Queen Jane's Failure

By: Chana Jenny Weisberg

Jane Fonda. One of the most famous women alive. A recent biographical New Yorker article described her as “the actress, philanthropist, feminist, political activist, model…blogger, fitness advocate, licensing magnet and memoirist…”

The paradigm of the successful modern woman.

But what made the deepest impression on me in the New Yorker article was the tragic speech Fonda made at the wedding of her son, Troy. Troy, her second child, was born during Fonda’s marriage to politician Tom Hayden (the second of her three failed marriages).

The groom’s father, Hayden, spoke first, and then he turned over the podium to his ex-wife. Here is the New Yorker’s account of that speech:

“Pulling a sheaf of papers from her purse, Fonda looked concerned, tense…She began by apologizing: ‘Unlike Tom, who can speak extemporaneously, I have to write everything down.’ For Troy, she continued, Hayden had been ‘the parent.’ ‘I was usually off making a movie somewhere. Tom was the one who had dinner with Troy every single night…’”

Jane Fonda. The actress, philanthropist, feminist, political activist, model, blogger, fitness advocate, licensing magnet and memoirist.

But in this long list of accomplishments, “mother” was absent during the formative years of her children’s lives.

Which made me remember that some of the people society considers its most successful are actually, in their personal lives, some of its profoundest failures.

And some of people society considers “failures” (for example, the woman at the class reunion who’s embarrassed to confess that she’s “just a mom”) are actually, deep down (and High Above) truly its most successful.

*”Queen Jane, Approximately” by Hilton Als (New Yorker, May 9, 2011)