still taking shape. However, a call to action to new members states, “The Committee for the First Amendment is being relaunched as a united front by the entertainment industry against censorship, intimidation, and fear.”
It continues:
We already see examples of artists taking stands of all kinds. We are prepared to deploy the forms of resistance that history has taught us: public defiance, mass mobilization, collective economic pressure, and cultural solidarity.
This is not symbolic. This is a fight, and we are prepared to fight it together.
Official group actions soon to follow, we hope.
For the past nine months, as the authoritarian threat has rapidly grown, Hollywood has seemed shell-shocked and governed by defeatism. After a century of near-constant activism on seemingly every issue to come down the pike, this year, when the core freedoms that underlie this industry have come under threat, Hollywood, for once, seemed to have nothing to say, with no organized group emerging to lead the charge — until now.
The re-launch of the Committee comes on the heels of Disney’s about-face on Jimmy Kimmel in response to a massive, widespread outpouring of disgust at his suspension. The moment represented the first time this year when a mass response had turned the tide in an unfolding encroachment on civil liberties.
Remember to join us today and take part in one of the most important discussions of the moment.
Yeah so Jane Fonda's Women's Media Center hired me to write their annual Oscars report for about ten years - I was good at it. After the story broke about me in the Hollywood Reporter they dropped me. That's how much they or you care about free speech. You don't, actually. You care that Jimmy Kimmel was suspended for two seconds. Free speech has been a problem on the Left for ten years, which is why Hollywood is in the state it's in. It is not free speech you folks are fighting for. I don't even know what it is you are fighting for by now but it is not that.